SANFORD — At 1:45 p.m. Jan. 17 at a South Portland law office, a part of Sanford’s history will be subject to public auction.

Goodall mansion, at 938 Main St., was built for Thomas Goodall, the man who created Sanford’s textile empire and whose family name is entwined with the very fabric of the community. Construction began in 1868, and three years later, in 1871, it was ready for occupancy.

The mansion was a family home; Goodall raised three sons there.

Now, a local group is looking at whether it might be able to acquire, restore and preserve the 29-room Colonial Revival-style home for public use. Joe Doiron leads the Goodall Mansion Society, a group of supporters whom he said began meeting quietly a couple of years ago.

Doiron estimated it would take about $125,000 to stabilize the 6,000-square-foot home and another $500,000 or more to restore it and turn it into a cultural center for the arts.

The building has not been lived in recently and not been heated for three winters.

“We’ve been doing our homework,” said Doiron. “It has to be a community effort.”

To that end, Goodall Mansion Society has called a public meeting for 4 p.m. Tuesday at Goodall Library to gauge support.

“We’d like to be at the auction,” said Doiron.

Whether there will be an offer extended depends on a number of factors, including any minimum bid requirement, he said.

The mansion had been in the hands of Goodall’s descendants until 2000, when Virgil Pitstick, who was married to Thomas Goodall’s great-granddaughter, Ruth Goodall, who died in 1997, completed the process of turning it over to the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

“I really took care of the house for T.M. Goodall (Ruth’s father) from the 1960s on,” said Pitstick, prior to an auction of the home’s contents, in an August 2000 interview.

Before Ruth Goodall’s death, the Pitsticks lived in the home for part of each year, spending the most of the remainder of their time in Florida.

The National Trust sold the property in 2001 and retains preservation easements on the property.

A foreclosure judgment against owner Patrick Fagan Jr. came in 2009. The property was listed for sale through a real estate agent for some time. Now, Deutsche Bank National Trust Company, a trustee for J.P. Morgan Chase Bank, has ordered the sale of the mansion. Included with the 6,000-square-foot, three-story home is a 1,790-square-foot caretaker’s cottage.

Thomas Goodall came to Sanford in 1867 when he was 44 years old. Both he and his descendants were benefactors. The family name lives on at Goodall Park, Goodall Hospital and Goodall Library. Goodall generosity built the parish hall attached to the Unitarian Universalist Church. Two of Thomas Goodall’s sons started banks, and the family was responsible for bringing the trolley lines to Sanford.

Eastman pointed out that it was Thomas’ son, Ernest, who paid the tab for Sanford to have a high school after the Maine Legislature said towns of a certain population were required to provide high school instruction, and the town had refused to do so for 10 years in a row.

Originally built in the Second Empire style with Italianate flourishes, the Goodall mansion was remodeled to reflect the Colonial Revival period, said historian Harland Eastman, who has a photo album that shows changes on the property from its early days.

Back in 1871, when Goodall and his family first moved in, the property sported a picket fence along Main Street. A photo taken that year shows School Street, which is at the rear of the property, with no trees and no other houses. By 1877, a few houses could be seen on School Street. Photographs reveal that at one time, an immense glass greenhouse sat adjacent to the home, which stretched almost to Elm Street. By 1895, the existing stable had been doubled in size ”“ the stables were later removed.

By 1909, the mansion had been remodeled.

“It had become old fashioned,” said Eastman.

In the future, Eastman said he hopes the home will be put to public use.

“As Sanford embarks on its new image as a city, the mansion is a monument to what Sanford is today,” said Eastman. “Without Thomas Goodall and his textile mills, Sanford would be no more than an average-sized town.”

Doiron envisions a bustling cultural center providing rental space for meetings and lectures, which could also be used by area schools for art displays and concerts. He sees an English garden, and said the mansion grounds could be an inviting venue for weddings. A workshop on site could provide instruction on building preservation for students and to the general public.

“I believe this is our last chance” to preserve the mansion, Doiron said.

And as the days dwindle down to auction day, he said he is hopeful.

“I think folks will step up,” he said.

— Senior Staff Writer Tammy Wells can be contacted at 324-4444 (local call in Sanford) or 282-1535, Ext. 327 or twells@journaltribune.com.