Name/Title
Percy Lord House | 1 Swan Street, Calais, Maine | Calais Residential Historic DistrictDescription
Built:c. 1900
Address:
1 Swan Street
Calais, Maine
National Register
HISTORIC DISTRICT
National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet
CALAIS RESIDENTIAL HISTORIC DISTRICT
Section number 7, Page 14:
20. Percy Lord House, c. 1900 - C 1 Swan Street
An asymmetrically massed Queen Anne style building which exhibits a number of noteworthy features, this two-and-a-half-story frame house has a large entrance porch on its front (east) elevation and a pair of expansive bay windows on the north (Main street) elevation. The three-bay facade is dominated by the porch and projecting two-story bay which forms a portion of the vestibule and is surmounted by a large, ornately decorated gabled dormer. Paired columns resting on tall plinths support the porch roof which shelters the entrance and its large stained glass side windows. A pair of double-hung windows occupies the second story and a single one is located in the dormer. The outer bays of the facade contain long double-hung windows on the first story with smaller ones above. Rivaling the principal elevation is the north side facing Main street. Its wall surface is articulated by a broad threebay projection featuring large, curved corner windows and wider central picture window units. This feature is capped by a high hipped roof that meets the main side gable and which has a gabled dormer on the north slope. A second full height bay with large windows occupies the balance of the elevation. On the first story of the west gable end is yet another bay window. A two-story ell proj ects to the rear. the entire building is sheathed in weatherboards.
Tradition maintains that some part of this house was standing on this site in the mid-nineteenth century. From the west side one can imagine that the form visible here may be a trace of the earlier structure. If this is the case, then the house was subjected to a radical turn-of-the-century remodeling which largely transformed it. This may have been carried out by Percy Lord, the owner of a drug store. Members of the Lord family owned the house as late as 1935.