A 5th-generation home with the ‘best view on MDI’ is on the market

For the first time in its nearly 200-year history, a multimillion dollar home on one of Maine’s most desirable plots of land has made its market debut.

The 5-bedroom, 2 bathroom home in the sought-after Somes Sound neighborhood on Mount Desert Island sits on the ocean with a rare southerly view of the mountains of Acadia National Park. In the same family for five generations, the home was listed in late April for $5.5 million.

“It’s the best view on MDI,” listing agent Scott McFarland, a broker with LandVest/Christie’s International Real Estate, said. “Countless people, artists and photographers, have stopped right there to capture that view.”

The property has been the site of tens of weddings and even a couple L.L. Bean catalog photo shoots, Mady Allen, the home’s owner, said. But to Allen, the most compelling feature of the property isn’t the stunning views, it’s the colorful history.

Allen’s great-grandfather sailed to this plot around 1860, she said. He traveled along the 44th parallel north all the way from Bordeaux, France, Allen said, earning himself the local moniker “Mr. Bordeaux” that he would later adopt as his surname.

When he arrived, he built a log cabin at the site of the home. For decades, he and his descendants ran a successful dairy farm, Bordeaux Dairy, there. Allen fondly recalls the memory of looking out her window as a little girl and seeing black and white Holstein cows lumbering about right outside their house.

After Allen’s parents met and married in 1945, they worked to replace the old log cabin with the house that stands today, even withstanding embers from the Great Bar Harbor Fire of 1947 .

Allen’s father, Arnold, who owned a lumber mill on the island, built the house. His workmanship is evident in the home’s knotty pine paneling, she said. Her mother, Marie Bordeaux, designed the 2,900 square foot home, and had Allen’s father build surprising little details like a wooden magazine rack and shoe closet into the house itself.

“There’s just little things they thought of,” Allen said. “I wish I’d asked them, ‘Where’d you get that idea?’”

Allen, who has worked many jobs throughout her life but primarily has been a teacher in New Hampshire, returned home to take ownership of the house from her parents 16 years ago.

She grows tearful when thinking about all the love and long histories bound up in these walls, and hates to give it up. But the house is getting older and requires upkeep that, on top of property taxes, have stretched Allen thin as a retired, single woman.

“What’s hard is thinking my ancestors would think I let them down,” Allen said. “It’s an extremely hard decision, and I get emotional about it, but it’s the right thing to do.”

Since it was listed a few weeks ago, the home has generated online buzz, McFarland said. Over Memorial Day weekend, the agent expects target clientele will be coming to Mount Desert Island and might see the property for sale while driving through the desirable neighborhood.

Though some updates might be needed on the home, McFarland expects it will attract many prospective buyers given its spectacular location. A huge plus of the listing, McFarland said, is that the area off to the side of the home — once home to Bordeaux Dairy’s operations — is conservation land and will never be developed.

Allen hopes that while a new owner might tack on a modern addition to the property, they will honor its history and craftsmanship and preserve the home as is.

“I do think it’s probably close to the most spectacular privately owned view on the island,” she said, “and I’ve never ever taken being here for granted a single second.”