Built 1903 (1903) Opened 1903 Added to NRHP 15 January 1980 | NRHP Reference # 80000376 Area 1,200 m² | |
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Location 109 Main St., Houlton, Maine Architectural style Colonial Revival architecture Similar Presque Isle Historical, Fryeburg Historical Society, History House, L C Bates Museum, Pejepscot Historical Society | ||
The Aroostook County Historical and Art Museum is located at 109 Main Street, in the White Memorial Building, in Houlton, Maine. The museum was founded in 1934, after the building, a handsome 1903 Colonial Revival house, was donated to the town by the White family. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.
Architecture and history
The museum stands on the south side of Main Street, east of Houlton's downtown area, between Broadway and Kelleran Streets, and just east of Cary Library. It is a handsome two-story Colonial Revival structure, designed by Kendal, Taylor and Stevens of Boston, Massachusetts, and built in 1903. Its dominant feature is a two-story portico covering the center three bays of the five-bay facade. It is supported by four Tuscan columns, with matching pilasters on the wall, and has an entablature topped by a denticulated cornice. The main entrance has an elengant surround of pilasters supporting an entablatured lintel with consoles. The interior has retained its original period woodwork, which is dignified yet restrained.
The house was built in 1903 by Mrs. Mary Louise (Woodbury) MacIntyre, whose father, Eben Woodbury, had built three successive houses on this property, all of which were destroyed by fire (the most recent in the town's devastating 1902 fire). After her death in 1934, the house was purchased by the Whites, who donated it to the town for use as a museum. Initially the museum was housed on the upper floor, while town offices occupied the ground floor; the building now houses only the museum.