If you have a cool $15 million burning a hole in your pocket — or you can afford an $88,000 per month mortgage — East of Eden, one of the last remaining summer estate properties in Bar Harbor, is for sale.
Located at 145 Eden St., just down the road from College of the Atlantic, this 15,000 square foot palatial estate, formerly known as Eegonos, was built by architect Guy Lowell in 1910, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It went up for sale late last summer, and it’s still on the market.
According to its 1979 NRHP application, it was designed in the Beaux Arts and Mediterranean Revival styles, and was one of many grand estates built during the Gilded Age by the wealthy summer residents of the island that lined Eden Street, heading into downtown Bar Harbor. At the time, it cost $97,200 to build, and was built by “150 Italian workers.”
In 1947, the Great Bar Harbor Fire destroyed most of these estates, and East of Eden is one of the few that remain. From 1959 until 1975, the property was used as a French language instruction school for girls, after which it was sold and used as a private residence.
According to the listing on the Knowles Company website, the house sits on nine acres, and boasts eight bedrooms and nine bathrooms. It has a grand marble entryway, 14-foot ceilings, an eight-bay garage, a wine cellar, 14 marble fireplaces, wrought iron balconies and decorative plaster friezes on many first-floor ceilings. A private dock looks out onto Frenchman Bay.
This property is not even close to being the most expensive house ever sold on Mt. Desert Island. Just last fall, the late David Rockefeller Sr.’s Ringing Point estate in Seal Harbor sold for $19 million. And guess who bought it? Billionaire Mitchell Rales, who just a few years ago built what is actually the priciest home on MDI: a $24 million Northeast Harbor estate, completed in 2010.
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