A committee was once formed to gather itself a project that would eventually have the whole of Bar Harbor’s summer colony revolving around it. With an idea in mind, the committee gathered itself to purchase a little plot of land on which to set a building that would become the nucleus of Bar Harbor. Reason being that “year after year, a great number of music lovers and professional musicians find their way here until it seemed possible to make Bar Harbor into much more than just a mere summer resort.” With the plot of land purchased, the committee started to raise the funds necessary to erect the chosen building, the Building of Arts.
The land chosen was a little patch of land on Cromwell Harbor road, residing behind the fourth green on Kebo Valley club golf course not just because of the beautiful mountain view, but also the “quiet seclusion and freedom from disturbing influences which are necessary to all artistic accomplishment.”
The committee was formed from several important persons of the age; Mr. Dorr, Mr. Eno, Mr. Vanderbilt, Mrs. Abbe, and Mrs. Dimock. The project proposed was to “form a company whose shares of stock shall be available to everyone who may have an interest in such an undertaking, but formed, however, not for the purpose of investment but for the furtherance of the musical, artistic, and intellectual life of the place and region and of the social life which naturally springs from them. And it is the confident anticipation of those who have thus taken the initiative the Bar Harbor can be made to stand for an ideal of artistic achievement which will enhance its reputation throughout the whole country.”
“It is the aim of the founders to increase not only the love for music but the desire for whatever is excellent in art. For this reason, the building will be equipped with a stage for theatrical purposes, illustrated lectures, etc., as well as for concerts and recitals. Any person will be able to hire the building at a reasonable price, if the purpose for which the hall is sought commend itself to the committee in charge.
It is also hoped that when the hall, when built, will lend itself, through subscriptions made for that purpose, to free concerts and musical events, within it and upon the lawn outside, to which all townspeople and summer residents alike would be welcome and which should help materially in the musical development of the town already so successfully initiated, as well as add to the interest and pleasure of Bar Harbor to strangers coming to it as a summer resort.”
The building itself was to be built by Mr. Guy Lowell of Boston, Massachusetts.
He was an American architect, living from August 6, 1870 to February 4, 1927. He was the son of Mary Walcott (Goodrich) and Edward Jackson Lowell. When the building was finished in 1907, its overall price was around $100,000. When looked upon from afar, it seemed to be made of white marble, a grand illusion, indeed. But, when close enough, one could see that the building was actually made out of wood and stucco. Panels on the front and back were reproductions of the frieze on the Parthenon in Athens. From the inside, three seven-foot panels of glass gave another illusion; that of being outdoors. No one from these times has any idea what the inside looks like, and no photographs exist portraying the surely majestic interior design.
As soon as the building was up and running, there was a lot of hustle and bustle to try and organize concerts for people to attend. The first of which being performed by Mme. Emma Eames and Mr. Emilio de Gogorza; a famous Maine opera singer and her baritone husband, both favorites of the Metropolitan Opera.
After that concert, many people started to attend others performed by Ernest Schelling, Paderewski, Walter Damrosch, dancer Ted Shawn, Josef Hofmann, and many others, including celebrated stars from Hollywood and Broadway. Then, by some unseen force, the building started to gradually fall into disrepair with no funds from the millionaire summer colony to help fix it to tip-top shape.
As a result, concert attendance started to decline, and finally, in June of 1941, it was sold for the humiliating price of $305.24. Later, when it was once again sold, it was then bought again to be made into a summer theater association in the summer of 1947, but when it was just about to open, the great fire of 1947 ravaged itself across the land and destroyed the Building of Arts. The building was long since doomed so its destruction was not greatly mourned.
