The landmark Vinalhaven building where famed artist Robert Indiana lived and worked for four decades is on the market for $1.4 million as the foundation he created looks to divest its properties on the island.
The approximately 7,000-square-foot Star of Hope Lodge at 46 Main St. in downtown Vinalhaven was originally constructed in 1884 as a lodge for the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, a fraternal organization. Indiana purchased it in the 1970s, and it served as the world renowned artist’s home, studio, archive and personal museum until his death there in May 2018 at age 89.
He used the former storefronts as work and storage space and lived on the upper floors, gradually filling the lodge with his artwork, archives and collections. The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Indiana’s will expressed his desire for the property to be restored “to museum quality” and used as an art space open to the public for visits, classes and lectures. In 2022, his estate was estimated to be worth $170 million. His plan was never realized, however, amid years of litigation over Indiana’s art and estate. The Star of Hope Foundation said maintaining the vacant building was no longer the best way to fulfill its broader mission and that selling the property will give someone else an opportunity to determine its next chapter.
Legacy Properties Sotheby’s International Realty, which is listing the property, calls it a rare “chance to own an important piece of Maine and American art history, preserve it, and give this landmark new life and purpose,” adding that “few properties combine architecture, history, art, and place in quite this way.”
The 12-room Star of Hope Lodge has no conventional bedrooms, bathrooms or kitchen specified in the listing. The ground floor is zoned for commercial use while the residences above offer views of Vinalhaven Harbor from the front and Carver’s Pond from the rear. It lies in the center of Vinalhaven’s main commercial strip, next door to the Post Office and market.
The top-heavy Victorian structure — created by combining two adjacent buildings beneath a large mansard roof and tower — required extensive stabilization to address structural problems and would likely require significantly more work to make it livable.
“Documentation of completed and recommended future work is available,” the listing notes.
Indiana, one of the leading figures of the mid-20th-century Pop Art movement, has work on display in many of the world’s most prominent museums. He is best known for his iconic “LOVE,” with its tilted letter O, which first came to widespread attention on the Museum of Modern Art’s 1965 Christmas card before being reproduced extensively in prints, sculptures and public art installations around the world — perhaps most famously in Philadelphia’s LOVE Park.
The listing comes after the Star of Hope Foundation, established by Indiana to support the visual arts in Maine, announced that it would sell its Vinalhaven real estate assets and redirect the proceeds toward grants and other support for artists and cultural programs.
A video shared by Sotheby’s documents the extensive stabilization project, showing how the lodge’s unusual construction and island location made repairing it particularly difficult. Casey Leonard of Rockport Building Partners said the building faced “the possibility of collapsing and falling to the ground” within five to 10 years without the work.
“All this load was causing this wall to want to force out and literally pop and fall to the ground,” Leonard said as he led a videographer on a tour of the building during stabilization. In another section of the video, he noted that “all the sills were compromised.”
Steel supports were added to carry the weight of the large roof safely to the foundation and around the storefront windows, while load-bearing timbers were replaced and three of the building’s four exterior walls were shored up.
Architectural details and lighting were preserved, especially in the interior, where the video shows Indiana prints still hanging on the walls. But peeling paint and deteriorated finishes visible throughout the building indicate that scope of work is still needed throughout.
Another 16-minute video shows the building as it was in detail before the restoration project, panning over boarded-up windows outside and Indiana’s archives and other remnants of his life and work inside.
Built during the height of Vinalhaven’s granite industry, the Star of Hope originally contained storefronts on the first floor and meeting rooms for the Independent Order of Odd Fellows above. Indiana began visiting Vinalhaven in 1969, then acquired the building and became a full-time island resident in 1978.
The Star of Hope Foundation is also selling its property at 10 Main St. for $210,000. It has earmarked $200,000 in 2026 for cultural programming on Vinalhaven.
This story appears through a media partnership with Midcoast Villager.