Sunnyside, the cottage on Peaks Island that once was the summer home of Oscar-winning Hollywood movie director John Ford, is for sale.

The three-bedroom home at 33 Great Pond Road is listed for $349,000, said Alice Bauerle, the Port Island Realty broker who is marketing the property.

“We’ve had a lot of interest,” Bauerle said Thursday. “I think it’s because everyone loves John Ford.”

Ford is best known for directing Westerns that included “Stagecoach,” “The Searchers,” and “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.”

He also directed classics such as “The Grapes of Wrath,” “The Quiet Man” and “How Green Was My Valley,” which won Best Picture in 1947. Ford received four Academy Awards for Best Director from 1935 to 1952. He directed more than 140 films.

He was born John Martin Feeney on Feb. 1, 1894, in Cape Elizabeth and died in 1973 at the age of 79. Ford, who changed his surname when he moved to Hollywood, attended Portland High School, where he played football. He was nicknamed Bull because of the way he would charge the line. A Portland pub and restaurant in the Old Port – Bull Feeney’s – is named after him.

Bauerle said Sunnyside was built in 1902. Ford’s father, John Feeney, bought the house. In 1938, Feeney willed the home to Ford’s sister, Mary McLean.

Bauerle said Ford and his family summered at the house for years. Toni Muro, Sunnyside’s current owner, said she bought the home in 1992.

Though she has enjoyed her time on Peaks Island, Muro, 75, said it is time for her to move to a place where someone else cares for the grounds and handles home maintenance.

“It can be difficult living on an island, especially by yourself,” Muro said Thursday.

Muro said she will always cherish the time she spent at Ford’s summer home.

“I’ve loved my time here,” she said. “I could never have had as good a time as I’ve had here anywhere else.”

A description of the house on Port Island Realty’s website says the home, which sits on a 0.4-acre lot is on the “sunny side of the street.”

“Sunnyside faces south with Great Pond as your front yard. Waterviews of White Head Passage and the open ocean,” the listing says. “A charming home with 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, large kitchen, pantry, dining room with built-in cabinet, living room with gas stove, computer room, enclosed porch, deck and a garage. Play croquet on the lawn or hang out with friends on the deck.”

Annual property taxes total $5,163, according to Port Island Realty.

Dennis Hoey can be contacted at 791-6365 or at:

dhoey@pressherald.com

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