Bar Harbor property with ties to Alexander Hamilton sells
A 40-acre property in Bar Harbor that was once home to a mansion owned by a member of the Alexander Hamilton family was sold in January for $3.9 million to local developers Chris Swan and Scott Henggeler.
The Mount Desert Islander reported that the centerpiece of the property today is a 7,600-square-foot mansion built by Robert Juliano, who bought the property from William Pearson Hamilton in 1983. The mansion houses an unusual collection of building materials and salvaged items, such as pink granite pillars that likely came from Hamilton’s mansion, which was called Thirlstane and burned in 1947.
“It was a desolate place where you could picnic and look at the ruins,” Deborah Dyer, curator at the Bar Harbor Historical Society, told the Islander.
Swan and Henggeler purchased 35 acres on Hamilton Hill from the Juliano family five years ago and divided it into 14 residential lots, 13 of which have been sold. The recent purchase, a private sale between Swan and Henggeler and the Juliano family, gives them 75 acres on Hamilton Hill. Swan said the Juliano property could also be subdivided into 16 or 17 lots, unless he finds a buyer interested in the whole properties. The property has views of Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park. The property has never been publicly marketed.
According to “Cottages of Bar Harbor,” Thirlstane was designed by William Ralph Emerson and built in 1881 for Rebecca Scott of Washington, D.C. It was purchased in 1897 by Edward deVeaux Morrell of Philadelphia. In 1926, Thirlstane was purchased by William Pierson Hamilton, a great-grandson of Alexander Hamilton and son-in-law of J. P. Morgan. The cottage burned during the 1947 fire, but remnants remained visible from various points in downtown Bar Harbor and from higher places in the area.
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