Freeport home with a history

Posted: Tuesday, July 8, 2014 2:14 pm | Updated: 2:25 pm, Tue Jul 8, 2014.

FREEPORT - The Freeport Historical Society is on board with a proposed historic renovation of the house where Maine legend Leon Leonwood Bean raised his family at 6 Holbrook St., and this week the Project Review Board gets a look at the plan.

L.L. Bean is using Malcolm Collins as the project architect to restore the Queen Anne Victorian home to its 1912 look with its original brown tones and minus three additions. The building is now painted white.

The Project Review Board will begin a public hearing at 6 p.m. Wednesday, July 9, to consider a design review certificate, which would allow for the exterior changes, and a site plan amendment to reduce the buildings footprint.

Caroline Pelletier, assistant to the town planner, said that the board will decide on Beans request for a waiver of a four-month waiting period on the site plan amendment.

They would have to rule on the waiver first, and then on the approval, said Pelletier, who was not sure if that would all be done on Wednesday night.

Christina White, executive director of the historical society, informed the Project Review Board in a letter that she had met with representatives of L.L. Bean and Collins to review the project.

The commitment from the L.L. Bean company to the project is exciting and the proposed results will, no doubt, be welcomed by residents and visitors to Freeport, White wrote. We are pleased that the home of one of Freeports most notable citizens, Leon Leonwood Bean, will be preserved while expanding opportunities for the public to interact with the property via side yard demonstrations, exhibit area, and a walking path all which will add to the propertys enjoyment and our understanding of L.L. Bean himself and of his company.

White added that, according to the Maine Historic Preservation Commission, the house was likely designed by Francis Fassett, a highly regarded Portland architect whose work can also be seen at other Freeport locations.

There are a number of proposed exterior property changes with which we are in agreement, including the removal of a porch located on the right side of the house, adding back two chimneys (recreating the original profile), and returning to the original rich, period-defining exterior paint palette, White continued. The small porch (left side of main entrance to house) which was added sometime in the 1940s and served as L.L.s smoking area, is slated to be taken down. Our hope was that this direct connection to the man himself would be retained. If the owner moves forward with the plan to remove the porch, we ask that the porch be fully documented prior to removal.

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Freeport home with a history