In the October issue of Portland Magazine, editor Colin Sargent chose LandVest real estate listing Garrison Field, a Maine historic oceanfront estate in Cape Elizabeth, as his cover story.  Colin toured the property with listing broker William Davisson and later confessed that Garrison Field was among his all-time favorite properties.  “We are in the business of marketing extraordinary properties in the most desirable locations,” said William Davisson, and Garrison Field defines extraordinary among the historic Greater Portland area properties.  Colin walks his readers through the remarkable details that make this property one of Maine’s best.

Relax on this poolside terrace and soak in the country lifestyle!

Enjoy the breathtaking brick-walled gardens with views to the sea

Click here to see property details for Garrison Field.

For more information on Maine Real Estate for sale in Portland, Maine and surrounding area contact William Davisson at wdavisson@landvest.com or click for William Davisson’s contact information.

Sandy Hollow - 6.48 acre waterfront compound on North Shore's Gold Coast

Elegant restored home on 2.4 acres has dramatic water views and access to beach and dock

Magnificent Victorian shingle-style home designed by Peabody and Stearns on 1.46 acres with access to a private sandy beach and association dock

For more information about the above properties, contact Lanse Robb (lrobb@landvest.com) at LandVest in Boston, MA.

Click here to view more North Shore Real Estate for Sale

In its 122 year history, it was a much loved home as well as a welcoming bed and breakfast. Its fairy-tale feel made summer holidays, birthday celebrations and seaside weddings into magical memories.  It’s said that Paul Newman, Christie Brinkley and Billy Joel were but a few of its celebrity guests and it was recently the subject of Debra Spark’s article, “A Fairy-Tale Estate” in the September issue of Maine Home and Design.

Click here for more information on this elegant country estate which has only improved with age or contact Story Litchfield of LandVest – Northeast Harbor, Maine (slitchfield@landvest.com).

122 year old cottage on 1.5 acres in Bar Harbor, ME has been completely restored and renovated.

“It has a private causeway leading up to the house.  There really are no neighbors at all….”  Click here to read the full article.  Please note the following correction;  the article erroneously attributed the sale of the $10M property on the South Shore to another brokerage firm when in fact that sale was a LandVest sale.

Contact Terry Boyle at  LandVest in Boston, MA for more information about real estate for sale in Cohasset or on the South Shore, or if you are considering listing your home for sale.  Tboyle@landvest.com

This waterfront estate is situated on a forty foot high granite outcropping with expansive views of Little Harbor in Cohasset.

Red Oaks is a magnificent private estate on 7.9 acres.

This magnificent harbor front listing represents one of the more important properties to be offered in recent times.

This historic Martha’s Vineyard property was owned by the Vose family for more than 100 years and is being listed for $17.5M.  It is located at 41 Dunham Road in the exclusive Tower Hill neighborhood and boasts what is arguably the finest view in the harbor.  It has 4,300 square feet of living space, seven bedrooms, five baths and includes a main house on a high bluff overlooking a sandy beach with a private deep-water pier as well as a separate two-story guesthouse.

Click here for more information on this Dunham Road estate or contact Gerret Conover or Thomas LeClair

For more information on Martha’s Vineyard properties for Sale visit the LandVest Martha’s Vineyard website.

www.mvlandvest.com

Terry Sortwell is a principal and regional manager at LandVest’s Camden office. The firm deals in high-end properties, generally more than $1 million. He suggested that the current market conditions have shown, once again, that real estate is not a liquid investment.

“If there’s not a lot of demand for the property you own, you can reduce the price way down below what one would think it’s worth and still not sell it,” said Sortwell. “You can’t make a market for it — that’s part of the frustration many sellers are going through.”

The market he deals in got very quiet about three years ago, reviving a bit last year, said Sortwell.

“Basically, buyers have been …”  Read the full article

  This entry is brought to you by 

A History of Service in an Urban Enclave 
Saint Margaret’s Convent
Roxbury, MA

Tucked out of view off a quiet side street,  Saint Margaret’s Convent  has been a spiritual epicenter for over a century.    The city hums below, but at the top of Fort Hill, in the Highland Park neighborhood of Roxbury, the convent is quiet and serene.  To quote the Boston Globe:

“Since the late 19th century, the Society of St. Margaret, an order of Episcopal nuns, has maintained a quiet but steady presence in Boston, nursing the sick, caring for the poor, and welcoming travelers in need of a quiet place to stay, all while keeping a rigorous schedule of prayer and silent contemplation.”  Full Article  The Sisters have decided to relocate their work to their retreat in Duxbury, where they are building a new  eco-friendly center.

The Roxbury convent is being offered for sale and listed by LandVest. 

Built around the c. 1840 home of Abolitionist leader William Lloyd Garrison,  the Convent has been owned by the Society of Saint Margaret since 1904.  The complex of buildings has been expanded over the years, most recently with a major expansion and renovation of the Main Building  in the early 1990’s. 

The Main Building is comprised of three interconnected buildings which contain a total of 33,550± square feet and features a commercial-grade kitchen, dining hall with an outdoor patio, 34 bedrooms, multiple  common rooms for meetings,  library, two chapels and a large balcony overlooking the Boston skyline.  In addition, there is a separate 2,184± square foot heated Carriage House with a second floor apartment with two bedrooms, a full bath and a kitchen. 

The improvements are sited on 1.65± acres, including 240± feet of frontage on Highland Park Street and 338± feet of frontage on Highland Street, and is surrounded by tall trees and quiet outdoor areas, including a lawn with a gazebo. 

In a May 14 Boston Globe article by Lisa Wangsness,  the Convent was described as being located in a “…tranquil neighborhood, a mix of brick row houses and clapboard multifamily homes, some with lush gardens and flowering trees. Though the grassy peak of Fort Hill lies just a few blocks from the rush of Columbus Avenue, on a recent morning, little could be heard but the wind and singing birds.”

Click for pricing and more information on  Saint Margaret’s Convent 
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Nicholas R. Pratt                                                  David A. Rosen
617-948-8002                                                      617-357-8955
npratt@landvest.com                                      drosen@landvest.com

In the May/June issue of Ocean Home Magazine the following “Best of New England”, real estate listings were featured in their “Top 25 Oceanfront Homes”:

Best Real Estate Northeast Harbor, Maine:

Sound Edge $6,900,000, listed by Story Litchfield, of LandVest – Northeast Harbor, Maine (slitchfield@landvest.com)

Sound Edge in Northeast Harbor, Maine is a totally restored summer cottage on 1.4 acres of land along the shores of Maine's Somes Sound

Indian Head (under agreement)   listed by Story Litchfield, of LandVest – Northeast Harbor, Maine (Slitchfield@landvest.com)

Indian Head in Northeast Harbor, Maine (under agreement) takes full advantage of its spectacular location offering panoramic ocean, island, and mountain views.

Best Real Estate, St. George, Maine:

Davis Island, $4,950,000 listed by Terry Sortwell, LandVest – Camden, Maine (tsortwell@landvest.com)

Aerial view of Davis Island, St. George, Maine. This 48-acre island offering includes an estate that comprises a residence, guest house, boat barn, two docks, and observatory that offers 360 degrees of ocean viewing.

Best Real Estate, Edgartown, Massachusetts:

Edgartown Beachfront, $19,500,000 Edgartown, MA listed by Gerret Conover and Thomas LeClair, LandVest – Martha’s Vineyard, MA (gconover@landvest.com, tleclair@landvest.com)

Edgartown Beachfront, a modernized 18th-century estate, includes seven double bedrooms, and one single bedroom all with their own distinctive charm. This property is privately set with approximately 300 feet of sandy beach.

Best Real Estate, Gloucester, Massachusetts:

Red Gable, Gloucester, Massachusetts $3,800,000 listed by Lanse Robb, LandVest – Boston, MA

Red Gable, a fully renovated 1880 oceanfront home, sits on .5 acres of Coffin Beach, at the northwestern tip of Cape Ann. Ocean views abound from nearly every room of this elevated, 5-bedroom home.

Best Real Estate, Harwich Port, Massachusetts:

Wychmere Waterfront Estate, Harwich Port, MA $14,500,000 listed by Stewart Young, LandVest – Boston, MA

Wychmere Harbor in Harwich Port, MA is a 9,000 square foot, custom built and landscaped home on approximately 3.6 waterfront acres.

Click to read the LandVest listing excerpts in Ocean Home Magazine

To view the entire article featuring the best oceanfront homes for sale in the 15 featured states of CA, CT, FL, GA, HI, ME, MA, NC, NY, OR, RI, SC, TX, VA, WA pick up a copy on newstands  or visit Ocean Home Magazine’s website.

View additional “Best” real estate by visiting www.landvest.com

At LandVest, we love the proud old houses that line the main streets of New England towns and villages. We are fortunate to represent some of the best of them, and one of the pleasures is learning the stories of the people who built them.

Summer Street in Kennebunk is one such main street, formalized as a National Register Historic District, and lined with Victorian mansions built as summer houses by successful citizens of the late nineteenth century. Holding her head proud among them is the grandly Italianate 1855 Joseph Titcomb House. She has all the finery of her era – a pedimented face to the street, quoins at each corner to give a sense of imposing mass, ornamental corbels supporting elaborately corniced eaves and elaborate millwork inside and out.

The Joseph Titcomb House on Summer Street in Kennebunk, Maine was built in 1855.

All this celebration was warranted by the success of her owner, who after graduation from Bowdoin College in 1843 made his mark in the booming industries of the time and the region: shipping, banking and insurance. Joseph Titcomb commissioned two of the largest ships built in the shipyard of Titcomb-Thompson, the aptly named “James Titcomb” at 491 tons, and the “Golden Eagle”, the largest ship ever built at the landing at 188 feet long. Joseph Titcomb’s legacy lives on today in the Ocean National Bank and Cole-Harrison Insurance, each of which he served as their first President.

The Joseph Titcomb House is set on 2.6± acres, and has been meticulously maintained. The six-bedroom main house offers over 6,600 square feet of living space. A three-story carriage house, a one-room playhouse or garden house, a reflecting pool and stunning landscape artistry across the property complete this exceptional offering.

This Italianate style home was designed by Gridley James Fox Bryant, a prominent Boston architect.

The beautifully landscaped yard is one of the many impressive features of this historic summer home.

Titcomb selected prominent architect Gridley James Fox Bryant to design and build the house based on Bryant’s reputation and body of work in the Boston area. Bryant got his start working for his father Gridley Bryant who was a railway entrepreneur. The younger Bryant worked in his father’s engineering firm and developed his understanding of architecture and design. Bryant’s first work was the Broadway Savings Bank in South Boston in 1830, and he went on to be a leading proponent of the “granite Style” in Boston. Some of his works include, Old City Hall, Boston City Hospital, Mercantile Wharf Building, the Quincy School and many private residences. Gridley J. F. Bryant was credited with the Gridiron Street pattern in Boston’s Back Bay.

This home, like it’s first owner, has been a center point of the Kennebunk community since since it was built. Most recently, it was recognized by The Week magazine as one of the finest properties in America for sale under $2,000,000.00 in 2010. It is conveniently located just a few miles away from the famous beaches and shops of Kennebunkport and 30 miles to Portland or 80 miles to Boston. The property offers easy access to the culture and transportation amenities of the larger cities of New England and the unique opportunities of one of Southern Maine’s most famous coastal summer communities.

For more information about the Joseph Titcomb House for sale. 

Click to view additional distinctive homes for sale in the Greater Portland Area of Maine

Click to view John Scribner’s contact information

LandVest Senior Advisor Keith Ross is a leader in the effort towards collaborative land conservation.  In a recent article that appears in the fall edition of Northern Woodlands magazine, Conserve More Land Today through Parcel Aggregation, he promotes this concept of collaborative “aggregation” of woodlands; combining or “bundling” preserved land from separate owners into one larger project.  This process conserves large landscapes and attracts interest from motivated landowners and investors alike. 

The strategy may seem like a difficult feat, but recent examples in New England prove this is feasible and beneficial.  In Western Massachusetts, seven land trusts are working together to obtain funding to buy conservation easements for more than 10,000 acres of timberland owned by 71 landowners, and have raised over seven million dollars to-date.  Several other areas throughout New England have been replicating this land aggregation concept and have been successful lowering costs related to conservation easement monitoring, and appraisals.

Why is land aggregation beneficial for land owners? 

Not all forest conservation projects are significant enough to be completed as stand-alone individual projects.  Most are smaller acreages that have significant ecological values to maintain large forest blocks or protect lakes, ponds, streams, wildlife habitat, etc.  By grouping these projects together they can attract funders that don’t normally focus on small individual projects and the costs of the transactions can be reduced by grouping together the appraisals, negotiations, baseline documentation, etc.

 Why is land aggregation beneficial for the land? 

Most forest land conservation projects are not the highly visible road frontage pieces people drive by every day, nor are they the large mega acreage tracts that are conserved up north.  Most are much smaller tracts that are important to knit together to ensure we have large blocks of forest necessary to ensure the production of clean air and clean water that support all of us.

For more information on Collaborative Land Conservation Contact Keith Ross

$2.475 million buys Norumbega Castle -Portland Magazine’s House of the Month.

Located within walking distance of Camden's village center, Norumbega Castle is a Maine coastal landmark.

Anyone who has ever visited Norumbega Castle will understand why Portland Magazine chose it for their December House of the Month.  In this article, Colin W. Sargent extols the many reasons why this property earned its winning title.  “Built by Joseph Stearns in 1886, Norumbega Castle in Camden, Maine was originally used as a summer vacation house. Designed by architect Arthur Bates Jennings, the castle has become famous in recent years as a popular inn where both movie stars and politicians alike have resided. Among such public figures associated with the inn include House Speaker Newt Gingrich as well as Dustin Hoffman, who was actually denied a room because they were all booked and he did not have a reservation. This holiday season, Norumbega is being sold by LandVest as a single family home, “which it was until the 1980s,” says listing agent Terry Sortwell. Though the castle is still well suited for continued operation as a luxury lodging facility, it also has the capability to be restored to use as a private residence. Surrounded by 3.95 acres of landscaped grounds, the building features 13 en suite guest rooms as well as elegant common areas featuring exquisite architectural detail including ornate wood paneling, exposed beams, parquet floors and elaborately handcrafted fireplaces.”   We agree with Colin!

Click for more information on Norumbega Castle

Click to read the Portland Magazine article in the LandVest News

Visit Portland Magazine

Click to view additional properties in the Camden Maine area

The Boston Globe recently carried a great article about our neighbor, Salt Water Farm, an innovative Maine coast center for gourmet cooking classes, farm workshops, and feasts.

In the last few years we’ve seen increased interest in fine farms from buyers of coastal Maine real estate, many of whom are relocating to the Maine coast from other parts of the country. These properties include saltwater farms, inland gentleman’s farms, and Maine coast properties with the potential for small-scale farming. Examples of this trend are the sales of the Welliver Farm and Kelmscott Farm, both in Lincolnville; Captain Davis House, a beautiful and classic saltwater farm in Cushing; the Berry Farm, a inland farm in Montville; and Longmeadow Farm, a saltwater farm on Islesboro.

Currently for sale in Castine, Maine, Coverly Farm is a saltwater farm located near the town's historic village district.

Buyers seeking distinctive farm properties on the Maine coast have a number of appealing options. Eastern Bay Farm on North Haven offers a historic cape farmhouse overlooking open fields. The property includes approximately 90 acres with 580 feet of frontage and a spectacular beach. Coverly Farm encompasses some 40 acres in Castine, with sweeping meadows bordered by old stone walls and 1,100± feet of beautiful shorefront on the Bagaduce, a tidal estuary in East Penobscot Bay. Watch for more exceptional farm properties in the coming weeks—we’ve got a couple of wonderful new listings coming up.

Eastern Bay Farm is a saltwater farm currently for sale on the coast of Maine in North Haven.

Click to view more Camden, Maine (and surrounding area) real estate for sale.

Click for more information on Terry Sortwell or Shannon Thompson who specialize in assisting both buyers and sellers of extraordinary real estate properties in the Camden, Maine area.