NORTH YARMOUTH – Visit Toddy Brook Farm, and you will probably leave only with the greatest reluctance, taking with you a catalog of vivid mental images of a home that epitomizes understated elegance, and a keen sense that the transcendent beauty of the property can be experienced and fully appreciated only if you live here through many seasons.

You may also come away with a few apples and pears from the 40-tree, multiple-variety heirloom orchard, which from its high ground overlooks the rolling hillocks, meadow and woods to the rear of the 14.79-acre property, and across lawn and gardens past the writer’s studio, to the classic, expanded Cape and the magnificent, 40-foot-by-80-foot, three-story barn.

Built in 1860 by Charles S. Sweetser, who inherited the land from his grandfather and served with the 25th Maine in the Civil War, the property in recent years has undergone a thorough restoration, from the barn’s granite foundation and cupola to the step-in glass shower enclosure of the primary bedroom’s bath.

In keeping with 19th-century practicality, almost all materials have been harvested on the farm. The cedar fence posts are from trees that towered in the front yard; the gorgeous wide-pine boards forming the great room’s wainscoting were hauled from the woods out back.

The great room, once a shed connecting to the barn, has a monumental fireplace built from fieldstone granite, and old-growth pine flooring whose patina is partly due to coloring by coffee grounds, and partly to being left outside for two years for proper “weatherization,” a technique that gives new meaning to the familiar phrase “bringing the outdoors in.”

Here there is great New England rustic charm, but also quiet sophistication. The 30-foot living room’s trio of French doors/windows, opening to the back lawn, convey a European sensibility. The kitchen’s Wolf gas range has a French grill allowing one to saute several sauces at different temperatures simultaneously.

Beneath the coffered ceiling is a pendant light fixture from Greece. Custom dining-room chairs are from Italy; rugs, from all around the world. (Please inquire about availability of furnishings – and note that two antique carriages and a cider press will convey.)

The home at 74 Sweetser Road, North Yarmouth, is listed for sale at $1.25 million by Gail Landry of Town & Shore Associates in Portland, and is being shown by appointment.

For more information or to arrange a private viewing, please contact Gail at 523-8115, 650-8893, or at glandry@townandshore.com.

Produced by the Marketing Department of the Maine Sunday Telegram, the Home of the Week is provided at no cost.

Send HOW suggestions to jrolfe@pressherald.com.

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