June, 1907 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



233 



The Longfellow Mansion at Portland, Maine 



By Mary Caroline Crawford 



NE of the most interesting examples in New 

 England of the old Colonial style of archi- 

 tecture is that supplied by the Longfellow 

 mansion at Portland, Me. It is for this 

 reason, scarcely less than because the house 

 is associated with the boyhood days of 

 America's best beloved poet, that six thou- 

 sand visitors have in a single summer made a pilgrimage to 

 the place ; on the whole a line record and brilliant testimony 

 to the poet's popularity. 



the austere White Mountains standing grandly out against 

 the sky at the western horizon. 



In its original form the house was of two stories with a 

 pitch roof. Possibly it was then more picturesque than 

 now, but in 18 15 a third story was added for the sake of 

 extra room. A slight difference in the color of the bricks 

 outlines, even to-day, the line of this "improvement." In- 

 side, fortunately, the original appearance of the rooms has 

 been carefully preserved. All the windows have fine paneled 

 wooden shutters, and some of those at the back of the house 



Copyriglit, 1902, by Lanison Studio 



The Old Wadsworth- Longfellow House 



For our present purpose, however, the house is the thing. 

 — that house whose atmosphere of old-time hospitalitY is 

 felt by every person who sets foot inside the front door and 

 faces the broad stairway of the deep hall. This hall runs 

 through the center of the builtling anil, in the old days, com- 

 manded at the lower end a delightful garden. 1 hough it is 

 now in the heart of a busy city the house when built was on 

 the outskirts of the town. All about then were rolling green 

 fields, with the ocean dimly discernible in one direction and 



even retain the old casements with their many panes of glass 

 Fhe doors, too, keep the "box latches" of yore and in all 

 the rooms on the ground floor there are very wide window- 

 seats — thanks to the exceeding thickness of the original walls. 



This last named item in the house's construction occa- 

 sioned considerable vexation to General Peleg Wadsworth 

 when he was building his mansion away back in 1785. Port- 

 land had never before erected a brick house and no bricks 

 suitable for the purpose were to be had nearer than Philadel- 



