|
Two historic houses are incorporated into the Farnsworth Art Museum's collection. The Farnsworth Homestead was the home of Lucy Farnsworth, the museum's original benefactor, and is part of the main museum campus. The architectural style of the house and outbuildings is Greek Revival but the interior is decorated in high Victorian style. The elegant structure has survived intact, with virtually no adaptation. Minimal electrical systems were added for safety purposes, but all the original heating and plumbing is still in place, including what was probably the first indoor bathroom with a flush toilet in the city. Thanks to a generous inheritance from her father and brother James, and to her own business acumen, Lucy Farnsworth left a sizable estate. She directed that the bulk of it be used to establish the William A. Farnsworth Library and Art Museum as a memorial to her father. She recognized the historical importance and the potential educational value of the family's house and left instructions that it be maintained with the original furnishings and be kept open to the public. The Homestead was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973. The Olson House was the subject of numerous works of art by Andrew Wyeth, including the well-known Christina's World, 1948, owned by the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Wyeth's series of drawings, watercolors and tempera paintings featuring Christina Olson, her brother Alvaro and the house itself, occupied Wyeth from 1939 through 1968. In the summer of 1939, seventeen-year-old Betsy James, who would later marry Andrew Wyeth, introduced him to her neighbors Christina and Alvaro Olson. Over the next three decades a friendship developed between the artist and the Olsons. Wyeth was allowed to wander through the house as he pleased and used an upstairs room as a studio. The land on which the house, a classic "saltwater" two-story Maine farm house, was built was part of a 300-acre parcel granted in 1743 to William Hathorn IV, Samuel Hathorn I and Alexander Hathorn. The house was constructed in the late 1700s and underwent enlargements and additions up until around 1871. It has remained essentially unchanged since that time. The Olson House was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1993. |
