Dick Dyke, a prominent local businessman, is selling his expansive home in the center of Naples. The 8,000-square-foot house on Route 302, former site of the Charlie’s on the Causeway restaurant, is listed for $1.65 million.

Dyke is the former owner of Charlie’s on the Causeway, along with nearby Naples Golf & Country Club and Windham Weaponry, located in Windham. In 2008, when he closed Charlie’s, Dyke converted the former eatery into a home. Now, he says the house is too big for his needs, so Dyke’s moving to a new home he built just down the street.

His new place is 4,700 square feet with lake views and “a large field for landing the helicopter,” Dyke said. He said the additional acreage will also “give the dogs more room.”

The 12-room home is set between Long Lake and Brandy Pond, right next to the redesigned causeway bridge. It has 430 feet of waterfront property and a dock on Brandy Pond.

According to the listing, additional features include a sunroom, theater room, in-law apartment and an in-ground pool. The taxes were $18,118 for 2015.

The site was constructed in 1935 and had a long history as a restaurant. Christi Mitchell, assistant director at the Maine Historic Preservation Commission, told the Lakes Region Weekly that the building originally opened as a Howard Johnson.

A vintage postcard shows the causeway building with “Howard Johnson’s Naples Maine” scrawled in the left corner. The restaurant was among the once widespread chain’s first to open in Maine.

Dyke, who used to live in Windham, has been a notable figure in the Lakes Region for a number of years. The Lakes Region Weekly interviewed him in 2011, shortly after he announced the opening of Windham Weaponry, a rifle manufacturing company in Windham Business Park.

Dyke said he has “turned down a couple offers” on the causeway home. For now, he is not selling through a broker and plans to sell it himself. Since Dyke winters away from Maine, one of his employees will give tours of the house for him.

Nancy Hanson, a broker and owner of Lakes Region Properties in Naples, is familiar with the property, and said it has a “comfortable, warm, lakefront cottage atmosphere.”

Dyke said Windham Weaponry and his golf course in Naples – just two of many businesses he owns – are faring well. Dyke will continue to return to Maine, which he considers home, for the warmer months.

“We are particularly committed to Maine,” Dyke said of his investment group, which focuses on revitalizing failing businesses in the state, or buying companies and moving them to Maine. His commitment is to giving “more people a good quality of jobs,” with a level of salaries and benefits that “not many companies offer.”

Dyke said if he has not sold the house by spring, he plans to re-list with a Lakes Region broker.

Dick Dyke in 2011, outside his Naples home he’s trying to sell. Dick Dyke is selling his Route 302 home in Naples himself. He is asking $1.65 million.A 1940s photograph shows Dick Dyke’s former home as a Howard Johnson. Dyke converted the restaurant, then known as Charlie’s on the Causeway, to a home in 2008. 

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