ALFRED – One of Maine’s former Shaker villages has been designated a National Historic District.

The 370-acre parcel property off Route 202, at the top of Shaker Hill Road, was once home to 200 Shakers. Now, it will be listed on the National Register of Historic Places and preserved for generations to come.

Members of the religious organization lived there from 1783 to 1931, when they left to join the Shaker community in Sabbathday Lake. The property was then sold to the Brothers of Christian Instruction, which ran the Notre Dame Institute school and still owns the land.

The nomination to the register, which was made final in April, validates years of work by the Friends of the Alfred Shaker Museum. A ceremony was held last week to officially designate the area.

“For us, it’s a big step,” said Jeremie Berube, president of the Friends organization. “We never expected it.”

The effort to designate the land as historic began in 1995, when Berube’s group began to renovate an 1865 Shaker carriage house barn and turn it into a museum.

Their work attracted the attention of Kirk Mohney, assistant director of the Maine Historic Preservation Commission. He visited the hamlet two years ago when the Friends organization wanted the carriage house considered for the historic registry.