Woodlawn Museum

1820s Federal-style estate with period rooms, gardens, and walking trails

Woodlawn, also known as the Black House, is the grandest Federal-style mansion in Downeast Maine. The 1820s brick house sits on 180 acres a short drive south of downtown, with period rooms shown more or less as the last Black descendant left them in 1928.

The grounds are open free year-round and are worth a visit even when the house is closed. Formal gardens surround the house, and miles of walking trails wind through woods and meadows. There is also a sleigh and carriage barn full of nineteenth-century vehicles.

things to do sight museum
A story
Woodlawn was built by Colonel John Black, a Yorkshire-born land agent who acquired vast Downeast holdings in the early 1800s. The Black family lived here for three generations and left the house with nearly all its original furnishings intact — a rarity for any American estate of this age.

Other places in Things to Do