Barncastle

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name = Barncastle
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location =South St
Blue Hill, Maine
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architect = George Clough
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added = November 10, 1980
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refnum = 80000219
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"Barncastle" is one of the earliest and largest summer cottages in Blue Hill, Maine and remains one of its most visible and idiosyncratic. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places and originally called "Ideal Lodge" after the Boston Ideal Opera Company which was founded by its builder, Effie Hickley Ober, the house was designed by Blue Hill native and noted Boston architect George Asa Clough in 1884.

Entirely engulfing a smaller Cape Cod-style house owned by Effie's mother, Mary Peters Hinckley (Ober) Atherton, Clough's design derived from notable buildings of his more famous contemporaries: the massing of the main block was based on a cottage by W.R. Emerson, and the landmark arch-and-turret link between kitchen wing and carriage barn strongly recalls familiar works by McKim, Mead and White at Narragansett Pier and Mamaroneck.

Originally painted barn red with cream trim like its sister down the street, (Parker House, also remodelled by Clough for his client's sister, Elizabeth Merrill, and also on the National Register), "Barncastle" is a fitting and graceful name for this rambling, gambrel-roofed shingle-style cottage. [cite book|title=Head of the Bay: Sketches and Pictures of Blue Hill, Maine 1762-1952|last=Clough|first=Annie L.|date=1953|publisher=Shoreacre Press|location=Blue Hill, Maine]

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