Murch Family House

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The Murch Family House is a historic granite home on Calderwood Neck in Vinalhaven, Maine. Built in 1855 by William Murch, a local mason using nearby quarried stone, it is the island’s only documented granite dwelling and one of the few stone houses in the state. The house is a 1.5-story Cape-style structure made of ashlar granite blocks with a gabled roof. The front has three bays with sash windows flanking the entrance, which is on the right side.

Inside, the ground floor has four rooms and a central chimney, with attic stairs along the north wall near the main entrance. On the property there is also a 19th-century timber-frame barn with a saltbox profile, set on sloping ground with a fully exposed granite foundation at the rear. The house sits on about 1.7 acres on the southeast part of Calderwood Neck, overlooking the channel to Penobscot Island.

The Murch family owned the house for many years; they were mainly fishermen who also practiced subsistence farming. The Murch Family House was added to the National Register of Historic Places on March 25, 1993.