Victoria Mansion

Victoria Mansion at 109 Danforth Street in Portland, Maine is regarded as the finest surviving example of Italianate villa architecture in the United States and one of the most completely preserved high-Victorian domestic interiors in the country. The brownstone exterior was designed by New Haven architect Henry Austin and constructed between 1858 and 1860 as a summer residence for Ruggles Sylvester Morse, a New Orleans hotelier who commissioned a house that would announce his success in the formal language of the Italian Renaissance villa. Austin's asymmetrical composition features a square corner tower, deeply projecting bay windows, ornate carved stone brackets, and layered brownstone detail that placed the structure far outside the tradition of Maine domestic architecture. The interior is the mansion's extraordinary achievement. Morse engaged New York designer Gustave Herter — who would later design interiors for the Vanderbilt family — to create a unified decorative program for the principal rooms. What survives is a near-intact ensemble: trompe l'oeil marbled surfaces throughout the entrance hall and staircase, painted and gilded ceiling medallions in every main room, hand-carved woodwork executed in seven different domestic hardwoods, etched and stained glass imported from Germany, original Axminster carpeting, and gas chandeliers still hanging in the double parlors. Very few buildings in the country retain a Victorian decorative interior of this age, completeness, and quality. All visits to Victoria Mansion are conducted as guided tours only; the 50-minute tour covers the entrance hall, double parlors, library, dining room, and the principal staircase. The mansion is open May through October for regular tours and reopens in December for a popular holiday program when the rooms are decorated in period-appropriate Victorian Christmas style. The site is maintained by a nonprofit preservation organization and is a 10-minute walk from Portland's Old Port district.