Project Details
DESIGN TEAM
Nancy Barba
Cynthia Wheelock
Tim Morrison
CONTRACTOR
Warren Construction
LOCATION
Brunswick, ME
Photography
David Kurtis Photography
Services
A house with more history than most.
The house at 63 Federal Street in Brunswick was built in 1805 by noted master builder Samuel Melcher. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow lived there as a Bowdoin student. From 1850 to 1852, Harriet Beecher Stowe and her family rented it while her husband served as a professor at Bowdoin. It was there, following a vision during a service at First Parish Church, that she began writing Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The house was listed as a National Historic Landmark in 1962 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1966 at its inception, The Stowe House was acquired by Bowdoin College in 2001. The house is a National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom site.
First, understand what’s there.
Bowdoin commissioned Barba + Wheelock to undertake a Historic Structure Report to document the full history and evolution of the building, with particular focus on identifying any surviving fabric from the Stowe family’s residency. The two-volume report covered measured drawings, existing conditions, paint and material analyses, original construction methods, historical research, and preservation recommendations – all organized around the Secretary of the Interior’s standards for treatment.
Preserve what remains. Work carefully where it doesn’t.
The approach preserved spaces that still held their historic character and material, while inserting modern necessities in areas that had already been significantly altered. The rehabilitation project joined long-time collaborators, Warren Construction with B+W who prepared construction documents, negotiated code equivalencies with the State Fire Marshal, and carried the work through construction administration to completion.
A room for the work that happened here.
Bowdoin ultimately chose to convert the house into faculty offices, while dedicating one of the original parlors as the Harriet Beecher Stowe Writing Room, open to the public. It occupies the same building where Stowe drafted the novel. It’s a quiet outcome for a structure that carries a significant piece of American history.
