Last Saturday, I went on a York, Maine, Master Gardener sponsored garden tour.
When we parked in Kittery Point, 
we needed to go left to the house on the tour, but one lady thought it was the Lady Pepperell house across the street.
But there was no flag, no table, no docent – it was screaming private residence. I couldn’t deflect them from walking down the driveway even when I stayed at the entrance.
A car pulls up next to me, the window goes down, and this gentleman says ‘can I help you.’ Well…my friends thought this was the house on the garden tour. He smiles nicely and says ‘uh, no, this is my house, and it isn’t on the tour.’
He glances at my Master Gardener name tag and asks if we are all Master Gardeners, and I say, ‘yes.’ Then he invites us in to see the gardens and talk with him and his partner because they would like to redo the gardens to match the 1760 period of the house.
While my two companions are waxing poetic about plantings, I’m trying to capture a photo of the front and side doors without being too obvious.
The owners are a lawyer and an antiques dealer, they live in Boston, and this is their summer weekend home.
This mansion is a summer weekend home – really? Wow!
If the front and the side door leading to the porch aren’t beautiful enough, how about the carriage house doors?
Next year, behind the carriage house they are hoping to build a two-story glass conservatory where they can entertain. 🙂
This year their big project was to redo the stone wall surrounding their entire back yard. Is this gorgeous or what? Look at the detail work.
I was so far out of my comfort zone, it was funny. I guess this is how the 1% lives, and I’m definitely part of the 99% who admire how the 1% lives. 🙂
Linked to Norm Frampton’s Thursday Doors – July 30, 2015.
What a lovely home! I wouldn’t just save it for weekends, I’d do full time there!
Love, love the wall. I bet it is a dry stack also (no mortar). It’s like my rock stacks, just more formal.
Antiques is a great biz. I used to work for a guy that sold and had a shop. We would also go strip demoed houses for anything not nailed down, ok, we did take things nailed down also! Amazing what a house renovater will pay for used, 7 coats of paint on old oak trim. Mantles bring in huge cash also. Crazy amount of money for old, used things!
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There are several salvage places up here that we’ve visited and just as you say it is amazing what people will pay for anything pulled out of an old house. Then, of course, there is the whole business of taking houses back to their original time frame, and they are looking for replacement pieces. And, yes, I’d live there and never move.
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Wow! I’m looking at some of the details in your pix. That porch, look at the shine and reflection. And the stone steps with smaller stone set just so between each one. The rock wall is a work of art. And I got a history lesson about Lady Pepperell. You’ve outdone yourself Judy!
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Glad you liked it. I felt like I’d just been transported into the land of the rich and wealthy, and I was. 🙂 Everything about it was gorgeous even those hydrangea covering the front of the porch which was one topic – how to propagate and put some more around the corner. LOL But that stone wall stopped me in my tracks with all the tiny detail included. I’ve seen my share of stone walls, but this was the absolute best craftsmanship I’d ever seen. 🙂
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The chipmunks will love that stone wall!
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Fascinating and oh so tolerant of uninvited visitors! Thanks for the link back to Lad Pepperell and the actual history of the home. Funny how it was left to the historical society, but they then sold it. I can’t imagine what it must cost to maintain this beauty. I look at the paint and think a proper painter would want to do a whole lot of paint scraping before he added just 1 more coat. I love that who ever created the screen doors did so to “match” each other, but also to match the doors they are covering. They are very similar, but not exact matches of each other. The doorway under the porch is quite narrow in comparison to the grand entry. I did find the dolphin intertwined. I suppose those 1% add quite a bit to the tax base of the village you were visiting on your tour.
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You have the most fun on your Master Gardening adventures! What a beautiful home!
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Holy cow! So beautiful. I could never leave this place. Good grief! What does their Boston residence look like?! Like you, I admire these people who live such priviledged lives….but I’m afraid my admiration has a tinge of envy in it!!
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Well…if we are all honest, there is that. LOL 🙂
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Hard to imagine how that 1% lives! I’d like to take care of that house while they’re in their main residence! Great find Judy 🙂
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Now there’s a plan – some of the 99% could take care of it from Mon-Fri. LOL
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Just for weekends. Oh MY!!! What a gorgeous place, walls and doors and all. You all really lucked out that he pulled up at the right time and you were able to see more! Now I’m off to visit that link…
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I was having quite an experience visiting these tour gardens and this just took me over my sensory limit for the day. 🙂
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What a place! I can’t imagine the amount of money and effort it must take for the upkeep on a house like that. Great find Judy and you really lucked out with the private tour.
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What an experience! You usually don’t get beyond a magazine picture in a home like that! With the 1760 date of establishment, I can’t help but wonder who might have lived there originally, and if they themselves weren’t “somebody,” then they likely knew “somebody!” What a find for your collection of doors!
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You always manage to find unique doors (with their supporting structures) to feature. Lovely.
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Holy moly!! How gracious of the hoi polloi to let you enter their workd for a brief moment 😀. In all seriousness he sounds very gracious and the upkeep on the property is stunning. You’ll have to stumble up the drive again when the conservatory is complete. I do love the homeowners who make historic authenticity a priority, and restoring the gardens is always an interesting part of it.
Something tells me these two are good employers of a plentiful number of the 1%, who are treated well and make a decent living. I’ve got no problem with that!
Oh, and it’s the porches that alws hook me. Someone else can have the house; I want to ‘summer’ on the porch 😀
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That porch was like out of Southern Living with all those mop head hydrangeas. Gorgeous. Summer on the porch would be a wonderful thing.
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Very beautiful doors Judy. I’m glad you captured them. Were you guys able to offer any advice on the gardens? What a project. At least they are mindful of the history. It’s scary when such stately places fall into the hands of people who don’t care.
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One of the ladies worked at a nursery and has had her own gardening business so she hooked them up with a landscaper who does period landscaping. Then we gave them some help on propagating the mop head hydrangea, moving the lace caps to another area, and how to maintain what they have until they make large scale changes. They like to get their hands a little dirty but were really looking to hire several people to do it for them. It certainly wasn’t my normal conversation with a home gardener. 🙂
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I can imagine. Still it seems like a fair trade for an impromptu tour.
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A lovely place. Glad you ended up at the ‘wrong’ home!
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Beautiful! Thank you for sharing all the doors and the stone wall! Lovely!
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Wow, what a piece of real estate. Great serendipity meeting the owner. And that wall is so beautiful. They say money doesn’t buy happiness, but it sure does grease the wheels! 😉
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LOL I could be pretty happy sitting on that porch looking at that wall and a short walk from the water. 🙂
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Me, too. I’d love to give it a try! 😉
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Those doors are fab, but I’m drooling over the dry stone wall. A work of art, I love it/ The house isn’t too bad either. 😉 for a holiday home. lol.
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Nice little weekend getaway. Not quite as spiffy as the “cottages” at Newport, but good enough. I’ll take it!
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I want a summer home like that! Or even a winter home. That photo of the carriage house has to be my favorite. So glad he was so cordial and invited all of you in.
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Such a beautiful building
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I don’t think it is often that the Society for The Preservation of New England Antiquities (SPNEA) sells one of their homes but it sounds like it has been passed on to two people who will properly care for it…I can’t imagine the cost of maintaining it. Your timing was wonderful and how gracious that the owner shared a little of this beautiful historic home. Thank you for in turn sharing your photos with us. 🙂
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