Former Bangor mayor’s historic downtown home available for $1.1M

A historic Bangor home, once considered “among the finest” in the city, is for sale for the first time in half a century.

Located at 50 Broadway near the intersection of State Street and Broadway, the stately Colonial Revival-style home offers more than 4,200 square feet of living space.

The home holds more than a dozen rooms, including five bedrooms and four bathrooms, according to Jan Currier of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Northeast Real Estate, the listing agent for the property.

With an asking price of $1.1 million, the property has already garnered interest from prospective buyers after hitting the market early last month, Currier said.

Designed by renowned architect Wilfred Mansur, the home was built around 1911 on the site of another property owned by a local pastor. That home was destroyed in Bangor’s Great Fire of 1911, Currier said.

Arthur Chapin, a relative of John Adams, the second president of the United States, commissioned the home. Chapin was known locally for opening a successful grocery store, Arthur Chapin & Co., on Broad Street. Born in 1855, Chapin also served as Bangor’s mayor from 1899 to 1901, according to the Bangor Historical Society.

Bangor Daily News records from 1911 describe the Chapin House as “among the finest residences of its kind in Bangor.”

The home was most recently owned by Dr. Moshe Myerowitz, who both lived in and operated his chiropractic practice there. The floor-to-ceiling cabinets in the butler’s pantry still hold labels from the spices and various homeopathic remedies he used to treat patients, Currier said.

This prior use makes it well-equipped to serve as a home office or private practice again, or be transformed into a studio space. The property’s size also lends itself to becoming a multigenerational family home or a rental property, Currier said.

Other interested parties have reimagined it as a small assisted living facility, as the home is already set up to hold live-in caretakers, Currier said. There are accessible entrances, and the grand central staircase has a chairlift installed by the previous owner.  

“There are a lot of possibilities because of its location, and it has a ton of parking, which is unusual,” Currier said.

The home sits in the city’s Broadway Historic District, which dictates how the home can be maintained and updated over time to ensure it maintains its historic appearance and integrity.

The home is filled with built-in shelving and storage, along with several century-old features, including a dumbwaiter and working call buttons that once alerted staff when residents needed help.

Other charming features, believed to be original to the house, include light fixtures, solid wood doors and crystal doorknobs, according to Currier.

Aside from the home’s soaring ceilings and many original features, Currier said she’s most captivated by the natural beauty and quality of the home.

“You don’t hear much squeaking, but in some of the older houses you’ll hear a lot of squeaking,” Currier said. “It’s very solid, with the quality of those beautiful built-ins.”

The grand home holds two staircases, numerous pocket doors, four fireplaces, at least three entrances and an enclosed sun porch. There are also some modern touches, including updated windows and heat pumps, Currier said.

The building’s sprawling attic and walk-out basement, which once acted as a root cellar and laundry area, offer additional storage space, Currier said.

Outside, there’s a small parking lot and spacious deck on the south side of the house. A driveway on the home’s north side leads to a detached carriage house that offers additional storage for a vehicle or other equipment. That outbuilding was recently rebuilt following a fire in January, Currier said.

It’s also rumored Theodore Roosevelt gave a speech on the home’s front parapet overlooking Broadway, though there’s no known record of such an event, she said.