The Turrets - Bar Harbor

About a mile from the village center of Bar Harbor, on the bay shore is a cottage which commands a sightly view of Frenchman's Bay. Fashioned after the Chateau de Blois in France and modernized to meet the requirements of an American home stands The Turrets.

The Turrets 1895

The Turrets 2022

Designed by Bruce Price, this cottage was built for John J. Emery and Lela Alexander Emery of New York. Emery was a member of the Lawyers Club, Tuxedo Club, and Reform Club.

The Turrets 1895

The Turrets 2022

Though designed by Price, John E. Clark deserves much credit for its construction. From the excavation of the stone ledge upon which the foundation rests, to the top of the chimneys, both interiorly and exteriorly, The Turrets grew under the trained eye of Clark. Charles Candage had charge of the carpentry work and Calvin H. Norris did the stonework.

By the time work began in October 1893, the local newspaper estimated that the cottage construction would employ about 100 men for 2 years and cost $75,000 to $100,000 to complete, most of which would go into Bar Harbor pocketbooks.

The floor timbers are steel and concrete floors 1 3/4" thick deaden the sound. The house is nearly fireproof as experience and modern science can make it. The roof was originally unique in a covering of especially designed 22" long cypress shingles. All flashings are of copper and the flat rooves are covered with the same metal. The windows throughout were of first quality French plate and the exterior finish was of chestnut. 

The main structure is built of granite from Eagle Lake quarry of D.W. Brewer & Sons and required 1700 perch of stone. Running around the bay side of the house is a broad veranda 100 feet in length, with a tiled floor and massive stone railing.

Bay Side Veranda 2022

Detail of Veranda Column 2022

Entrance to this elegant summer palace is through a massive porte-cochère, within the doors of which once stood an elephant of Phyrrhian marble, which was for three centuries at the front of the palace of a king of Agra, in India.

Main Hall 2022

The entire first floor was given in the charge of David P. Page of Boston, whose wonderful art is displayed to excellent advantage in the main hall, music room, reception room and library on the first floor. They also did the cabinet work for Marble House in Newport for W.K. Vanderbilt, as well as houses for Cornelius Vanderbilt, the Goelets, Mr. Burden and Mr. Pierpont Morgan at Newport. 

Lawford & Wakefield, well known painters and decorators of Bar Harbor, put the finishing touches on The Turrets. They had charge of all the painting, decorating and paper hanging. They were responsible for the beautiful enamel work in the music room, the decorative work on ceilings and sidewalls, the beautiful leather setting in the dining room, and in fact finished the cabinet work of the magnificent rooms, besides touching upon the Venetian carving throughout. The floors throughout the house, including the oak floors on the first floor, are marvels of their art.

Venetian Carving on Main Hall Ceiling 2022

Metallic Panel in Main Hall Ceiling 2022

The main hall leads through the house to the bay side where a magnificent view of Frenchman's Bay and mountains is obtained. The hall is ornamented in Venetian carved work of black walnut finished in wax, the walls being finished in costly delft work. Massive columns extend from the floor to ceiling the whole surmounted with a Corinthian cap. The cross beans are of black walnut inlaid with white boxwood of graceful design. The ceiling of the main hall are marvels of beauty in heavy panels of carved wood with imitation stucco work in metallic panels in between. Scattered about the room were once costly pieces of bric-a-brac, and quaint bits of Italian furniture, among which were many pieces of historic interest picked up by Emery on his European travels.

The reception room to the right and its ensemble were originally of the Louis XIV period. Ceilings and side walls were of white enamel and cherry. The walls were adorned with beautiful watercolors and the floors of highly polished wood almost reflected the image of the passing guest. The furniture was white and gold, the whole being beautifully set off by the fireplace of Italian marble.

The library nearby originally served as the den of the owner. It was finished in mahogany with a circular ceiling and the carving on the bookcases were gems of art.

Adjacent is the music room originally finished in cherry painted in cream enamel with old delicately tinted silk panels. The same effect is carried out in the ceiling, which was plaster with a cornice, the whole presenting a most beautiful effect. The portieres were also of same material with beautiful floral designs worked in.

Music Room 2022

The dining room is finished in polished dark oak, the walls wainscoted to the height of nine feet and carved in artistic designs. The massive carvings are beautiful in design and finish, and the Venetian carving about the room blends artistically with the more modern designs of the Page Company, and the guest being struck by the richness of the whole. The walls above the wainscoting were originally richly colored leather and the ceiling of dead finished quartered oak ceiling with metallic panels. The original table and sideboard were of beautifully carved black walnut selected by Emery when he was in Italy. A marble fireplace set off the room.

Dining Room 2022

A butler's pantry opening from dining room had shelves from floor to ceiling which were supported with brass rods.

A feature of the mansion is the grand stairway leading from the main hall. Built by Page, it is of black walnut, finished in wax, beautifully carved and fluted with a balustrade of a beautiful design.

Hallway and Stairway 1895

Hallway and Stairway 2022

The second story of the house was occupied by the sleeping, bath, and four guest rooms of the Emerys. All of the rooms on this floor have hard pine floors, and all of the rooms were painted white except Mrs. Emery's, which was cream white. All of the sleeping rooms on this floor, except one, had fireplaces.

Mr. Emery's apartments were a sleeping room, a fine dressing room situated in a tower, and a large bathing room of oriental magnificence. The second floor of the house is where the gems of modern plumbing are displayed, both models of beauty and elegance. Throughout the house every particle of pipe visible was nickel. Leighton, Davenport & Company of Bangor, whose branch office was at Bar Harbor was responsible for all the plumbing throughout the house. Mr. F.T. Young was the foreman on the company. The floor of Emery's bathroom was tiled, and the side walls were marble. In Mr. Emery's bathroom was a porcelain tub with hot and cold-water arrangements of latest pattern while in one corner stood a shower bath enclosed in a marble stall with semi-circular rows of perforated nickel pipes surmounted by a spray and arranged with mixing pipes of hot and cold water. Connecting was a toilet room with tilled floor and marble walls.

View of Frenchman's Bay from Edge of Property 2022

Mrs. Emery's rooms which were in the eastern corner of the rear of the house opened onto a balcony with a French window from which there is a delightful and surprising view of Frenchman's Bay. Her rooms consisted of a boudoir, sleeping room, and an elegantly appointed bath. The bathroom of Mrs. Emery was much larger the that of Mr. Emery and the same general effects were carried out, porcelain tub, marble slabs and basin, with the addition of a Sitz bath which was an elaborate affair. 

The guest rooms were all tower rooms. A general bathroom was off the hallway with a porcelain tub, marble slab and basin, tiled floor and marble walls. 

Nearby was the housemaids sink with marble floor and side walls. On this floor the hangings, draperies, and rugs were from Bokora.

The third floor contained a billiard room and six sleeping rooms. Like the second floor, all of the rooms on this floor have hard pine floors. The rooms are whitewood with hard pine floors except the billiard room which was finished in chestnut. The side of the billiard room toward the water was glass and from it was a charming view of the bay, islands, village, Sorrento, Grindstone Neck and the surrounding country. A guest's bathroom on the 4th floor had the same general arrangements as the others in the house. 

Two servants' rooms were on the second floor in the annex, finished in white wood with a hard oil finish. There was also a with a servant's bathroom containing an enamels iron tub, a connecting closet and the general fittings of both are marble. A housemaids sink, counterpart of the one on the second floor was also on this floor. There was also a sewing room on this floor leading from which there was a large cedar closet. In December 1903, John E. Clark's men raised the roof of the annex adding another story containing three large servant's rooms and a bath.

In the attic are two servants' rooms another large cedar closet, a large trunk room, and the tank room with the 1000-gallon tank. Instead of regulating water pressure from the street, this 1000-gallon tank, copper lined, was located in the attic and was fed from the street, thus giving a steadier and better pressure throughout the house and saving the mechanisms of the plumbing. At the end of each hall was a two-inch fire pipe fitted with hose a nozzle through which a stream from a two-inch pipe leading from the street could be thrown. A one-inch pipe supplied the other wants of the house.

A back stairway leads to the 12' high basement which extends under the entire house and here it was intended to build a bowling alley. On the basement floor was a large kitchen, located in the annex, toilet rooms, butler's pantry, laundry and washrooms supplied with set tubs, and which were fitted with the latest appliances, drying room, two furnace rooms, wine closet. and a storeroom. The kitchen, facing the water and finished in hard pine, as were all the basement rooms, had a slate floor and the walls were marble from floor ceiling. An 8-gallon copper boiler resting against a marble wall supplied hot and cold water for the kitchen service and the laundry was furnished from a 50-gallon galvanized iron boiler. In the kitchen Leighton, Davenport & Company also fitted a silver tank for washing dishes. A good-sized servant's dining room opened from the kitchen. Throughout the floor the most perfect sanitary arrangements existed. All the partitions of the basement and attic are of brick, 12" thick and the house was built to be fireproof throughout. In the basement were two furnaces to supply hot air for the entire house which radiated through nearly thirty pipes. Green & Reynolds of Bar Harbor furnished the heating apparatus and installed the copper and metal roofing.

The Bar Harbor Electric Light Company under Superintendent Luther Leach installed 150 incandescent lamps in the cottage. The house was wired throughout with brass armored conduits of the latest manufacture. The broad piazza, porte-cochère and in fact the entire house and stable was dotted with incandescent lights and when The Turrets was illuminated, it shone like an oriental palace. 

There was originally a stable on the property, designed by Clark, and located between the cottage and the road. It was also built of granite and was one of the finest in Maine. The stable was 62'x90', with a 40'x40' coach house, and contained all the modern facilities of a well-equipped stable. There were ten stalls, and the floors were fitted with hinges of the latest device for sanitary measures. On the second and third floors were nine elegantly finished living rooms.

Just to the west of the stable and closer to the road, a greenhouse was constructed. Shea Brothers began construction of this beginning in November 1907, executing handsome and solid concrete work. The greenhouse itself was built from specifications from the Pierson U-Bar Company.

Views of Partially Restored Formal Garden 2022

George A. Parker of Boston was the original landscape architect for the cottage grounds and Clark directed the landscaping for the property, with B.F. Higgins grading and laying out the grounds. The grounds about The Turrets were worthy productions of the landscape artists skill and the space was cleverly arranged to give the effect of distance.

With the 1895 season approaching and work winding down on the cottage, The Emerys arrived in Bar Harbor on June 9, 1895, taking rooms at the Belmont while they awaited completion of the work. At last work was completed and sometime between June 19th and June 22nd the Emerys moved into their cottage.

Between the 1902 and 1903 seasons, Clark had some men make trifling changes to the cottage and Lawford & Wakefield did some retouching and adding to some of their previous work on the cottage. The largest bit of work done at this time was by Leighton, Davenport and Company who installed practically new plumbing throughout the cottage.

Inspired by an Italian Garden she saw in 1908 while touring Italy, Mrs. Emery had this garden largely reproduced over the winter of 1909-1910 on the grounds of The Turrets.

Today The Turrets is owned by The College of the Atlantic which took possession of the cottage in the 1973 and completed a major restoration of the house in 2014. Today it houses academic and administrative space for the college.