Courtesy / Legacy Properties Sotheby’s International Real Estate
The octagon structure at the Pressey House dates back to 1850.
February 19, 2021
Octagon-shaped B&B in Oakland changes hands
Courtesy / Legacy Properties Sotheby’s International Real Estate
The lakeside Pressey House, in Oakland, features an octagon house, attached barn and boathouse that attract summer visitors and winter rentals by professors at nearby colleges.
An unusual octagon-shaped bed-and-breakfast in Oakland, built in 1850, has long thrived not only on tourism but on winter trade by visiting professors.
Henry H. Wildes Jr. and Sharon M. Wildes sold the Pressey House, at 32 Belgrade Road, to Ronald and Nicole Goodheart for an undisclosed price. The list price was $649,000. John McCarthy of Legacy Properties Sotheby’s International Real Estate represented the sellers and Jordan Stolt of Summit Real Estate represented the buyers in the deal. Also participating in the transaction were Andy Rhoades of Kennebec Saving Bank and attorney Jerome Gamache.
Located at the north end of Messalonskee Lake, the house was built between 1854 and 1858 by H.T. Pressey. It was put on the National Register of Historical Places in 1977, according to the inn’s website.
In addition to the octagon-shaped structure, there is a three-story attached post-and-beam barn that sits on an elevated site 50 feet from the lake and offers 100 feet of private shore front, two docks and a boat house.
The 4,998-square-foot inn has four guest suites and a common area. The owner’s quarters and the “Granite Suite” are in the octagon and the “Ell Suite” attaches the octagon to the barn, which contains the other two suites and the common room.
Unique architecture
The Granite Suite has a fireplace in the living room and the walls are the original granite-block foundation of the home. The room was completed renovated in 2016 with new windows, carpets, ceiling and lighting.
Vintage features include wide pumpkin pine floors, a wood-burning fireplace and original barn beams and boards.
The inn is one of a small number of octagon houses in Maine and one of the only ones with Greek Revival styling, according to the website.
Octagon homes were a short-lived architectural fad that fell out of vogue by the early 1900s, according to atlastobscura.com.
According to the National Register citation, a small number of octagon houses were built in Maine. Some are built in the Gothic or Italianate style; others like Pressey House, are Greek Revival.
“As a well-preserved example of this relatively rare form, the Pressey House, with its interestingly attached ell and barn, deserves attention,” the citation says. “most octagon houses in the state exist in more urban surroundings with separate stables or carriage houses.”
Courtesy / Legacy Properties Sotheby’s International Real Estate
The interior features wide pumpkin pine floors, a wood-burning fireplace and original barn beams and boards.
“One thing I like about it, is not only that it’s historically significant, but it has a common area for socializing and it’s right on the lake,” said McCarthy.
McCarthy noted the inn is just a short drive from Colby College and Thomas College, which have been sources of winter business allowing the inn to operate year-round.
“It’s definitely a unique property,” said co-seller Sharon Wildes.
The design, she explained, was inspired by Orson Squire Fowler. In 1848, Fowler published a book called “The Octagon House: A Home for All,” according to Wikipedia.
The structure started out as a family home, with the barn added later, she said.
In the 1970s, rental rooms were installed in the barn and the ell. It subsequently became a bed-and-breakfast. The Wildeses were the fourth owners of the bed-and-breakfast.
Visiting professors
The Wildeses bought the property in 2012. Originally, she said, they were looking to buy a house on a lake and looked at several dozen possibilities in central Maine.
Courtesy / Wildes Family
Sharon and Henry Wildes sold the Pressey House after a decade of running the unusual Oakland inn year-round.
She worked for an ophthalmology practice in Augusta for 20 years.
“I got done with my job and didn’t know what I was going to do next,” she said. “I came across this property. It’s a beautiful spot on the lake. So we had our house on a lake and I had a new job. It worked out great for us.”
The couple performed some updates. Most notably, they created the Granite Suite; the project started with soda-blasting the granite to clean it, then fitting it up.
Throughout, they also installed a new roof, windows, and electrical and plumbing systems. Overall, the structure is sound, although the barn has a lean to it.
Sharon Wildes handled the inn’s operations, running it as a B&B during the summer and, from September to May, renting long-term to college professors.
“The rooms are full suites, so they’re like little apartments,” she explained.
One Colby professor, who has since retired, rented there for over 20 years.
“We were the third owners he had been through,” she said. “He lived in one of the suites here, and went back to India, where he was from, in the summertime. The other professors had the same situation; they lived out-of-state but taught at Colby, so they rented from us in the wintertime.”
The arrangement was fortunate, she added, because it provided long-term income without the daily summertime chores of a B&B.
Oakland as hub
Early on, the couple was surprised how busy the inn was.
“When we bought it, we said, ‘Who comes to Oakland, Maine?’” she recalled. “It never dawned on me how much the summer camps in Maine bring to these communities.”
That includes the New England Music Camp on the eastern shore of Messalonskee Lake, along with a number of youth camps elsewhere in the Belgrade Lakes region.
“Within 10, 15 minutes from the place, these families needed a place to stay when they dropped off and picked up their kids,” she said.
The couple had a 10-year plan to run the inn and then sell it. So they listed it last year, their ninth year.
“I had no idea how long it would take to sell something like this,” she said. “The previous owners had it for sale for five years.”
There were a few initial queries. Then the pandemic came and the real estate market “went bonkers,” as she said. By mid- to late summer, the couple was receiving multiple simultaneous offers. The majority of queries came from out-of-state. But one was from a local couple, Ronald and Nicole Goodheart.
“We felt we wanted to go with these people,” she said. “They’re a young family, they’re both from this area, they wanted to continue it like it’s been going. We were fortunate that the right people were here at the right time.”
McCarthy noted the mid-summer flurry of interest in the Pressey reflected an overall increase of residential and commercial sales. For 2020, Legacy Properties Sotheby's International Realty reported record sales of $755 million as well as a record number of transactions totaling 1,034, compared with 2019’s sales volume of $506 million and 828 transactions.
“That’s a huge increase, most of it due to COVID- related exits” from out-of-state urban areas, he said.
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