All along the Maine Coast, yachting under both sail and power became an increasingly popular pastime for residents of the summer colonies that flourished in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. And, as the ranks of recreational mariners grew, they came together to found yacht clubs and erect buildings in which to host their social activities.
The Camden Yacht Club is headquartered in one of the state’s most historic of these club houses. By 1906, when the CYC was founded, Camden had become the major summer colony of the midcoastal region, attracting wealthy families from Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago. One of the club’s founding and most prominent members was Cyrus H.K. Curtis of Philadelphia. He was a Portland native who owned a publishing empire of newspapers and magazines that included the Ladies Home Journal and the Saturday Evening Post.
In 1903, Curtis built Lyndonwood, a spacious cottage on Beauchamp Point in Rockport, a summer community developed by fellow Philadelphian Charles Henry. Curtis was an avid yachtsman and served as the Camden club’s commodore from 1909 to 1933. In 1907 he commissioned the Lyndonia, a steam yacht that brought him to Maine each summer. Then in September 1911 he announced that he would build “a neat and convenient club house” for the CYC.
He acquired a 1.5-acre site on the west side of the harbor that was occupied by lime kilns and sheds. That fall Curtis employed the local architect-builder Cyrus P. Brown to clear the property in preparation for construction to begin early in 1912. At the same time, he secured plans from John Calvin Stevens of Portland, Maine’s most accomplished architect. Correspondence from Curtis to Stevens indicates that the client took an active role in the design of the building.
Brown constructed the Camden Yacht Club between January and July 1912. The project cost its donor between $60,000 and $75,000 dollars. The club house opened on July 4th, with Gov. Frederick W. Plaisted and representatives of six other yacht clubs in attendance. The celebration included a grand ball held that evening.
The Camden Yacht Club is one of Stevens’s finest Shingle Style designs, notable for its graceful simplicity. As the Camden Herald for July 12, 1912, observed, “The beauty and convenience of the building is sufficient testimony to his taste and ability.” On three sides, a sloping hip roof overhangs the eaves, creating a wrap-around porch supported by Arts and Crafts posts. The front balcony affords a panoramic view of the harbor, the town, and the Camden hills, while an oriental-style porte-cochere extends from the rear wall to mark the entrance. Inside the club, a 30-by-45-foot main room features a large brick fireplace.
Given Stevens’s mastery of planning Shingle Style summer houses, it is not surprising that the Camden Herald would comment, “the whole atmosphere reminds one of a beautiful cottage home.”
Curtis’s enthusiasm for yachting never waned. At the outset of World War I in 1917, he answered the U.S. Navy’s call for small craft by transferring ownership of the Lyndonia to the federal government. In 1920 he replaced the Lyndonia with a larger, more elegant yacht of the same name, which he sailed for the rest of his life. When he died in 1933, the New York Times reported, “Mr. Curtis spent much of his time and transacted much of his business aboard his palatial yacht Lyndonia built at a cost of more than $500,000. In Portland, Boston, or New York Harbor, he was accustomed to call meetings of his executives aboard his yacht.”
At the annual meeting of the Camden Yacht Club in August 1926, Commodore Curtis declared his intention to give the property to the Town of Camden with the stipulation that it be used “perpetually for a yacht club and other community purposes.” Camden accepted the gift at a town meeting later that year. Nearly a century later, this coastal landmark remains a testimony to the generosity of its donor and the skill of its architect.
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Earle G. Shettleworth Jr. directed the Maine Historic Preservation Commission from 1976 to 2015, and he has served as Maine State Historian since 2004.
