Harrington House on Main Street in downtown Freeport serves as home to the Freeport Historical Society (FHS). The house, built in 1830, is a brick Federal-style building that until recently, included a decaying wooden ell positioned in the rear yard. While the home has been carefully preserved, it had serious limitations for the FHS program. Small parlors served as exhibition spaces, bedrooms as conference rooms, closets as offices, and the wooden ell as an archive space.

In the expansion and renovation by SA, the wooden ell was removed and replaced with a new flexible exhibition space that also serves as a meeting room for lectures and receptions. As the preservation of their collection is a priority, a new fireproof archive storage area with a state-of-the-art archival mechanical system was added.  A workroom next to the storage area provides public access to the collection for research.  Finally, an existing timber barn that was original to the historic house was renovated and serves as tenant space for the FHS.

All of the separate components on this small site were married together with open gallery corridors providing full accessibility and public visibility into the exhibition spaces.  The roof forms serve to reinforce the typical New England pattern of “Big House, Little House, Back House, Barn.”

Client  |  Freeport Historical Society

Location  |  Freeport, Maine

Photographer  |  Ryan Bent Photography

Awards  |  2023 Maine Preservation Honor Award