Prior to the Gilded Age, Mount Desert Island consisted mainly of quiet fishing villages and farmland. The arrival of “Rusticators,” affluent families making their way to Maine to escape city life for the summer, opened the floodgates, introducing the area to wealthy industrialists such as the Rockefellers, Vanderbilts and Astors. By the late 1870s, many of these families began building “cottages” along the shorelines in Bar Harbor, Seal Harbor, and Northeast Harbor. Some of the most notable architects of the late 19 century and early 20 century had a hand in shaping the design of the most glamorous homes in the area. th th Architecturally Significant Rental Properties Grand Designs
Boston-based William Ralph Emerson was best known for his work with Frederick Law Olmsted on the creation of the National Zoo campus in Washington, DC. along with his Shingle style of houses and inns, many of them in Bar Harbor. In the Shingle style, English influence was combined with a renewed interest in Colonial American architecture which followed the 1876 celebration of America’s Centennial. To attain a weathered look on a new building, cedar shakes were dipped in buttermilk, dried, and
Redwood
7 BEDROOMS
3.5 BATHROOMS
12 MAX GUEST
installed, adding a recognizable gray tinge to the shingling. On Mount Desert Island, you can find Emerson’s work at Saint Jude's Episcopal Church (1887) in Seal Harbor, The Reading Room at the Bar Harbor Inn (1890), and Redwood cottage (1879) in Bar Harbor, among others. Redwood, built for Boston businessman C.J. Morrill, was the first Shingle style house built in Bar Harbor and one of the oldest of the style in the nation. This stately home, which overlooks Frenchman Bay and the Porcupine Islands, can be seen from Bar Harbor’s Shore Path. Philadelphia architect Frank Miles Day was well known for designing buildings on university campuses in the early 1900s. Day designed the Free Museum of Science and Art at the University of Pennsylvania in 1896 and followed that up with projects at colleges and universities around the country including Cornell University, Johns Hopkins University, New York University, Pennsylvania State University, Princeton University, University of Colorado, University of Delaware, Wellesley College, and Yale University. His work on the different campuses did not favor any single architectural style but included examples of Gothic Revival, Georgian Revival, and Collegiate Gothic, among others.
24 | KNOWLESLETTER SUMMER 2026
Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online