After she fell in love with fellow actor Gary Merrill on the set of All Above Eve and went on to marry him in the early 1950s, Bette Davis moved to a farmhouse in the coastal New England town of Cape Elizabeth, along Casco Bay on the southern coast of Maine, where they raised their adopted twins, Margot and Michael.
No native to the Pine Tree State, the legendary two-time Oscar winner, who was born in the nearby Massachusetts town of Lowell and died in 1989 at age 81, was the first female lifeguard at Ogunquit Beach when she was 18 years old and performed in local venues throughout the years. She also filmed scenes for one of her final movies, The Whales of August, in the 1980s on Cliff Island.
The ocean-view family room comes with a bar and wood-burning stone fireplace.
Peter G. Morneau
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Playfully dubbed Witch Way by Davis, the eight-acre oceanfront spread on Zeb Cove Road that the pair called home for around a decade until their divorce in 1960 is now up for grabs at $15 million. The listing, which includes a 7,600-square-foot main residence and a detached 2,000-square-foot carriage house built on the site in 2002, plus 1,200 feet of ocean frontage, is shared by Bill Gaynor and Sam Michaud of Legacy Properties Sotheby’s International Realty.
“I have lots of good memories about our time at Witch Way, a beautiful property and a wonderful family home, right on the ocean,” Boston lawyer Michael Merrill, the couple’s son, told Portland Monthly magazine in a 2014 article, adding there were “two coves, a large front lawn, a barn, an enclosed area for goats and other farm animals and horses, vegetable gardens, berry bushes and a pond.
A cozy fireside study is clad in cherry wood.
Peter G. Morneau
“Dad also had lobster traps in the coves, and there was a sandy beach very close by within walking distance,” he continued. “Dad did have a hockey team, Merrill’s Marauders, which played ‘pick up’ hockey against other groups of players on the pond. I was too young at the time to be involved in the hockey games. But we had a dinghy in the pond which I rowed around on.”
Last sold in 2016 for nearly $3.8 million, with the carriage house transferred in a separate off-market deal for $1.45 million, the modern residence that today stands in place of Davis’s onetime digs is introduced via a double-height foyer featuring a floating staircase. An arched doorway leads to a bar-equipped family room anchored by a floor-to-ceiling wood-burning stone fireplace, with a mud room tucked off to the side.
A cupola atop the house contains a reading room.
Peter G. Morneau
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Among the other highlights are formal living and dining rooms, a cherry-paneled study with a full bath, and a curvaceous kitchen outfitted with a large center island, modern appliances, a sizable pantry, and a fireside breakfast nook. Upstairs, five bedrooms include a spacious primary suite sporting a sitting area, a balcony, a walk-in closet, and a bath with a freestanding soaking tub, while a cozy octagon-shaped reading room holds court in the top-floor cupola.
Described in the marketing materials as having a “charming English countryside setting,” the picturesque grounds include covered porches and a classic bluestone terrace ideal for alfresco lounging and entertaining, as well as the aforementioned pond and a secluded rocky beach.
Click here for more photos of the Cape Elizabeth residence.
Peter G. Morneau
Source: Luxury - robbreport.com
