The future of the former Unitarian Church Parsonage at 15 Portland Road in Kennebunk is again in question. I have collected historical information about the house that may be useful to those contemplating its historic value.

The Unitarian Society bought a nearly 3-acre lot for a parsonage from Horace Porter in 1833. The house was likely built soon after that. Town Clerk Andrew Walker wrote in his diary that the cost of the land and buildings to the parish was about $1,350. It was used as a parsonage for 17 years. In May of 1850, the Unitarian Parish sold the property to Capt. Thomas Lord, son of Dominicus Lord.

As a very young man Thomas Lord became a successful sea captain. He gave up going to sea in the 1840s and focused on vessel ownership. In the 1840s, he was also one of the early Kennebunk believers in the abolition of slavery, a sentiment that was unpopular in the seafaring town at that time. In 1858, he invited a person of color to speak at the Lyceum immediately following Andrew Walker’s lecture, “Some Natural and Artificial Distinctions of People in Society.” Half a dozen men got up and left. Later, in a heated conversation, E.E. Bourne confronted Capt. Tom Lord on the propriety of “introducing a Negro to the Lyceum.”

Thomas Lord, one of the founding stockholders of The Ocean Bank, died in 1861 leaving the house to his wife. Robert W. Lord purchased the house from her estate for $2,250, “fully repaired it” and sold it to Hiram Waterhouse in 1885. The Waterhouse family we thank for the Waterhouse Pavilion, owned the house for the longest interval.

Hiram Waterhouse and his bride Eliza Taylor celebrated their Golden Wedding Anniversary at the house in 1893. They raised their own children and their grandson Homer Tarbox Waterhouse, there. He became a lawyer and later owned the house. Homer T. Waterhouse and his wife Bessie Harmon raised three children at the house with the help of Bessie’s sister Edna, a devoted parishioner of the Unitarian Church who lived with them. Their granddaughter, Carolyn Sherman shared many of these pictures with us. Her uncle Homer, also a lawyer, owned the house along with Carolyn’s mother Lois Kinney and her aunt Christine Raines.

The house was clearly renovated several times in its history as are most houses.