On Eden Street a granite French chateau rises, all turrets and dormers, facing you from the shore. Designed by New York City architect Bruce Price and built in 1895, this French Chateau-style pile was one of the most elaborate constructed here during Bar Harbor’s heyday as a summer resort. Today it belongs to the College of the Atlantic and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.
It sits on the shore of Frenchman Bay, northwest of Bar Harbor’s central business district. Up close the building’s mass is unmistakable: a large three-to-four–story granite structure with a richly complex roofline of projections, turrets, and dormers. The west-facing front facade, turned away from the water, reads like five distinct sections.
The central block rises four stories, its porte-cochere supported by Ionic columns and a heavy turned balustrade. Look up at the second floor’s trio of windows topped by arched panels with fleur-de-lis, the third floor’s three windows divided by Ionic columns, and the fourth floor’s mansard-style roof punctuated by a dormer. Between those turrets, the mansard roof catches the light off Frenchman Bay just beyond.