Kennebunkport's $9M tear down: Owners demolish Grey Gull Cottage to make way for new home

Now, three months later, the home overlooking the Vaughn Island Preserve no longer exists.

Geoff Bowley, of Bowley Builders in Kennebunk, confirmed that his company started tearing down the home on Monday and expects to finish work at the site in the days ahead.

According to Bowley, his clients, Tim and Linda O’Neil, of Greenwich, Connecticut, have plans for their newly purchased property.

“Their intent is to build a home on the parcel,” he said.

The town granted the O’Neils a demolition permit back in November. According to the permit, the demolition is expected to cost around $20,000.

Built in 1929, the home, located at the mouth of Turbats Creek, had been in the same family for more than 80 years. The historic five-bedroom home covered 4,108 square feet, with land spanning 275 feet of waterfront.

Attempts to reach the O'Neils were unsuccessful.

Agent Bill Gaynor, of Legacy Properties Sotheby’s International Realty in Kennebunk, handled the sale last December.

“The sale of Grey Gull cottage demonstrates the insatiable desire for prestigious Maine waterfront properties,” Gaynor said at the time.

Indeed, the ten top-selling homes in York County in 2023 all were along the coast, with seven of them located in the Kennebunks, according to statistics provided by Teri Woods, the president of the York County Council of the Maine Association of Realtors.

The purchase of the Grey Gull Cottage for $9 million considerably outpaced the second-highest sale of a single-family property in the county last year: the relatively new, four-bedroom waterfront house at 103 Marshall Point Road in Kennebunkport. That half-acre property sold for close to $6.2 million.