Most people have found the Dutton House Inn the same way Amber Sargent did — on Craigslist.com.
Sargent, a 22-year-old student from the Oxford Hills area studying criminal justice at Husson University in Bangor, chose the newly opened inn as an alternative to living on campus again.
“It’s less expensive, and it’s quieter,” she said Friday as she sat in the Common Room waiting for her toast to pop up.
She shares a bathroom with other guests at the inn the same way she would if she lived in a dorm room. There’s a flat screen television with cable, a small refrigerator, a dresser, an armchair and closets in her room at the inn. There’s a pool table in the lobby and washers and dryers in the basement. Long-term plans include a library, gym and music room.
Monthly rates at the Dutton House Inn, which formerly housed Manna Ministries Inc., are $500 for a single bed, $550 for a full-sized bed and $600 for a queen-sized bed. The annual cost for the least expensive single dorm room, excluding a meal plan, at Husson is $6,180, according to information posted on its website. A single room at the inn would cost Sargent $4,000 for eight months.
“Even without a full kitchen here, I can use the toaster, heat frozen meals in the microwave, and eat out for less [cost] than the on-campus meal plan,” she said.
Others who were staying at the inn last week included traveling nurses working temporarily at Eastern Maine Medical Center and St. Joseph Hospital in Bangor as well as a couple of tourists who used it as a base for exploring the area, owner Peter Dresser said Friday during a tour of the building that once served as Bangor’s poor house.
“We’re finding that there are a lot of professional people who are looking for a place to stay for less than a year, so they can’t sign a lease on an apartment,” he said. “We also have had people with us who are in the process of moving to the area but don’t know the area. This can be a good base for people while they look for a house and decide what town they want to live in.”
Last fall, Dresser, Pro Realty of Bangor President David Giroux and their partners bought the property, located at 629 Main St., for $390,000 at a bank auction and began renovations. Nineteen rooms opened this spring and another 20 are set to open this fall. Next year, 52 rooms will be available.
Dresser said Friday that he did not yet have a handle on how much renovations and getting the building up to code would cost.
The inn took its name from Samuel E. Dutton. He owned the property in 1827 when Bangor voters approved purchasing the 100-acre farm to establish a poor farm.
The land extended from Main Street to the Penobscot River and included all of what is now Bangor Municipal Golf Course. Almshouse residents were expected to work if they were able. Residents in the 19th century raised 90 percent of their own food.
Most of the residents over the years were women and children left destitute by the death or desertion of a husband, according to a history gathered by Beal College students in 2001. Others were mentally ill or disabled with no family to care for them. Some were confined to cells with wooden bars, two of which still exist.
The creation of Social Security and other forms of public assistance brought a gradual end to the need for an institution like the almshouse. The home became the Bangor Chronic Disease Hospital in 1948. It moved in 1970 to the former Dow Air Force Base Hospital and became the Bangor Nursing Facility.
Beal College bought the property from the city in 1970 to use as a dormitory. Five years later, the college moved its entire operation there. Beal moved in 2004 to the former Saucony shoe factory, where it continues to operate. That same year, Manna Ministries bought the building for $685,000.
Dresser said last week that the Dutton House Inn is unique in northern Maine in its efforts to serve traveling professionals and others unable to sign a long-term lease.
“We’re building our own little community here away from the traditional motel/hotel model,” he said.
The inn also has daily and weekly rates.