Historic New England: Nickels-Sortwell House

For stop five on my trip through Maine, I went back to Wiscasset to visit another Historic New England (HNE) property and National Historic Landmark. Built by shipping investor William Nickels and his wife Jane in 1807, Nickels-Sortwell House is a federal-style mansion with a ridiculous number of windows. Like many owners of grand houses in Maine and New Hampshire, the Nickels family was a victim of President Thomas Jefferson’s disastrous Embargo of 1807 and the subsequent War of 1812. Both William and Jane had died by 1815, so the debt-saddled children rented out the house. This started a tradition of renting at Nickels-Sortwell House, which continues to this day: the back portion of the house can be rented through a number of booking sites if you have the budget for it.

Nickels-Sortwell House seen from the street; three-quarters view of the Federal-style house. A stone wall topped with a white picket fence surrounds the house.
PHOTOGRAPH BY Abigail Epplett

The first renters were the Turner family. Mother Mary Turner managed an upscale tavern on the first floor while raising nine children. During this period, the house was first called Turner’s Tavern and later Mansion House. After a few changes in ownership, the property was renamed again to Belle Haven Inn. Upon staying at the inn, the wealthy Sortwell family enjoyed their time so much that Alvin Foye Sortwell, Sr. bought the place and turned it back into a family residence. The close-knit and loving family, along with their well-treated servants, had fond memories of the house that they wanted to share with the community and even the country. Cynthia Sortwell Castleman, the granddaughter of Alvin, worked for Life Magazine, so one family Thanksgiving was turned into a news story. As older members passed away and the family grew more distant, Frances Augusta Sortwell bequeathed the building and its contents to HNE, which opened as a museum in 1958.

Mantel clock at Nickels-Sortwell House; Small decorative clock with a wooden case and a painted reverse glass panel underneath the face.
PHOTOGRAPH BY Abigail Epplett
Colonial Revival style parlor at Nickels-Sortwell House; Portrait of a man above a fireplace. A wooden chair with floral upholstery is on the left, while the embroidered fire screen is on the right. The room is decorated with yellow damask wallpaper
PHOTOGRAPH BY Abigail Epplett

The Nickels family spared no expenses on bonus features for the house. In the years before electricity, daylight was at a premium. A conical skylight and lunette windows, so called for their half-moon shape, brought much needed light to the space. The Sortwell family also left their mark with the creation of the Sunken Garden next door to their house. Now maintained by the Garden Club of Wiscasset, it was first created in the remaining cellar of a burned house by the mother-daughter team of Gertrude Winship Dailey Sortwell and Frances Sortwell. The family donated the garden to the town in 1958, the same year that the house opened as a museum.

Sunken Gardens of Wiscasset; Stone steps down into a sunken garden
PHOTOGRAPH BY Abigail Epplett
Looking up the stairs at Nickels-Sortwell House; A spiral staircase turning counterclockwise and circling around a conical skylight.
PHOTOGRAPH BY Abigail Epplett
Upstairs Lunette Window at Nickels-Sortwell House casting a light onto the darkened floor
PHOTOGRAPH BY Abigail Epplett

Like many HNE properties, tours run on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays from Historic New England’s open house in June through mid October with tours on the half-hour at 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. If you arrive early and there are no tours in progress, the tour guide will happily take you inside. This was among the most flexible of the tour experiences I had at HNE properties. Tickets are standard HNE pricing: $15 for adults, $13 for seniors, $7 for students, and $0 for HNE members and those with a library pass. The house is not accessible for those using a wheelchair, and the stairs might be too steep for people with low mobility. Nickels-Sortwell House does not have an online virtual tour at this time.

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Abigail Epplett

Abigail Epplett leads a dual life as a freelance digital marketing consultant for small humanities-focused organizations and as a customer experience design creative specialist at lab equipment manufacturer Waters Corporation. She holds an MA in Museum Education from Tufts University, where she researched the history of New England from Plymouth to the Civil War. To learn more about her adventures with museums, visit her current blog at abbyeppletthistorian.blogspot.com.

Abigail is Historian-In-Residence at the National Museum of Mental Health Project: https://www.nmmhproject.org/