Although Loveitt’s Field is a year-round residential neighborhood today, its beginning started in the late 1800s as a small community of summer cottages. Many of the cottages were second homes of wealthy Portland residents who enjoyed living in the summer on the breezy expanse overlooking Casco Bay.

With beachfront access, Loveitt’s Field was also home to several hotels and boarding houses, especially once trolley service was established which provided an easy way for a tourist to arrive by train in Portland and then make the quick trip over to South Portland.

The Hastings was an impressive structure in the newly-developing Loveitt’s Field in the 1890s. The summer hotel was constructed in 1896 and was located on the site of what today is 25 Ledge Road. South Portland Historical Society photo

One of those early hotels was the Hastings, established by Julia A. Hastings. The large, three-story building was located on the corner of Ledge Road and Cloyster Road (although Ledge Road was known as Ocean Road in its early days, and didn’t exist at all when the Hastings was first built). The house located at 25 Ledge Road today was built in 1925 on the site of the former Hastings hotel.

Julia Hastings was born Julia Miller in 1840 in Chester, Vermont. She married William P. Hastings, a well-known piano dealer and organ manufacturer in Portland.

William Hastings had originally been from Worcester, Massachusetts, but moved to Portland in 1850 when he started in business as an organ manufacturer, partnering in a business first known as Hastings and Philbrook. By 1854, he was in business on his own, advertising the “W.P. Hastings’ Reed Organ, Seraphine, Melophine and Melodeon Manufactory” at 89 Federal St. In one advertisement, he stated that “the prices of Musical Instruments have reached a figure so astonishingly low people of even very limited means have been enabled to gratify their love of harmonious sounds, and to ornament their parlors with a Piano, Seraphine or Melophine.”

He moved his business in 1864 to 5 Temple St, then moved to 15 Chestnut St. in the late 1860s, and in the 1880s and 1890s, his offices and showroom were located on an upper floor of the building at 144½ Exchange St., on the corner of Federal Street.

A view of the Hastings Cottage in Loveitt’s Field. The hotel is on the left, with the Ottawa House on Cushing Island visible in the distance. South Portland Historical Society photo

In April, 1896, Julia was 55 years old when she and William purchased the piece of land in Loveitt’s Field from Henry Loveitt. Henry was the son of Enoch Loveitt; the lot of land had been part of Enoch Loveitt’s estate. There were no streets around the vacant lot when they bought it, only proposed streets that, when eventually established, became known as Ocean Road (later known as Ledge Road) and Cloyster Road.

By June of 1896, they had the large cottage under construction with the plan to rent out rooms in the summer to vacationers. By the summer of 1897, the “Hastings Cottage” was open and already bustling with summer guests. This was certainly a blessing for Julia, as William died in 1898 at the age of 78, and the Hastings Cottage would be an important source of income for her.

In May, 1917, when Julia was 76 years old, she sold the Hastings Cottage to Clarence Bucknam, a Cumberland County commissioner who bought the business as an investment. He leased the building to Charles Johnson, the proprietor of the Grand View Hotel close by on Preble Street, who operated it as the Hastings hotel.

Julia Hastings was already in failing health in 1920 when she sustained severe burns that were a contributing factor to her death. An article in the Portland Evening Express stated that she had “attempted to light the gas in her room” (we would presume that to be a gas light), when a spark landed on her bathrobe and set it on fire. She died three days later. She is buried at Evergreen Cemetery with her husband, William.

An 1869 advertisement for William P. Hastings’ organ manufacturing business in Portland. South Portland Historical Society image

On Aug. 20, 1921, the Hastings hotel and a summer cottage nearby were destroyed by fire (the cottage was owned by Philip F. Turner, one of the owners of Turner, Barker Insurance Company in Portland). An article in the Portland Sunday Telegram provides the details of the dangerous blaze: “The fire, which started in a back room on the lower floor of the hotel, was discovered by Mrs. Harold W. [Nicholson] whose husband is the manager of the place. Warning was given the people who were in the building. The flames spread with incredible rapidity. In five minutes the structure was a roaring furnace and when firemen arrived they could not get within 50 feet of the buildings. They saw immediately that the property was doomed and so confined their efforts to protecting nearby buildings, of which there are a great number. Time after time neighboring roofs were fired by flying sparks but the firemen succeeded in stopping every blaze before the wind had a chance to help it along…Not one of the 22 guests of the hotel or the residents of the Turner cottage was seriously injured, although several of the women guests had narrow escapes.

“The fire started on the lower floor of the building and several were trapped on the upper floors when the flames spread through the wooden structure. With the help of several men the women succeeded in climbing down the side of the building by way of the piazza.

“The damage is almost impossible to estimate, since the guests at the hotel and the residents of the cottage lost everything but the clothes they wore. There was not a minute to try to save valuables from the burning buildings and a great deal of jewelry and destructible property was lost…The Hastings hotel was a wooden building three floors in height. It contains 18 rooms, 16 of which were occupied by guests from various parts of the United States and Canada…Many of the guests left for their homes, while the majority will remain at the Grand View Hotel where accommodations were made for them.”

The lot was still vacant when Clarence Bucknam sold the property in May, 1925, to Lucy Bigelow. Lucy was the wife of Col. Harry M. Bigelow, chief editor of the Portland Press Herald newspapers. Col. and Mrs. Bigelow had the current home at 25 Ledge Road built that summer and had moved in by October, 1925.

South Portland Historical Society offers a free Online Museum with over 16,000 images available for viewing with a keyword search. You can find it at https://sphistory.pastperfectonline.com and, if you appreciate what we do, feel free to make a donation by using the donation button on the home page. If you have photographs or other information to share about South Portland’s past, we would love to hear from you. South Portland Historical Society can be reached at 207-767-7299, by email at sphistory04106@gmail.com, or by mail at 55 Bug Light Park, South Portland, ME 04106.

Kathryn Onos DiPhilippo is executive director of the South Portland Historical Society. She can be reached at sphistory04106@gmail.com.