A pair of new city residents now own the historic Rockland Talbot House.
Katie Witt and James Wood — through Wittwood Estates LLC — purchased the Talbot House in Rockland on May 28 from Maude and Dixie LLC. Maude and Dixie remains the owner of the neighboring Berry Manor Inn.
Witt said she and her husband stumbled upon the Talbot House. They are from Raleigh, North Carolina, but her brother and his wife live outside Portland and had encouraged them to move to Maine.
“We wanted to live in a community that was walkable, close to the ocean, and become a part of it,” she said.
They met a Realtor from Rockland who took them up and down the coast and looked at properties, including listings in Portland, Bangor, Augusta, Freeport and Lincolnville.
Then they were shown the Talbot House in February.
“We walked in and, wow, this is it,” Witt said.
The purchase price was $1,295,000.
Wood said they wanted to be their own bosses and not work for someone else.
“This seemed like a really good steppingstone,” he said.
The couple will continue to run the Talbot House as a bed and breakfast with six guest rooms.
The couple live on the third floor, which has two suites.
Witt and Wood are trying to determine what else they can do with the house. They want to have it open year-round, if possible, and host fun events such as murder mystery parties. They are also considering getting a license to hold brunches at the Talbot House.
“We don’t want it to be isolated so that only tourists and visitors get to experience the house. We really want it to be open so that the community can come in and share it,” Will said.
Wood agreed, saying groups like knitting clubs, tea parties, or puzzle clubs could use their community room.
Neither Wood nor Witt has experience running a bed and breakfast, but they have stayed at many.
“We wanted to own a property where we were both living in it along with entertaining folks,” Witt said.
She said she fell in love with the conservatory in the historic house.
Both have worked remotely as tech workers. Wood has been a program manager, project manager and developer. He still tinkers with making iPhone and Android apps.
Wood came from the United Kingdom in 2001 and started with a small, web-based company.
Witt came from Indiana and, after college, joined the Peace Corps and served in Central America, South America, and the South Pacific.
She said she enjoys entertaining folks, learning, cooking with other people, and forming a community.
“We’re really looking forward to building it here,” she said.
The couple said they want to hear from the community about what it wants. The bed and breakfast will be pet friendly.
She said they will work with other inns and, if full, they will refer to others with vacancies. They also want to be creative and work with local cafés and food trucks.
“I want people to feel like they’re coming to a friend’s house to stay as a guest,” Wood said.
The Victorian-style home was built in 1856. In 1963, Marion Talbot Lilley and Jean Talbot Foote, whose family had been benefactors of the nonprofit Home for Aged Women, donated the house on Talbot Avenue. The home provided assisted living for up to six residents, initially only women, but later both men and women. The home closed in 2014 when it no longer became financially feasible to operate.
The home was then purchased by the previous owners of Berry Manor Inn — Michael LaPosta Jr. and Cheryl Michaelsen — who converted it to a bed and breakfast. Maude and Dixie bought it in 2019.
This story appears through a media partnership with Midcoast Villager.