The Brick Store Museum Turns 90, and This Winter the Building Is the Exhibit

On the upper floor of the Brick Store Museum at 117 Main Street, you can look up through a skylight and see a windlass. It's a pulley system William Lord used to haul heavy goods into the dry-goods store he started building in 1825, when he was 26. Lord built it with locally kilned brick, which cost far more than the Maine timber everyone else used. Nearly two centuries later that choice still sets the corner apart from the rest of the block.

The windlass is still part of the building it was installed in. The Brick Store Museum occupies five connected old buildings, and in its 90th year the calendar through December 20 is built around showing them.

One store, then most of a block

Lord's great-granddaughter, the artist Edith Cleaves Barry, inherited the brick store in 1932. She opened the museum on its second floor on July 1, 1936. The Local News reports it was the 15th museum to open in Maine. The museum's own history adds that it was one of the few institutions in the country to open during the Great Depression. It says the museum is one of only 21 in the United States founded by a single woman.

One floor wasn't enough for long. In the 1950s, Barry bought three neighboring buildings on the block, dating from 1810 to 1860. Back in the 1940s she had already bought the 1850 house behind the museum at 4 Dane Street, where her grandmother once lived. There she ran the New Art Center Workshop, with weekly lessons in a range of art forms. In the 1960s she sold that house to the museum for $1.

So the museum today is five connected buildings, now between 166 and 216 years old. Over the years they housed businesses, organizations and apartments before coming together as one institution. The museum dates that assembly to 1936 through 1959. The Dane Street sale came in the following decade, so the deeds were still changing hands after the last building joined.

The Lord family's mark reaches beyond Main Street, too. William and Sarah Lord raised their ten children at 20 Summer Street, a house now known as the William Lord Mansion. It is a private residence.

The anniversary exhibit puts Barry's desk back in the room

Community Building: The Museum at 90 opened September 5 and runs through December 20. It tells the founding story through the founder's own paperwork. In The Local News' description:

"Visitors can sit at a replica of Edith Barry's desk to read reproductions of handwritten planning documents that outline her decades-long effort to build a community landmark."

Those planning documents tell the same story as the buildings: one store, then a workshop, then three more buildings, one purchase at a time. The exhibit also features a showcase of artifacts picked from the museum's 55,000-piece collection by staff, volunteers and members. A closing section asks visitors to advise the museum on its next chapter, with its centennial coming in 2036.

The exhibitions page lists The Brick Store at 200 as continuing. The year-round Learning Gallery sits alongside the rotating galleries.

The tour that goes through the walls

The exhibit tells you how Barry assembled the block. The "Inside History" tour takes you through it. The museum bills it as an indoor walking tour for winter. It covers how the five buildings evolved and how the museum began, and it stops at highlights from the collection. It lasts about an hour, starts at 10:30 a.m., and costs $15, with exhibition admission included.

Tours run Tuesdays and Thursdays. After this week's Tuesday and Thursday tours on November 3 and 5, these dates remain on the museum's calendar:

• November: Tuesday the 10th, Thursday the 12th, Tuesday the 17th, Thursday the 19th, Tuesday the 24th
• December: Tuesday the 1st, Thursday the 3rd, Tuesday the 8th, Thursday the 10th, Tuesday the 15th

Tickets are sold through the museum's calendar.

Two Tuesdays that stretch the history across Main Street

Two dates on that list line up with something else nearby, and both are Tuesdays.

November 10. The morning tour at 117 Main Street lines up with an evening talk across the street. Kennebunk Town Historian Kathy Ostrander Roberts will speak on "Kennebunk's Revolutionary History" from 6 to 7 p.m. in Hank's Room at the Kennebunk Free Library, 112 Main Street. The library's November calendar says no registration is required. The town's October newsletter presents the talk as a way to mark the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. That's the oldest stretch of town history this fall, followed hours later by the 1825 store, on one block of Main Street.

November 24. That's the month's Fourth Tuesday, when gallery admission is free for everyone from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Bill Lord sponsors the program in honor of founder Edith Barry. The museum says Fourth Tuesdays also bring pop-up artifacts from the archive, hands-on activities, and fresh takes on current exhibitions. An Inside History tour is on the calendar that morning as well.

Craft fans have an earlier deadline. Maine by Hand is the museum's rotating series for the semiquincentennial, covering five York County craft traditions. Its last installment, Fiber, features Lisanne Miller and Kennebunk weaver Elizabeth Hunter. It closes November 22. The museum's announcement in The Local News says regular museum admission covers the Maine by Hand shows and members get in free.

The same historian, out in West Kennebunk

Ostrander Roberts' work also stands outdoors, about as far from Main Street as Kennebunk goes. A "Welcome to West Kennebunk" plaque went up in June beside the West Kennebunk community kiosk. The Local News reported that she researched and compiled the photographs on it. The plaque includes a map and historic photos of buildings and farms, plus images of the northern blazing star wildflowers on the Kennebunk Plains. It points out the West Kennebunk rail line and depot, the Robert Lord Twine Mill and the Littlefield Bros. store.

The paper credits former committee chair Daniel Guay with proposing the sign two years ago. Current chair Jenn Root Martell described it as "a tangible project that could educate residents and visitors about the history of this vibrant community." Tax increment financing revenue paid for it, and Public Services staff installed it. The West Kennebunk Village Committee plans a follow-up presentation at the Dorothy E. Stevens Community Center on Thompson Road in spring 2027.

The plaque works the same way the museum does. It explains a place through the stores, mills and depots its residents built.

December 20 is the last day

The anniversary exhibit closes Sunday, December 20. The museum then closes from December 21 through New Year's Day. Barry's desk and the members' artifact picks have no buffer after that date.

The museum's visit page lists these regular hours and prices:

That page went up in September 2025, so check the visit page before a weekday trip in case holiday hours change.

The anniversary's one big party is "Sparkling at 90," on Sunday, December 13, from 2 to 5 p.m. at the Nathaniel Lord Thompson House. The museum lists holiday decorations, seasonal appetizers and sweets. Tickets are $90 each, and members get $10 off.

The $90 price matches the anniversary campaign. The museum is asking for $90 gifts to its Spofford Education Fund, which pays for year-round programs for children and adults. According to The Local News, the museum gets no local, state or federal funding and raises all of its operating costs each year. Barry kept the place going by buying one building at a time, and 90 years later the museum still pays its own way.

Every building on Main Street has a history, and plenty of Kennebunk homes have a story as layered as the brick store's. If you're curious what's behind the walls of your own place, or you'd like a hand digging into an older property's past, Shanna Jadooram is happy to talk it through. Let's Connect.