The home of Thomas Goodall, Sanford’s textile baron, shown here Monday, is back on the market. TAMMY WELLS/Journal Tribune

SANFORD — The home of the industrialist who established Sanford’s position as a hub for textile manufacturing in the 1800s and 1900s is for sale for the second time in five years.

The property known as the Goodall mansion at 938 Main St., built for Thomas Goodall starting in 1868 — a year after he arrived in Sanford — and completed in 1871, is back on the market.

The 11-bedroom, six-bath Colonial Revival home fronting on Main Street and the three-bedroom caretaker’s home which fronts on School Street, is for sale for $649,000, according to the listing by King Real Estate. The property comprises 2.83 acres.

The property was purchased by Windsor Construction LLC, a company headed by Old Orchard Beach developer King Weinstein, in April 2014 from Deutsche Bank. Weinstein is the owner of King Real Estate.

Broker Danielle Lape said there have been a few showings.

“It is such a cool property,” she said.

Advertisement

It sports original woodwork, tin ceilings, and sitting areas overlooking the grounds on both the second and third floors.

The Goodall mansion, for sale in Sanford, sports a number of sunny corners overlooking the grounds. COURTESY PHOTO/King Real Estate

Lape said Windsor Construction LLC has made repairs to the front entryway and has invested in the property’s heating system, among other repairs to the 147-year-old mansion.

Originally built in the Second Empire style with Italianate flourishes, the Goodall mansion where Thomas and Ruth Goodall  raised their family was remodeled by 1909 to reflect the Colonial Revival period, said historian Harland Eastman.

The mansion had been in the hands of Goodall’s descendants until 2000, when Virgil Pitstick, who was married to Thomas Goodall’s great-granddaughter, Ruth Goodall, who died in 1997, completed the process of turning it over to the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The National Trust sold the property to builder Patrick Fagan Jr. in 2001. A number of historic easements remain in place.

A foreclosure judgment against Fagan came in 2009. The property was sold at auction, with Deutsche Bank as the sole bidder, in January 2013, for about $280,000. A local group called the Goodall Mansion Society formed, but their effort to purchase the property was rejected by Deutche Bank.

The bank sold the property to Windsor Construction LLC in late April 2014.

Advertisement

In 1871, when the Goodall family first moved in, the property sported a picket fence along Main Street. A photo taken that year shows School Street, which is at the rear of the property, with no trees and no other houses. By 1877, a few houses could be seen on School Street. Photographs reveal that at one time, an immense glass greenhouse sat adjacent to the home, which stretched almost to Elm Street. By 1895, the stables had been doubled in size — the stables were later removed.

The caretaker’s cottage was built in 1930. While the cottage is rented, the mansion itself has been uninhabited for some time, though a group of actors hired for productions at the Hackmatack Playhouse in Berwick lived there for six weeks this summer.

“I hope it goes to someone who retains historical character of the property,” said Eastman, noting the property remains under the terms of the National Trust easements.

Eastman said he has admired the property since he was a child.

“Mr. Weinstein seems to be putting it back together again, which is good,” said Eastman of the renovations that had been undertaken.

Numerous attempts to reach Weinstein for comment were unsuccessful.

The property is assessed by the city of Sanford at $520,000.

— Senior Staff Writer Tammy Wells can be contacted at 780-9016 or twells@journaltribune.com.

Comments are not available on this story.

filed under: