Culture

Up in the air house, for now

|Ellie Fellers|

Mark Ray and his son Isaiah were spotted scurrying under the imposing home lifted off the ground, sitting on wooden stilts at Upper Gloucester Street while the pair ferried away debris to prepare for an eventual new foundation that will serve the two century year-old home they are bringing back to life. The remarkable project began last fall when Ray, who lives next door to the ailing structure, bought the two-acre property in hopes of restoring it.

Ray knows the neighborhood well. His grandparents, Ted and Louise, lived next door at the corner home and now Mark lives on the other side of his restoration project, so his heart was in the direction to take on the project. Recently retired from the Maine National Guard, Ray has the time and ability to take on the project.

Wally Bragdon lives around the corner on Bald Hill Road and says he was born in the home now under restorative care. “I have a picture of me when I was two years old when I lived at the house.”  He says the house served as a Masonic Hall during earlier days.

Mark Ray says the building is roughly two hundred years old and probably was in the neighborhood when New Gloucester’s Centennial Celebration is 1874 took place at Centennial Hall, next door to Ray’s current home.  Centennial Hall was demolished and the site is home  today to a home care agency and day care center.  

Ray plans for the building to have two apartments when completed and hopes to have one of his adult children live there. He’s also thinking of keeping the first floor open so his extended family can have family gatherings in the future. 

But, now, the ancient building has found a suitor worthy of bringing it back to life for the next centuries ahead.