Oaklands, also known locally as Oaklands Castle, is a historic house on Oaklands Farm in southern

Gardiner, Maine Gardiner is a city in Kennebec County, Maine, Kennebec County, Maine, United States. The population was 5,961 at the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census. Popular with tourists, Gardiner is noted for its culture and old architecture. Gardiner ...

. The main house of this farm property is a stone Gothic Revival work from the early career of the noted 19th-century architect

Richard Upjohn Richard Upjohn (22 January 1802 – 16 August 1878) was a British-born American architect who emigrated to the United States and became most famous for his Gothic Revival churches. He was partially responsible for launching the movement to su ...

. It was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 1973.

Description and history

Oaklands Farm is a property of more than which has been in the hands of the locally prominent Gardiner family (for whom the city is named) for centuries. The land was granted in the 18th century to

Silvester Gardiner Dr. Silvester Gardiner (June 29, 1708 – August 8, 1786) was a physician, pharmaceutical merchant and land developer of Maine. He is known for founding the city of Gardiner. Early years He was born in South Kingstown, Rhode Island, the son of ...

, one of the Kennebec Proprietors. Confiscated by the state during the

American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...

(because Gardiner was a

Loyalist Loyalism, in the United Kingdom, its overseas territories and its former colonies, refers to the allegiance to the British crown or the United Kingdom. In North America, the most common usage of the term refers to loyalty to the British Cro ...

who fled), it was recovered by Gardiner's grandson and heir, Robert Hallowell Gardiner. Gardiner developed not just the estate, but promoted the growth of the town of Gardiner, and served as its first mayor when it was incorporated. The Oaklands estate house was built in 1835–36 to a design by

, then in the early stages of his illustrious career. with The Oaklands mansion house stands overlooking the

Kennebec River The Kennebec River (Abenaki language, Abenaki: ''Kinəpékʷihtəkʷ'') is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map , accessed June 30, 2011 river within the U.S. state of Maine. It ri ...

, west of River Road and south of Cottage Road, on the larger Oaklands estate, and is accessed by dirt roads from the north and east. The house has a two-story main block with hip roof, and a -story ell extending to its west. It is built out of

ashlar Ashlar () is finely dressed (cut, worked) stone, either an individual stone that has been worked until squared, or a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, generally rectangular cuboid, mentioned by Vitruv ...

granite, and features a crenellated parapet around the roof edge, and a projecting bastion-like turret at one corner. It was built out of stone quarried nearby in Hallowell.

References

{{National Register of Historic Places Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Maine National Register of Historic Places in Kennebec County, Maine Gothic Revival architecture in Maine Houses completed in 1835 Houses in Kennebec County, Maine Buildings and structures in Gardiner, Maine

Description and history

See also

References