From collection Place
"During the fall of 1878 and the winter of 1879, the Dorr family was very involved in the building of their country home on a dramatic clifftop site in Bar Harbor. Their expansive property faced northeast to the mainland Gouldsboro Hills, across the long reach of upper Frenchman Bay. They would call their estate "Oldfarm," recalling its heritage as an old farm during the area's agricultural heyday...
"Of the architects who had submitted plans to Charles Dorr while they were abroad, Henry Richards, a son-in-law of Julia Ward Howe, was selected.... Eager to extend his limited success as a Boston architect, Richards began working closely with the Dorr family to execute his design of a large Queen Anne Shingle-style residence. The shingles, hewn from California redwood, harmonized with the warm, reddish-pink, two-foot-thick granite foundation.
"The foundation, one hundred and thirty-two by fifty-two feet, supported a year-round residence of eleven thousand square feet. The first and second floors--of oak, birch, and maple--contained more than a dozed rooms for family and servants, including six bathrooms. The drawing room, den, library, dinning room, and bedrooms were outfitted with new furnishings and and familiar pieces from their Boston residence.... George Dorr's third-floor Sea Room contained, in more than five hundred square feet, a huge fireplace a large window seat, full-length bookshelves, and small swinging windows that opened to the landscape and seascape.... Within ten years the house would be electrified, easing the visual strain of late-night reading; town water and telephone service were added to keep abreast of the times" (Epp, Ronald H. Creating Acadia National Park: The Biography of George Bucknam Dorr. [Bar Harbor, ME, Friends of Acadia] 2016).
The residence and outbuildings were demolished by the National Park Service around 1950, following Dorr's death in 1944. Trails and a small parking area are maintained by the NPS on the shore property.
Related Items
