Harriet Beecher Stowe House, Bowdoin College

Known primarily as the short-term home of Uncle Tom’s Cabin author Harriet Beecher Stowe, this home was also rented by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in the early 1820s. According to letters penned by Stowe herself, by the time she lived there in the 1850s it was already a little run down—or at least noisy. In a letter she writes, “I am lonesome nights in this rattletrap house where every wind shakes out as many noises are there are ghosts in Hades—screeching snapping cracking groaning.” Numerous renovations have been made since Stowe and her family left the home, and in the process of stripping back the layers, Bowdoin College Project Manager, Don Borkowski, noted damage from at least two significant house fires. Since the existing interior bore little to no resemblance to the original house, the design build team of Barba Wheelock and Warren Construction Group focused efforts on restoring the original exterior (which, to the surprise of many, had been painted a very dark green) while repurposing the interior to accommodate 10 offices, 14 workspaces, and a room open to the community, called the “writing room.”