By Nate Jones

Staff Writer 

For more than a year, the South Portland Historical Society has been raising funds to acquire the Cushing Point House, the two-story brick building adjacent to Bug Light Park that dates back to the late 1800s. Historical Society Director Kathy Diphilippo said the group envisioned using the building as a headquarters for their activities – currently confined to the basement of city hall – and opening a museum in the first floor.

Portland Pipeline Corp., the current owner of the building, originally agreed to sell the house and possibly 25,000 square feet of the surrounding property for $400,000. The purchase price, combined with a $200,000 elevator to bring the building into compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) brought the total fundraising goal for the historical society to more than half a million dollars, a target Diphilippo said would be difficult to hit.

“In the current economy fundraising is so hard,” she said.

The historical society’s vision just got a whole lot cheaper, however; Portland Pipeline Product Movement Manager Chris Gillis said the company was working on an agreement to donate the building to the society as long as the company retains the land the Cushing Point House has been sitting on for more than 100 years. 

“I think [moving the house] was something we had all thought of and just didn’t know if it could be done,” Diphilippo said. “It’s a big thing to move a two-story brick building.”

Diphilippo said even when considering the expensive process of moving the house, Portland Pipeline’s decision to donate the structure would reduce the overall cost of acquiring the house by more than half.

“It is an incredible thing Portland Pipeline is doing,” Diphilippo said. “It’s safe to say we’re saving $400,000 by looking at moving the [the Cushing Point House].”

The future home of the Cushing Point House is a vacant spot of grass in Bug Light park 600 feet north of its current location. At a city council workshop last week, councilors were receptive to offering the historical society a 99-year lease agreement for $1 a year. Per the agreement, the house could be moved within the next eight months, a schedule councilor Tom Blake called “ambitious.” 

“I know you want to move it, but maybe twelve months is safer,” he said. “It’s easier to allot the time now rather than have to extend something later.”

City Manager Jim Gailey authorized several test pits to be dug on the site last week.

“You never know what you can find when you crack the [ground] surface,” he said.

Diphilippo said the tests did not discover anything to prevent the house being relocated to that particular spot, something she felt the historical society could already have the funding to do.

“My sense is we’ll be a bit shy when it comes to hooking up the utilities, which is why we’re still collecting money,” she said.

The benefits of moving the Cushing Point House aren’t only financial; Diphilippo said in its new location the house will face the Bug Light Park access road. The only remaining building of a small coastal neighborhood that all but disappeared when the Park was created, Diphilippo said the building is currently positioned to face streets that no longer exist.

“[The new location] will be closer to Bug Light and the Shipyard Memorial,” she said. “Bug Light Park has always been a bit of a ‘Mecca’ for people, which is great for us.”

The new foundation for the house will also be low enough to the ground to allow for ADA approved access ramps, Diphilippo said. 

The historical society is still accepting cash and in-kind donations for the Cushing Point House project at their mailing address: PO Box 2623, South Portland, Maine, 04106, or by calling 347-4137.