Maine is full of old houses. Most of them are inhabited by crazy people who love to live in historic places. Some are abandoned...and when ever I drive by an old house I wonder who lives there and what is on the inside.
Luckily for me, my Mom has a friend who owns an old empty house near her home in Wilsons Mills. So on Monday we headed up there to explore (with the owners permission of course). My Mom checks in on the house every once in a while. The owner lives down in Massachusetts and can't get up as often as she needs to check up on the place. The house was owned by her Maiden Aunts who lived in Philadelphia and summered in Maine. When the Aunts passed away they left their summer cottage in the exact condition it had been in their living and vacationing years. The house passed to their younger brother who was the current owner's father. He moved up to the summer house a few years ago and just lived in it in its old/original condition. He carefully moved his diseased sister's stuff to closets and lived in a couple of rooms with what was left. He was sick and passed away in the house, after his daughter came up to care for him in his dying months. And now the current owner, Caroline, is trying to weed through a lifetime of summer vacation home things and get the house sold. She has pulled out what she wants and the rest will be sold at a yard sale or estate sale.
We stopped at camp to check in on the place before going up to the old house. I haven't been up to camp in ages! I probably wont go up again. The property was sold and just a few of my mother's siblings went in on buying the camp. It wasn't practical for any of my Mom's kids to go in on it. We all live too far away. Anyway, we can visit...some day...maybe?
Now this creepy, amazing, old house!
It is like a deteriorating time capsule. There is this large room over the garage called the "drying room" where clothes lines are strung from wall to wall so you can hang laundry to dry when it is raining. There are old Adirondack chairs matching the green shutters that would be placed on the porch in summer. There were flower arranging vases, frogs and floral wire, one of the aunts must have had an eye for flowers. It was awesome. We found old news papers and letters dating back to the 50's and 60"s.
The interior rooms were in bad shape, it was awesome. I wouldn't have gone inside for a million dollars if it was dark, but in the light of day...and with my Mother...it was so cool. The history and decor, the architecture, wallpaper, dishes and furniture...it was wonderful.
Don't you wish you could buy it and fix it up? It would be such a lovely summer cottage! Heck, I'd raise my kids there year round if I didn't have to shovel snow or swat blood sucking flies away.
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