You can buy the historic ‘gingerbread’ home of a general who transformed Rockland

The summer home of a lauded Maine general is on the market for $660,000 in Rockland, the city that he helped transform by taking a major risk.

The 3-bed, 2-bath home is the “finest of Knox County’s Gothic Revival cottages” and the only significant example of this architectural style in Rockland, according to the National Register of Historic Places , which both the home and its barn joined in 1983.

The house was built around 1853 for Davis Tillson, a local businessman and one of the highest-ranked Maine generals in the Civil War. He notably built Tillson’s Wharf, which cost him $200,000, according to an online biography . That sum would be equivalent to millions today, but the gamble paid off and was a major success.

“He did a lot for this town,” Cheryl Oliveri Daly, the property’s listing agent, said. “[His home] is a landmark of sorts in town because it is so unique.”

The sellers she’s representing bought Tillson’s home in the 1980s when it was in “tough shape,” Oliveri Daly, a broker with Camden Real Estate Company, said. They restored the historic home, keeping some of its original features intact including the fireplaces, wide pine floors and the staircase, too. The brick facade and slate roof are also original, including a delicate white trim that makes the house look like “gingerbread,” the broker said.

Some standout features of the 2,700-square-foot home include its large period barn, its floor to ceiling windows in the front parlors and its location. The home has a large backyard with fruit trees and raspberry bushes, and its 1.7 acre lot is only a couple blocks from downtown Rockland.

“Rockland is hot; it’s happening big time,” the agent said. “Downtown is vibrant, which is so great. There are no empty storefronts, and it’s a year-round community.”

The home has been on the market for a few months, and was also shown last summer, but has seen a lot of interest, Oliveri Daly said. Prospective buyers have been a mix of ages, from young people in their early 30s looking for a permanent home, to older couples looking to retire or live somewhere seasonally.

But Oliveri Daly said what almost all have had in common is that they are not from Maine. That is getting common in Rockland’s housing market, which has been hot in the last few years. Demand for very few homes here has led typical home values to double since early 2019, now sitting just above $353,000, according to Zillow .

“It’s a lot of people from out of state who want to come here for a different quality of life — San Francisco, Texas, I showed it to a young couple from Rhode Island,” she said of the prospective buyers. “Only one or two from Maine.”