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Summertime … and the living was easy for Susan Scherbel. She and her husband, Thomas Flynn, had come to Hancock Point from New York in 1996 to get away from it all. They just didn’t realize how far away from it all they’d end up.
That summer, Scherbel made a habit of riding her bicycle from their rental home past dozens of gingerbread cottages and stately mansions that hug the Atlantic. Every day, she pedaled past Bellview, a Tudor Revival mansion with sweeping views of Frenchman Bay. And every day, she imagined living there.
“When I first rode my bicycle by this house, I said, ‘This is the house I’m going to die in,'” Scherbel said, laughing, as she stood outside on a sunny afternoon. “This was my house. The objective was getting in this house and making it perfect. Now it’s perfect for me.”
And her timing was perfect, too. At the end of the summer, she noticed a for-sale sign on the lawn, which started a family feud. Given the real estate prices in their hometown of Bronxville, Flynn, an ophthalmologist, figured the house would cost somewhere in the $3 million range. Scherbel, an investment banker, argued that they were in Maine, so it couldn’t cost more than $500,000 or $600,000, tops.
“We have a very competitive relationship,” Scherbel, 46, said. “We’re fond of saying both of us were right. I was right on the asking price and he was right on the final price.”
Either way, the price was right, they bought it, and after spending several too-short summers in Hancock Point, the couple decided to make Maine their year-round home.
Home work
First, they needed to find a way to accommodate their family – and solve their heating woes, which required them to part with many of the original leaded-glass windows.
“These beautiful leaded-glass windows were imported from England,” Scherbel said, pointing to the remaining three panels in the entryway, which are now covered with an insulating layer of Plexiglas. “Unfortunately, they had the R-value of toilet paper.”
So they replaced most of the windows. They built an addition that houses a two-car garage, an indoor lap pool and living quarters for their housekeeper and her daughter. They knocked down walls and added bathrooms for their three children. Scherbel, a gourmet cook, took out a staircase and a bathroom to make way for a commercial refrigerator and turned the kitchen, with its granite countertops and professional range, into the focal point of the home.
“We eat incredibly well here,” she said.
Before their fourth child, Sean, was born a little over a year ago, they converted the attic (that, along with a second-story bedroom, was featured in “Pet Semetary”) into a Lego-laden palace complete with flat-screen TV, built-in refrigerator and microwave, XBox, computer and a bed in the shape of a Corvette tucked under an eave. That way, their older boys, BobTom, 8, and Timothy, 10, would agree to hand their room over to their younger brother.
“I believe in big spaces,” Scherbel said as she moved gracefully from one bedroom to the next. “I’ve always believed you can divide the world between those who break through walls and those who don’t. I’m a wall-breaker.”
But she’s an old-house lover, too. This is her third renovation – she and Flynn, 47, previously remodeled homes in Washington, D.C., and Bronxville, N.Y. – and while she isn’t afraid of gutting walls and ceilings, she wanted to maintain the home’s integrity. Though the home is large, it’s large on a human scale, and it all flows.
“I thought, we can do this right, we can do this responsibly so we make it better, not worse,” Scherbel said. “I just felt as though that was my mission.”
A nod to the past
Scherbel considers herself a steward of Bellview, which was built as a summer home by Ned Bell in the 1920s.
According to local lore, Bell came to Hancock Point for summer vacation as a student. He fell in love with the girl next door, and declared he was going to build the most fantastic house in Maine to honor her. He modeled the estate after a manor in southern England.
In 1932, after spending winters in Pennsylvania, Ned and Dorrice Bell moved to Hancock Point year-round. Their son Harrison later made Bellview his family home, and in 1996, Harrison sold the estate to Scherbel and Flynn.
The home retains many original details, including the ornate staircase and leaded glass windows in the foyer, rough-hewn beams, arched doorways and stuccoed walls throughout the house. There are five working fireplaces inside, and a birdseye maple mantel graces daughter Erin’s bedroom.
Outside, the half-timbered stucco facade remains mostly unchanged, save for a new deck atop a stone wall that mimics the original portico. Softly weathered slates in muted shades of purple and green dapple the roof, and a maze made of evergreen hedges adds a whimsical touch to a waterfront garden. Harrison Bell planted it years ago to hide the home’s septic tank.
Though Scherbel is a tennis nut – she owns the Ellsworth Tennis Center – the grass tennis court beside Bellview now has a tree sprouting from the middle of it. Extensive perennial beds ensure that the grounds are awash in color throughout the summer, and the heirloom plants, such as a rare yellow rose, old-fashioned peonies and hosta, are among Scherbel’s favorites.
“This is just a gardener’s dream,” she said. “We spend a tremendous amount of time out here.”
The great outdoors – and indoors
Now that the family lives on the coast of Maine, their playground extends far beyond the manicured lawn of Bellview. On warm summer days, Susan and the older children kayak to nearby Bean Island, where they swim, pick mussels and return home to cook them for dinner.
“A kid in New York will never go out and forage for his dinner,” Scherbel said. “Here, they have the ocean. They have seals and dolphins in their front yard.”
Scherbel has all that – and her dream house. She used to tell colleagues she resided in New York, but she lived in Maine. Now, she’s able to do both in what she calls “nirvana.” In the nine years since she and Flynn bought Bellview, they have turned their summer love into their forever home.
“Friends say, ‘You must have a selling price.’ There just isn’t,” Scherbel said. “This is heaven.”
Kristen Andresen can be reached at 990-8287 and kandresen@bangordailynews.net.
Bellview
Built: 1920s
Original owners: Ned and Dorrice Bell
Current owners: Susan Scherbel and Thomas Flynn
Bathrooms: 7
Fireplaces: 5
Features: Intricate stone walls, evergreen maze, arched doorways, leaded glass windows, guest cottage renovated to mimic a New York loft
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