We were delighted to represent the new owners of this iconic Bar Harbor property, Brightholme. My colleague and team mate Erika Mitchell did an amazing job for the new buyers with a complicated sale. While we are thrilled for our clients to be the new owners of this home, we are also very happy to be a part of the next chapter of a property that has had so much significance to us and our community.
In 2103, Brightholme was the inaugural Bar Harbor Designer Showhouse. Swan Agency was new to the Designer Showhouse game and would never have dreamed it would be the first of FOUR (so far) designer displays including 2014’s Vanderbilt Carriage House, 2019 La Rochelle and 2023’s Hamilton Hill. In addition to being super fun community events the BHDS Program also raises money for local non profits including Jackson Laboratory, Bar Harbor Historical Society and Mount Desert Island Hospital.
Brightholme had a significant history prior as part of the extraordinary Joseph Kennedy estate and then to the home of the founder of the Jackson Laboratory. Many locals still remember it as Dr. Cooper and family’s home for many years prior to becoming the Showhouse thanks to my Dad and neighbor, Cary Swan, who purchased it and told me to “do something for the community with the house and make it beautiful”.
After being sold post Showhouse life, recent years Brightholme has been a vacation rental and a regularly photographed architecturally significant Bar Harbor home by visitors returning to town from a walk on the Bar Harbor Shore Path.
Today, we are so pleased to see it becoming the treasured home of our clients and a part of the so-called “hospital neighborhood”. The neighborhood has special significance and memories to many, especially me and the kids we grew up with in this special enclave in Bar Harbor where the Shore Path was our playground and the hot summer temps would drop 5 degrees as we rode our bikes home and passed Brightholme.
Congratulations and sincere appreciation to the buyers for entrusting us with helping to make this dream a reality.