No other building in Portland is quite like the Charles Q. Clapp House. Its tall white columns and unusual double porch seem drawn from a different place and a different era entirely. The house was a fantasy built in 1832 by its namesake and first owner-resident, Charles Q. Clapp, the son of a wealthy businessman. This amateur architect was a great proponent of the Greek Revival style becoming popular at the time. The structure subsequently changed function, especially after surviving the city’s 1866 fire. It has been used as a bank, a city records building and home for the Portland School of Fine and Applied Art. On the way to the Portland Museum of Art, visit the Charles Q. Clapp House to see one of the state’s earliest and best-preserved examples of this distinctive architectural style.
Walk to the house from the street, where it stands out against other buildings lining a wide, stately boulevard. Stand before its south-facing façade. Three bays are decorated with Ionic columns and pilasters. Notice the sashed window on the first floor surrounded by smaller oval windows with elaborately carved frames. Admire small porches on each side. Peek over the fence to glimpse colored floor tiles that add a definitively Mediterranean flavor.
Picture the artists who came here to learn and work, feeling a bit more like they were in Ancient Greece than in 20th-century Maine. Imagine Charles Clapp sitting in his study in the adjacent McLellan-Sweat Mansion, looking out at this plot of land, creating the house that had long been his dream.
The Charles Q. Clapp House, part of the Portland Museum of Art complex, is located in the center of the city, on the southern side of the downtown area. Portland’s Transportation Center, with bus and rail connections, is a 12-minute bus ride, 35-minute walk or 10-minute drive away. Drive from the Portland Airport in about 15 minutes or take the bus in 35 minutes. Several on-site public parking lots are available as well as nearby metered street and private garage parking. The interior of the house is not open to the public.
