Lord Mansion

The Lord Mansion is located on the north side of Summer Street, opposite its junction with Park Street. The house consists of multiple sections, roughly oriented from west to east, set back from the road on landscaped grounds above a retaining wall. The main house is a roughly square two-story wood-frame structure, with a hip roof, and flushboard on the main (west-facing) facade and clapboards elsewhere. The front facade is adorned with pilasters at the corners and on both sides of the entrance, where they rise all the way to the roof line. The entrance is framed by sidelight windows, with a fanlight window above. A three-part window is on the second level above the entrance, and there is a gabled dormer-like section on the roofline, which has a decorative carved fan. The roof is encircled by a low balustrade. Attached to the rear (east) of this block is a 2+1⁄2-story five-bay hip-roof block that is the oldest part of the house.^[2]

The first portion of the house was built by Jacob Curtis (1701-1776), who owned the land prior to 1763. Jacob Curtis sold the house to Job Lyman, August 9, 1763. Lyman sold the property, with buildings to Ebenezer Rice, October 27, 1765. It was while Rice owned the property that he rented the small house to Jonathan Banks, from York, Maine. However, Banks never owned the property as deeds prove. Nor did he build the building on the land as recent new research show. Rice sold to Jacob Curtis (1727-1786). Curtis died intestate and his estate sold the property with two acres and buildings to Jonas Clark a local judge, who in 1801 built what is now the main portion of the house. The house was purchased in 1822 by William Lord, a local Kennebunk merchant and shipbuilder. The house is locally distinctive for its combination of well-preserved Federal period elements. The rear ell has been extensively altered.

• National Register of Historic Places listings in York County, Maine