John Calvin Stevens’ home was the
last stop on my initial ambitious sweep of Portland. After wandering all over
Portland, in no orderly fashion at all, I crossed town one final time to end up
at 52 Bowdoin Street on the West End—the personal residence of John Calvin
Stevens. The house was magnificent: shingle styled, gambrel roof, earth tone
colored, and grandeur in stature. There were two cars in the driveway that hid
behind the left side of the house: a Subaru and an old pick up truck. Instead
of knocking on the door, which I feared would be rude, I sat on the sidewalk
taking notes (and an awkward, maybe legal picture) in hopes that the current
residents would come out and chat… no such luck.
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| http://www.friendsofevergreen. org/evergreen-cemetery/maps/ |
Several months later, in March I completed the second half of my John Calvin Stevens’ investigation. I visited his gravesite in Evergreen cemetery on March 27, 2013. Thanks to the Friends of Evergreen’s helpful visitor map, I was able to stumble upon his grave with relative ease. There are four graves that border a dirt road, first is John Calvin Stevens, then his wife Martha, his mother Maria, and finally his father Leander. Behind the elderly Stevens are two of his four children. I was amazed that such a successful, well-known man had such a simple gravestone. I’m not sure whether it speaks to his character, financial scene, or the fact that he passed away as the US was emerging from the Great Depression.
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| John Calvin Stevens (1910) |
John Calvin Stevens was born on October 8, 1855 in Boston, MA, however became a Portland resident at the age of
two. He was born to Leander Stevens and Maria Wingate; Maria was a homemaker
and Leander was a cabinet maker. Stevens developed a love of art in his youth
and had high ambitions of attending Massachusetts Institute of Technology, but
due to financial restraints, opted to apprentice with Portland architect,
Francis H. Fassett, instead. After only seven years of apprenticeship, Stevens
became a full partner in Fassett’s firm. In 1880, he relocated to open a branch
of the firm in Boston where he was introduced to William Ralph Emerson (Ralph
Waldo Emerson’s cousin). William Ralph Emerson introduced the “shingle style”
home to Stevens, for which he later made his claim to fame. In 1884, Emerson’s
lead draftsman, Albert W. Cobb, joined Stevens in opening their own firm in
Portland—Cobb and Stevens or Stevens and Cobb (listed both ways).
Stevens
designed approximately four hundred buildings in Portland and also had a
substantial repertoire in Bath, ME. From the start of his career, Stevens
focused on producing “shingle style homes” known for their wooden shingle
siding, gambrel roofs, towers, large front porches, and open floor plans—these
houses made the perfect vacation homes for Maine’s summer population or
fraternity houses (Bowdoin’s Psi Upsilon, or Quinby House). However, “shingle
style homes” were no Stevens only specialty. At the turn of the twentieth
century, Stevens refocused his work on colonial revival style buildings. After
nearly 70 years as an architect, John Calvin Stevens passed away in 1940.
His love of
art never subsided, and he was an active member of the “Brushians” a local
group of Maine artists. He also designed several buildings for the Homer
family, including Winslow Homer’s own studio, for which he received the
painting titled: “The Artist’s Studio in the Afternoon Fog.”
John Calvin
Stevens, though not a Mainer by birth, represents the Maine work ethic and entrepreneurship
any Mainer would be proud of. He contributed significantly to the City of
Portland’s character and aesthetics.
Sources:
http://www.coastaljournal.com/website/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1481:jo..
http://www.friendsofevergreen.org/evergreen-cemetery/maps/
www.mainememory.net/
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