The Harris House restoration in Westbrook’s Cumberland Mills Historic District is on course for completion by March with a grand opening planned for June.
Curator Deborah Shangraw said Westbrook Historical Society is transforming the 196-year-old house, a former law office, into a museum, student educational site and special events center. Tours will be offered.
Shangraw plans to furnish the old Cape-style house with antiques and have gifts available to visitors. “We’re going to have a little Nathan Harris House shop,” she said.
Nathan Harris, a well-to-do merchant, built the house in 1828; it was placed in the U.S. Department of the Interior’s National Register of Historic Places in 1993. Harris was born in Gorham in 1800 and is buried in the old Saccarappa Cemetery off Church Street in Westbrook.
Pamela Pallas of Windham, widow of attorney Ray Pallas, donated the property to Westbrook Historical Society last year and a desk that belonged to Judge William Berman, who decades ago had a law office in downtown Westbrook, came with it.
The restoration is generating attention even outside of Maine. A New Hampshire man notified the historical society that he intends to donate an extensive pewter collection.
“I have met with Deb Shangraw and Mike Sanphy, president of Westbrook Historical Society, and promised at time of death or perhaps before, to gift to the society approximately 100 pieces of Maine pewter,” David Bischoff said in an email to the American Journal this week.
Bischoff said the collection includes whale oil lamps, candlesticks, mugs, pitchers, tea and coffee pots, a chalice, sugar bowl, tablespoon and trivets. The pewter items were created in Westbrook by Rufus Dunham, Allen Porter and Freeman Porter.
Shangraw said much of Bischoff’s collection will be displayed in Harris House and the rest housed at the historical society’s museum in the Westbrook Community Center.
Restoration includes several Harris House wall murals painted in oil, believed to have been produced by Portland artists William Pryor and Sturtevant Hamblen. The parlor mural, as story has it, depicts the 227-year-old USS Constitution, Old Ironsides, that is afloat in Boston. Shangraw hopes a Navy representative will visit Westbrook to confirm whether the mural is a rendering of the ship.
A $100,000 grant from the Cornelia Warren Community Association has enabled the society to hire contractors. Much of the easterly exterior of the house has been replaced because of decay, and roofing repairs were completed. Many of the floors are original and will be stripped to their original appearance.
Interior painting by Warren Mathison of Portland using early American colors is well underway and CertaPro Painters of Westbrook will coat the exterior beige with maroon trim.
Replacement lighting fixtures will be period style. The existing bathroom and kitchen will be updated for those attending events at the landmark.
Shangraw said a deck will be added to the exterior for special occasions in which tea will be served. Chris Wilson of Westbrook has volunteered to take down trees touching the house, and a boundary fence will also be removed but replaced for deck privacy.
Additional funds are needed to complete the restoration. She said the historical society has been approved for $15,000 in grant funds from the city of Westbrook’s Façade Program. “This will not cover 100% of the renovations,” she said.
The Nathan Harris House has a Facebook page and has a mailbox at 425 Main St., Westbrook. The Westbrook Historical Society can be reached at 854-5558.
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