The Nathan Harris House is an historic house at 425 Main Street in
Westbrook, Maine
Westbrook is a city in Cumberland County, Maine, United States and a suburb of Portland, Maine, Portland. The population was 20,400 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the fastest-growing city in Maine between 2010 and 2020. ...
. Built about 1830, it is a well-preserved example of Federal period architecture, most notable for the murals painted on some of its walls in the 1830s. It was listed on the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...
in 1993.
The house is now used as a professional office.
Description and history
The Harris House is located in a commercial area east of downtown Westbrook, in a large island of buildings surrounded by Cumberland Street, Main Street, and Harnois Avenue. The house is located near the eastern end of this island, next to the late 19th-century
Warren Block. The house is a -story wood-frame structure, with a five-bay front section and a cross-gabled ell extending to the rear. The front is symmetrical, with the center entrance adorned by sidelight windows and pilasters, with a semi-oval fan above. The interior retains Federal period woodwork in the parlor spaces that is of unusually high quality for what was at the time a comparatively modest setting. The main hall and right-side parlor both have oil-painted murals on the walls. Comparative analysis of these murals with similar works of known attribution suggests they were the work of either Sturtevant J. Hamblen or William Matthew Prior, both of whom produced works in the
Portland
Portland most commonly refers to:
*Portland, Oregon, the most populous city in the U.S. state of Oregon
*Portland, Maine, the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maine
*Isle of Portland, a tied island in the English Channel
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area in the 1830s.
The house was built c. 1828–30, and is a rare surviving example of a modest merchant's home of the period, a type of house that would have been quite common at the time. In the 20th century the building was repurposed as a law office, given the increasingly commercial surroundings. The murals were undergoing restorative work at the time the building was listed on the National Register in 1993.
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See also
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References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Harris, Nathan
Buildings and structures in Westbrook, Maine
Federal architecture in Maine
Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Maine
Houses in Cumberland County, Maine
National Register of Historic Places in Cumberland County, Maine