Calais Residential Historic District | Calais, Maine

Entity

Tides Institute & Museum of Art

Name/Title

Calais Residential Historic District | Calais, Maine

Description

The Calais Residential Historic District is an irregular L-shaped area of approximately fifteen (15) acres located along a portion of the south side of Main Street and both sides of CalaisAvenue. It is primarily residential in character, but does contain a former nineteenth century hotel building, one church, and a park. There are twenty-four (20) contributing resources and zero (0) non-contributing properties. The district is comprised of a group of nineteenth century buildings that include well preserved examples of Federal, Greek Revival, and Queen Anne style buildings. With the exception of two brick structures (6, 14), these buildings are of frame construction typically with weather board sheathing. The oldest house in the district is the Federal period Holmes Cottage (11), a one-and-a-half story, five-bay cape featuring a central chimney. A second Federal house (14) was built about 1830 of brick. Its two-story five-bay facade is centered on a recessed entry surmounted by a fanlight. The traditional orientation of the Federal houses with their long symmetrical sides to the street and gables at the sides persisted in several of the Greek Revival houses (1, 2, 13, 16, 17). There was a notable variation, however, in the relocation of the main entry from the facade to one gable end. This "backhall" plan allowed for the arrangement of back-to- back parlors which frequently had long windows on the street elevation. One Greek Revival house (1) utilizes a full two-story pediment supported by Ionic columns. In addition to the "backhall" plan examples, two more modest houses (9, 10) utilize the gable front, side-hall plan which first appears in this period. Unlike the numerous Greek Revival houses, the Italianate style is represented only in the Job Holmes House (12) and in the additions or lone details on several others. The Holmes house is a noteworthy example of the style with its well detailed bracketted cornice and the composition of the entry porch, similar examples of which appear elsewhere in Calais. After the $olmes house, the last major architectural style represented in the district Is the. Queen Anne. Three modest examples (18,19,20) of the form are located at the district's eastern end, their high hip roofs and two-story bay a distinct contrast to the nearby Greek Revival and Federal houses. The physical characteristics of the district vary considerably, particularly betweefc-the area along Calais Avenue and that along Main Street. Calais Avenue is composed of a broad central greensward framed by deciduous trees and flanked by residential streets. It runs perpendicular to Main Street aritf midway rises forty feet in a steep grade. Two of the lots (1,2) aldrigj the avenue feature handsome granite retaining walls on the front and north sides of* the property to support the level plots on which the houses stand. In contrast to Calais Avenue, Main Street is relatively flatwith only as light grade evident in the park. These two areas of the district are also differentiated by the more frequent occurrence of mature leaf-bearing and evergreen trees along Calais Avenue with the widespread use of foundation plantings along Main Street. The rectangular park lot is interspersed with immature maples, relatively recent replacements of the elms which formerly occupied the site. Lot sizes range from the relatively small ones on Main Street between the park and Calais Avenue where the buildings are also quite close to the street (following the pattern set by the Holmes Cottage) to the more expansive sites at the eastern end of the district and the middle of Calais Avenue. Set-backs uniformly increase in the former area, but are more varied in the latter.

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