Scarborough’s Prouts Neck has been a premier summer destination since the turn of the century and at one point had eight hotels and nearly 50 cottages on the peninsula.

Today just one hotel remains and the remainder of the area is closed to the public by gates. But on Saturday morning a group of about 20 people had the chance to walk around the area with a guided tour organized by Portland Landmarks, the only tour the organization conducts in Scarborough.

The tour is popular and despite the poor weather on Saturday the tour’s limited space was full.

Historian Laura Sprague, who conducted an architectural review of Prouts Neck for the Maine Historical Preservation Association in the 1980s, guided the tour. Her experience with the area has given her an excellent insight to the many historical homes circling the ocean in what has today become an exclusive resort area.

The highlight of the tour for many participants was a tour through Winslow Homer’s studio and home, which today is a National Historic Landmark.

The home was once a carriage house attached to Homer’s father and brother’s house, called the Ark, about 100 feet away on Checkly Point. In 1883 the building was moved and renovated by John Calvin Stevens into a studio with upstairs living quarters.

The tour was perhaps the last one ever conducted by Homer’s great-grandnephew Charles Willauer, who has agreed to sell the studio to the Portland Museum of Art at the end of the year.

Inside the small studio and home, the walls are covered with reproductions of Homer’s work as well as many items owned by him and used in his paintings.

Willauer gave a detailed discussion on his famous relative and pointed out many curiosities around the home. For example hanging up on one studio wall is a sign reading “snakes, snakes and mice” which may have been placed outside the door to stop people from bothering Homer while painting. Inside the house there are several notes written on the walls by Homer.

Upstairs there are several small bedrooms and a porch that overlooks the ocean. Homer would often paint here and would on occasion hang his paintings off the porch and look at them from the ground to gain perspective.

People also were given the opportunity to walk through the back yard and onto the rocks that served for many of setting for Homer’s paintings.

The tour was titled “Architecture of Prouts Neck” and featured many of the early 19th century cottages lining the ocean. Several of these buildings were built by noted Portland architect John Calvin Stevens, who built homes on the 250-acre peninsula from about the 1880s to the 1930s.

The tour encompassed the entire loop road running through the area with stops at several of the homes and pointing out the details of the structures ranging from bungalows to shingle and half timber design.

The early history of the area was not quite as elite as it is today. Prouts Neck was once a farming area with farmers using the nearby water access to the marshes for hay.

The Libby family subdivided Prouts Neck in 1878 and soon hotels and boarding houses were built along the shores. As the area became a popular summer destination.

By the 1880s Arthur Homer, Winslow’s father, purchased a significant portion of the land on Prouts Neck, including a home on the southern tip.

The Homer family built several houses in the area that were designed by John Calvin Stevens as speculative property. Many of the Homers’ former homes remain today, including a home owned by Winslow Homer called Kettle Cove, which Homer paid for with a painting.

Homer did not live in the home, preferring to remain at his cottage and rented it out most of the time.

It also was the Homer family that ultimately agreed to deed the interior land of Prouts Neck to the Prouts Neck Association for preservation.

A back view of Winslow HomerWinslow Homer paid for this home, called Kettle Cove, with a painting.