356 State Street, Ellsworth, ME
The Whitney residence is a largely intact version of Barber’s design number 83, as published in the “New Model Dwellings” pattern book, the first edition which was published in 1894. Mr. Whitney was a Lumber Baron, so the woodwork in this home is exceptional. The first edition of “New Model Dwellings” was the first Barber pattern book to display some Colonial Renaissance designs, Design 83 being one of them. Barber was decidedly reluctant to acknowledge “Colonial” architecture as the new American aesthetic, following the impressive gleam of the great “White City”, that of the 1893 Colombian Exposition in Chicago. As it turns out, Barber could not stop the inevitable.