A ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ purchase

One of South Portland’s oldest homes, one of only six said to pre-date the birth of the nation, changes hands

SOUTH PORTLAND — Webber Associates agent Clay Ryder, who brokered the sale, calls it a “once-in-a- lifetime” property transfer. That’s no small statement, coming from someone who’s been in the greater Portland real estate game for more than three decades.

“As far as anyone knows, it’s probably one of the oldest homes in South Portland,” said Ryder, on Friday. “A property like this, especially with the acreage involved, may never come along again.”

The lot, located at 108 Stillman St., is 1.89 acres. That alone made it shine alongside the usual residential fare seen in South Portland real estate listings. And, given the site’s location astride Kimball Brook, abutting 40-acre Hinkley Park, it’s not surprising Ryder fielded more calls into the possibility of splitting off the 1.5 acres closest to the park than for the house that sits by the street.

But the house is what makes the sale so special. It was described in real estate listings as the “Capt. Stillman Dyer” property, but Edward MacCarthy Jr. of Windham, who inherited it upon the 1998 death of his mother, and sold it Nov. 28, says that’s not correct. The building actually belonged to another Dyer along his great-maternal line, he says. Still, he insists, the home was built, as listed, in 1775.

It sold to South Portland residents Virginia Smith and George Weaver. He’s an English teacher at Bonny Eagle High School, she edits reports on children and teen titles for Kirkus Reviews. The couple declined to say what they paid for the property, but the listing price was $503,900 and the mortgage filed at the Cumberland County Registry of Deeds is recorded at $255,000.

“I think it could have probably gone for more than it did, but because of the market, they got a very good price for what is, really, a one-of-a-kind property,” said Ryder.

According to data run by South Portland Assessor Andrew Kriger, that makes the home one of only six examples of residential construction in the city purporting to pre-date the American Revolution.

Of course, all early dates in the city’s assessing database are estimates, taken from 1972 tax cards, says Kriger. According to Kathryn DiPhilippo, executive director of the South Portland Historical Society, there are still “two or three boxes” of material at the city library from research done in the 1970s, when the city won a grant to conduct its first, and to date only, survey of historic property.

“Unfortunately, if you wanted to know how old a home was, a lot of times that meant simply asking the owners,” says DiFilippo. “The problem is, what people believe about their homes isn’t always necessarily true.”

Proving when a house was built can be difficult, says DiFilippo. City Councilor Tom Blake, himself an avid fan of local history, agrees. Both say it’s not too hard to trace the history of a parcel back to the area’s original 160-acre lots. But by the time a deed changes hands with the words “and buildings thereon,” a home could have been standing for a generation of more.

And all of that doesn’t even being to account for the number of buildings those ‘70s-era researchers simply never got around to. In many cases, “before 1900” is the best guess the city has.

“There are some things that are just difficult to prove,” says DiPhilippo.

Still, of the 10,000-plus lots in South Portland, 7,288 are residential properties consisting of four units, or less. Of those, just 396 claim to have been built before 1900, and a mere 16 lay claim to ante-federalist status. That alone puts the “Stillman Dyer” home in rarified company.

Blake says its not surprising that, among South Portland’s oldest homes, many are in the area of the Stillman Dyer house, located just a stone’s throw from Town House Corner, where the original town hall was located, at the corner of Ocean and Sawyer streets, leading up to South Portland Heights, at 176 feet, the highest point in the city. Back in the 18^th and into the 19^th century, waterfront property was not highly valued, as it is today. Back then, it was the strictly the poor, working class that congregated to the coastal commercial centers. Everybody who was anybody took the high ground and open farmland.

Those folks still held a fair amount of political power by the late 1930s and early 1940s, when South Portland enacted its first zoning laws.

“This was the most affluent area when that was happening,” said Blake. “Back then, the nicer homes were in this area.”

So, while much of the city was zoned at that time to allow up to 19 housing units per acres, the area around South Portland heights was limited to between two and four units per acre.

That, says Blake, as much as anything else, probably accounts for how the Stillman Dyer home survived the development boom, between the establishment of the state’s first shopping center at Mill Creek in 1956 and the creation of Hinkley Park in 1977. With so much property primed for the picking, it simply wasn’t worthwhile to try and develop the parcel.

It also helps that in 1954 the home passed into the hands of MacCarthy’s father, Edward MacCarthy Sr., who descended from the Dyer line though his mother, Mary. At the time, the elder MacCarthy was the Atlantic coast regional manager of General Motors’ Chevrolet division and he appears to have spared no expense in renovating the home.

Originally a modest, three-room home, with a kitchen connecting it to where a barn is presumed to have been, the front, “great room,” previously expanded, was paneled with mahogany, variously listed as having come from Honduras or the Philippines.

Smith and Weaver display some angst over owning a home made over with wood from the rainforest, but it’s hard not to appreciate the craftsmanship.

“It’s clear that he used the very best of everything,” said Weaver, taking particular note of the hand-hewn shingles that protect the outer walls of the home. Although part of the 1950s renovation, they appear to have been crafted with the original look of the house in mind, somewhat unlike the interior.

Although the dining room appears to have been untouched, the original bedroom was made over to resemble a captain’s quarters aboard ship, apparently in the belief that, if not Stillman Dyer himself, than some other of the original owners bore a nautical heritage – a safe bet given the Dyer family history in South Portland.

Meanwhile, the kitchen area, separated from the main house by a vaulted door, was made over with the best brushed-stainless appliances of the era. The stove was built into a space where the original hearth was, using the flue of to the colonial-style chimney as a vent. Although made of all-new brickwork, some of the original bicentennial brick can still be seen on the floor in from the other stove.

A new slate-floor sun porch was added on what was originally the front of the home, where the main door is still accessed with a brass, skeleton key. Finally, the barn, if it was still standing at the time, was torn down and a back section added, where two modern bedrooms, an office and the home’s bathrooms are now located, the original privy lost to history.

Weaver says he admired the Stillman Dyer home for a long time before it went on the market, passing it on his daily commute.

“I often thought, what a neat-looking piece of property,” says Weaver, as the family spent Boxing Day packing up their belongings for the big move. “It made me think of a little Dutch streamside building. Then one day I drove by and there was a for sale sign on it.”

A lot of others also took note of the sign.

“There were 30 people at the open house during the 45 minutes we were here, and I guess me must’ve known most of them,” joked Weaver.

The quirky nature of Colonial construction caught the couple’s eye – “It was like every door you opened was a surprise,” said Smith – but many appear to have been more interested in the landscape.

According to Blake, “a couple of people from the neighborhood” approached the South Portland Land Trust, on which he sits, in hopes it might buy the property. The expressed fear was that somebody would buy the lot and put up one more new house at the entrance to Hinkley Park.

“We had an interest [in buying the property], but not the money,” said Blake, adding that concern abated once Weaver and Smith emerged as the probable homeowners.

‘’We come from families that are not utterly unfamiliar with antiquity,” said Weaver, who grew up in Guilford, Conn., in a circa-1785 home.

“I like old houses,” said Weaver. “They’re better built. They may not be more efficient, but in a lot of fundamental ways, they’re better built.’’

Because much of the home has been redone, Weaver and Smith do not plan to remake the home with historical preservation in mind. But the house will be preserved. MacCarthy first sold the house to his son, Maine guide Edward MacCarthy III, in 1999, but took it back in 2009. During that time, at least, the house appeared to have fallen into some disrepair. Already, Weaver and Smith have added new roof, to stop the leaks. 

“It also remains to be seen how well the stove works,” said Smith, “but we like it. It’s a very charming design. We’re not necessarily going to go to the expense of restoring things to their original design, but we also don’t plan any major renovations.

“It’s kind of funny how, in the kitchen, you have to ‘cross Siberia’ to get from the stove to the sink, but we have no immediate plans to turn the kitchen into a so-called chef’s kitchen.”

Despite all the period charm, the feature most favored by Smith, who works out of the home, is that she’ll no longer have to climb a high, narrow staircase to her office – a decided plus when “hundreds of books” flow under her editorial eye every week. Daughter Lucy just likes that the move means a bigger bedroom in the newer, back half of the building.

And even if the Stillman Dyer house never becomes a feature on the historic tours of South Portland that Blake leads, maybe that’s OK. After Edward MacCarthy Sr. died in 1970, Edith MacCarthy lived alone in the home for 28 years. Her grandson only appears to have stayed periodically over the last several seasons. But now, the Stillman Dyer home once again has a family living and working within its walls. And after all, what more could a 236-year-old-house ask for?

A CLOSER LOOK

According to data provided by the South Portland Assessor’s Office, these 16 homes, the oldest in the city, are all the remains of pre-1800 residential construction. However, Kathryn DiPhilippo, executive director at the South Portland Historical Society, points out that many of the dates given are “pure conjecture.” The first is particularly dubious, she says, given accounts of all area homes being burned to the ground in a 1703 Indian raid, and not rebuilt until 1717, at the earliest.

Address               Year    Style                  Condition           Map/Lot

1.         667 Sawyer St.    1700    Antique             Good                 Map 12/Lot 97

2.         42 Beach St.        1725    Family Conver. Average            Map 2/Lot 226-C

3.         445 Preble St.      1750    Cape Cod          Very Good       Map 2/Lot 43

4.         27 Pillsbury St.    1751    Conventional     Excellent          Map 10/Lot 365

5.         913 Sawyer St.    1760    Cape Cod          Good                Map 23/Lot 46-C

6.         108 Stillman St.    1775   Antique             Good                Map 23/Lot 11-A

7.         510 Preble St.      1780    Antique             Excellent          Map 1/Lot 170

8.         24 Myrtle Ave.     1780   Cape Cod          Excellent          Map 2/Lot 95

9.         325 Preble St.       1780   Cape Cod          Excellent          Map 2/Lot 193

10.       33 Myrtle Ave.     1780   Cape Cod          Excellent          Map 2/Lot 224

11.       26 Beach St.         1780   Conventional    Good                Map 2/Lot 226-E

12.       254 Cottage Rd.   1780   Antique             Very Good      Map 13/Lot 220

13.       995 Sawyer St.     1780   Antique             Good               Map 23/Lot 36-A

14.       145 Fickett St.      1785   Antique             Good               Map 37/Lot 11-C

15.       96 Willow St.      1790    Family Conver. Excellent          Map 2/Lot 34-A

16.       6 Pine St.             1790    Colonial            Average           Map 6/Lot 11

Scarborough outsources EMS billing

SCARBOROUGH — From now on, when you get a bill for an ambulance ride in Scarborough, the return address won’t be the town office, but a company in Rowley, Mass.

Town Manager Tom Hall advised councilors at their most recent meeting that he had contracted with Comstar Ambulance Billing, a service founded in 1984 to collect payment for municipal EMS services.

“For some time we have appreciated that the complexity and ever-changing world of Medicare/Medicaid and third-party payers have made our efforts to collect for EMS services rendered challenging to say the least,” Hall said on Friday.

When an employee in the town’s Collections/Excise Office moved away early this summer, that gave the town, Hall says, “an opportunity to evaluate all of the functions we were performing.” Some positions were juggled, and EMS billing outsourced, which allowed the town to carry on without filling the vacant position.

As low bidder, Comstar will take 4 percent of whatever payment it collects, starting with a patient’s insurance provider, including Medicare, Mainecare, private health, automobile, workers’ compensation or homeowner’s, where applicable. 

“If someone is uninsured or has a balance due for co-pay or insufficient insurance coverage, Comstar will bill them individually according to the town’s billing policy,” said Scarborough Fire Chief Mike Thurlow.

That policy provides exceptions to the billing process for certain situations and allows residents to set up payment plans, when necessary. Billing may be waived or reduced for any balance not paid by insurance for senior citizens on Medicare but without supplemental coverage, and for cases of “hardship.”

Thurlow says current EMS rates in Scarborough are “set at the Medicare maximum allowable charges for our geographical area.” However, “those rates are significantly lower than the cost of providing the service and they are also lower than many of the other private health care insurance companies are willing to pay,” he said.

According to Hall, part of the service Comstar has promised to provide is a full review of Scarborough’s EMS rates, with the aim of maximizing revenue from insurance companies and minimizing the cost to taxpayers.

Those new rates could be in place as soon as January, said Hall.

No clampdown on clammers

Scarborough Town Council refuses committee call to cut shellfish license count.

SCARBOROUGH — If Scarborough’s Shellfish Conservation Committee had its way, there’d be 22 fewer recreational clammers on the mud flats this year. But, for the second year in a row, the Town Council has refused a call to limit the number of licenses.

According to committee chairman Robert Willette, his group recommended a cut in the number of residential licenses given per year from 200 to 180 because some went unsold by the Aug. 1 deadline, at which point they were let go on a first-come, first-serve basis to nonresidents. The committee also called for a cut in nonresident licenses, from 20 to 18.

“I want to make sure I understand,” said Councilor Jessica Holbrook. “The drop had noting to do with [available] stock, it just had to do strictly with . . . “

“Politics,” offered council Chairman Ron Ahlquist.

“Well, with not wanting outsiders, I guess,” continued Holbrook. “It had nothing to do with the clams themselves?”

Willette said he voted against the recommendation, and it fell to Scarborough’s marine resource management officer, David Corbeau, to answer Holbrook’s question.

“From my understanding, from the motion that was made at the [committee] meeting, I guess that would be correct,” he said. “A couple of the committee members don’t like them [licenses] going out to non-residents.”

“Personally, I’d like to see it go back to where it was,” said Ahlquist. “I think it was changed for the wrong reasons.”

Corbeau said that when a resident license is sold to a nonresident, the town doubles it’s money, from $25 to $50. The town also offers $10 day permits depending on conditions, up to a limit of 10 per day. Those typically sell to nonresidents once the regular licenses sell out.

“”We have a lot of non-residents who what a recreational license,” said Corbeau. “We always sell out. If we do away with those licenses, there’s revenue that’s going to be lost.”

The council voted unanimously to keep recreational licenses at the current limits, 200 for residents and 20 for non-residents. Also weighing in to the council decision was the fact that, despite seeking a limit on recreational shellfish licenses, the committee asked for the addition of two resident commercial licenses, as well as one more senior commercial license (for diggers age 60 and over), to allow for 27 and four, respectively.

Willett said that decision was based on survey data of the annual haul, along with the addition of new digging areas this past year along the Nonesuch River. However, Corbeau pointed out that the new digging areas are conditional, opened dependent on rainfall.

“I think the shellfish committee went above and beyond,” said Corbeau. “I personally don’t see an increase in the number of clams that are out there.”

“Do the new clam flats that are reliant on runoff from the rains, does that really give a viable commercial business to two new licenses?” asked Councilor Carol Rancourt.

“I don’t see, and the surveys don’t show, that there’s an increase in the number of clams out there this year,” said Corbeau. “Over the next couple of years it looks like there’s some seed out there that it might get a little bit better.

“In essence, what we’re trying to do is balance the whole system,” said Corbeau. “If we did what a lot of people want us to do, we wouldn’t have a shellfish industry in the town of Scarborough. The guys who make a living off clamming wouldn’t be making a living. They’d be starving, or doing something else. Adding two I think is a great gesture.”

Scarborough’s commercial clamming licenses can be retained perpetually, once awarded, provided the clammer continues to meet certain criteria, such as performing 12 hours of conservation work annually. Despite that, there are some commercial licenses that “don’t get used a whole lot,” said Corbeau, adding that desultory hauling by a few holders of commercial licenses is what allows the town to offer as many recreational licenses as it does, while also enabling it to offer two new commercial licenses this year. In addition, he said, one holder of a commercial license has turned his in, making three that will be up for grabs come auction time this year.

“There will be 30 people who will put in for those three licenses,” said Corbeau. “There’s a huge, huge want out there. It’s just managing the license numbers to the best that we can do. People will keep coming at it until our resource is gone, so we have to manage it as best we can.

“The state says we manage it pretty well,” said Corbeau. “We’ve been No. 1 in the state for 10 years.”

Every day miracles

Local residents share stories of holiday hope and incredible recovery.

NOTE: This article featured "everyday miracles" compiled by several Current Publishing reporters. I've only included my section, plus the lead-in, which I believe was written by Managing Editor Ben Bragdon.

Miracles are often described as amazing and larger than life, cases of divine intervention that suspend the laws of nature and make the impossible possible.

But miracles happen every day, right in our own backyards. A one-eyed owl shows a remarkable will to live of the coast of Maine, a Raymond man’s car is crushed by an 18-wheeler, and suddenly he feels more fortunate than ever, and a family’s beloved dog somehow pulls through after a horrible accident.

Sometimes, an injury to an animal shows just how powerful is our will to survive. And sometimes it turns out that life really is a matter of inches.

A FIRST OF ITS KIND

Somewhere out over Casco Bay right now, there is an owl who survived, who may give birth to others, and whose survival may help others like her, simply because a few humans cared enough to help.

A great-horned owl, nicknamed Gho (“Gee-ho”), was found one year ago, the day after Christmas, face down in a snow bank on Hope Island, off the coast of Cumberland in Casco Bay. She was weak at the time of her discovery, nearly emaciated, with head trauma that would eventually leave her blind in her right eye.

Island owners John and Phyllis Cacoulidis, who know the owl as “Hootie,” loaded her into a pet carrier and brought her across the bay to the Animal Emergency Clinic in Portland, where Dr. Mel Vassey was able to stabilize her condition. The eye damage was permanant, however, so Gho was brought to the York Center for Wildlife (CFW), in Cape Neddick.

“Some winters we can actually see 50 or 60 owls with similar injuries,” said Kristen Lamb, director for education and outreach at the nonprofit center. “Generally, we presume they come to us having been hit by cars. After all, they know what they’re doing in the wild, they don’t fly into trees.”

Lamb suspects Gho was hit on the mainland, perhaps struck while swooping to snatch some small animal as it was dashing across the highway, and, somehow, made its way back to the island, which appears to be her home base.

Founded 25 years ago, the York Center for Wildlife provides medical care and for sick, injured and orphaned wildlife – including birds, mammals and reptiles – until they can be released back into the wild. The work is daunting – with more than 1,600 animals treated per year, including up to 70 calls per day during the peak summer season – and is done primarily via donations and volunteer labor, augmenting a staff of just five full-time specialists.

For Gho, however, her vision problems meant a probable permanent home inside the center’s 100-foot flight enclosure.

“We always want to do the right thing for the bird,” explains Lamb. “When we release our wild animals we want to be sure they can do everything they need to do survive in the wild. We never want to release compromised animals that aren’t going to make it in.”

But Gho was doing so well, recovered so fully, that the center’s doctors decided to take a chance on her. Teaming with the Biodiversity Research Institute in Gorham, specialists placed a transmitter on Gho and released her back into the wild on Oct. 20.

“We now have two month’s worth of data and she’s doing great,” Lamb said. “We’re really excited that she’s been able to take care of herself, especially in winter.

“Whether to release a one-eyed owl or not has been something that has perplexed wildlife rehabilitators for a long time,” said Lamb, explaining that, because there is almost no state of federal funding for wildlife rehabilitations, nobody has known if a bird like Gho could survive on its own.

“We know owls use their excellent sense of hearing to hunt, so we supposed they were not as dependent on binocular vision as other diurnal raptors, but we really had nothing to go on,” Lamb said. “So, this has really been one of the first post-release studies of its kind.”

The pilot program also is helping to gather data for use in understanding all of Maine’s island-dwelling owls, with the hope that the techniques tested there can be used with other poorly studied species.

“One thing that’s been interesting is that we’ve seen an alternating flight path,” Lamb said. “She’ll spend one night on the outer islands and the next closer inland. We’re interested to know if this is behavior unique to her condition, or if we can learn something about all owls. We’re kind of observing all this and recording some baseline data.”

There will be time to study the question. The battery on the transmitter Gho wears is good for 18 months, meaning she’ll send the wildlife center plenty of data by the time it runs out.

The cost of the transmitter, along with data analysis and staff time, came to $5,000. The Cacoulidises came through with $2,000, while longtime center supporter Eddie Woodin stepped up with a $1,000 challenge grant.

“We have a large demand for our service, but it’s only because the community cares so much,” Lamb said. “We can’t do any of the work we do without all of the volunteers and donors who support us. We are always very inspired by the interest of people in the community who want to help.”