When Vincent and Eugenia Franco have visitors, it’s easy to give them directions: It’s the brick house on the corner of Summer and Cedar streets in Bangor. The big one with the red-painted facade and white pillars. You can’t miss it.

“They all know where I live after a very brief description of the house,” Vincent Franco, 66, said, laughing. “What makes it easier, also, is that it’s the only house on the street.”

Nestled among parking lots and car dealerships, businesses and the waterfront park, the Greek revival stands as the final vestige of the neighborhood’s stylish past. The home was built in 1832 and it has remained very much the same – minus the neighbors, of course – ever since.

“I just feel it should be [preserved],” said Eugenia Franco, who has lived in the house since she was a girl.

A family homestead

The property at 55 Summer St., called the Zebulon Smith house after the original owner, a Bangor jeweler, has been in Eugenia’s family since 1919. Her grandparents James and Elizabeth Buckley bought the house but lived next door. Her parents, James Jr. and Josephine Buckley, moved into the house in the late 1940s and raised their three daughters, Eugenia, Jayne and Elizabeth.

“When I was a kid, except for two brick buildings which were car dealerships, there were houses all around,” Eugenia recalled as she sat in her living room. “There were homes on both sides of the street.”

“It was a real, normal neighborhood,” Vincent added. “There were homes and other children. There were trees everywhere.”

When Eugenia, a schoolteacher, married Vincent, then a school administrator, in 1970, she stayed at home with her mother. Vincent’s work as a principal took him all over the state, but the Biddeford native considered Bangor his home base. He still remembers his reaction when Eugenia took him to meet her parents.

“I thought, ‘This is the biggest house I’ve ever been in,'” he said.

But the neighborhood was changing. One by one, the stately homes on the block were either turned into apartments or demolished to make way for businesses, but Eugenia’s father held out, and after he died, her mother had no desire to move.

“There was a little chitchat, but nothing ever got done,” Eugenia Franco said.

“She wasn’t going to be uprooted,” Vincent added. “She was going to remain here and that was it.”

And so was Eugenia. It was her homestead. She grew up there, and she and Vincent had raised their daughter, Elizabeth, there.

When Josephine Buckley died, she left the house to her three daughters. Jayne Kimball now lives in Falmouth Foreside, Elizabeth Allen now lives in Falls Church, Va., and neither wanted to return to Bangor, so Eugenia stayed. Not that she minded.

For years, she and Vincent have considered themselves keepers of the home, which was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. In 1986, the Bangor Historical Society deemed the house a “community treasure,” and honored the Francos with a bronze plaque, which is on display in the living room.

They have made repairs and updates when needed – in the kitchen, a large, antique Glenwood cook stove sits across from a modern KitchenAid dishwasher and Kohler sink, but they have always tried to maintain the home’s original character.

“We see so many buildings that have been renovated,” Vincent Franco said, throwing his hands up in the air. “They have not kept true to the architecture of the building and the time.”

An architectural treasure

The Zebulon Smith house was one of the first temple-style Greek Revival homes built in Maine. The style, inspired by ancient Greek architecture, gained popularity in the late 18th century in England and spread to the United States in the early 19th century. It peaked in Maine from the 1830s to the 1860s.

Though the architect is unknown, the Zebulon Smith house is one of the earliest examples of the style in Maine, along with the Charles Q. Clapp house in Portland, and the Nathaniel Hatch house on Court Street in Bangor. Though the architecture is outstanding, so is the home’s place in the city’s history.

“It’s really one of the last reminders in downtown Bangor that there were residential streets near the waterfront,” said Earle Shettleworth of the Maine Historic Preservation Commission. “We do know from old photographs that Summer Street had several significant houses on it from this period.”

The sole remaining house embodies the neighborhood’s gracious past. In the living room, handsome wood paneling adorns the space between the windows and the floor, while a plaster medallion, which may have housed a gas lamp, dimples the ceiling. The house has four bedrooms, a dining room, a living room, two sitting rooms and a small kitchen in the ell.

There are nine fireplaces, with slate mantels downstairs and wooden mantels in the bedrooms. Vincent refinished the house’s pumpkin pine floorboards, and while he got the paint out of the cracks, he couldn’t quite manage to get rid of the squeak.

The Francos have decorated the kitchen with a wrought-iron ice cream table and chairs, antique apothecary jars and a mortar and pestle, all from Buckley Drug, the family business that occupied the storefront across from the Grasshopper Shop, where the Hop used to be.

“A little bit of the old with the new,” Vincent Franco said. “There’s a mixture of that throughout the house.”

Outdoors, the house looks much as it did in photographs from the early 20th century. The portico retains its original lunette window, and the Ionic pillars are as grand as ever. Its five tall chimneys, which need to be re-pointed come spring, reach toward the sky.

In her book “Bangor, Maine 1769-1914: An Architectural History,” architectural historian Deborah Thompson writes, “It has been painted dark red for many years, which is a curiously inappropriate color for a house inspired by Greek temples. It is of brick, with a flush-board facade.”

Inappropriate or not, the house is still dark red, though Eugenia Franco suspects it was originally white. The home boasts its original Monson slate roof, but the wooden storm windows and shutters now live in the attic.

“We have often talked about putting those back on,” Vincent said.

“But they weigh a ton,” Eugenia added.

Heavy traffic has caused the plaster to crack inside, and the Francos have had a difficult time finding workers willing to do small repairs. Most want to replace the plaster with Sheetrock.

“We don’t want wallboard,” Eugenia said. “We want plaster. We want to keep it as it was.”

That’s why the Zebulon Smith house hasn’t been torn down. Why it hasn’t changed much. Why it’s considered a treasure. The Francos knew what they were getting into when the property came into their care. They knew there would be cracks and peeling paint, falling slates and leaky chimneys.

“It’s always something when you live in an old house,” Vincent Franco said, smiling.

And they wouldn’t have it any other way.

Zebulon Smith house

Address: 55 Summer St., Bangor

Fireplaces: nine

Chimneys: five

Architectural style: temple-style Greek revival with a full portico and pillars

Unique features: pumpkin pine floors, slate mantels, nine-over-six-pane windows in the kitchen ell, wood paneling, ceiling medallions. Plus, it?s the only residence on the street.

Facts: The Zebulon Smith House was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. In 1986, the Bangor Historical Society declared the home a ?community treasure.?

Editor’s Note: House Call is a new monthly feature about houses we’ve always wondered about. Tell us about the ones that intrigue you at (800) 432-7964, ext. 8270; bdnstyle@bangordailynews.net; or the Style Desk, Bangor Daily News, P.O. Box 1329, Bangor 04401. Kristen Andresen can be reached at 990-8287 and kandresen@bangordailynews.net.