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Prouts Neck

Landforms of Cumberland County, MainePeninsulas of MaineVillages in Cumberland County, Maine
Winslow Homer West Point, Prouts Neck
Winslow Homer West Point, Prouts Neck

Prouts Neck is a coastal peninsula, located within the town of Scarborough, in southern Maine.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Prouts Neck (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Prouts Neck
Jocelyn Road,

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Wikipedia: Prouts NeckContinue reading on Wikipedia

Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 43.533333333333 ° E -70.314444444444 °
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Address

Jocelyn Road 3
04074
Maine, United States
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Winslow Homer West Point, Prouts Neck
Winslow Homer West Point, Prouts Neck
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Winslow Homer Studio
Winslow Homer Studio

The Winslow Homer Studio is the historic studio and home of the artist Winslow Homer, which is located on what is now Winslow Homer Road on Prouts Neck in Scarborough, Maine. Maine architect John Calvin Stevens altered and expanded an existing carriage house to suit Homer's needs in 1884, even moving the building 100 feet for added privacy from his brother's neighboring summer home. The most dramatic element is a balcony the width of the building, from which the artist often painted in winter. The building is 44 by 53 feet (13 m × 16 m) and two stories high, for a total of 2,200 square feet (200 m2). Homer lived and painted in the studio from 1884 until his death there in 1910.The studio was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1965. The Portland Museum of Art acquired the building and surrounding grounds on January 31, 2006, closing both to the public during restoration projects. It was opened to the public in 2012, but may only be visited on a guided tour. The Portland Museum of Art undertook significant restoration of the building. Changes and additions made by members of the Homer family in 1938–39 were undone in order to preserve the studio as Winslow Homer left it in 1910. Some updates were also made to the property to enable it to function as a museum exhibit. The additions included plumbing and a restroom for visitors, electricity, security, and hidden steel reinforcements for the balcony (or piazza).

Higgins Beach
Higgins Beach

Higgins Beach is a small beach located in the state of Maine, United States. It is located in the town of Scarborough in Cumberland County. The beach is north of Prouts Neck and Old Orchard Beach and south of Crescent Beach State Park. This northeast-southwest trending beach measures approximately 0.6 miles (1.0 km) and is approximately 7 miles (11 km) south of Portland and 110 miles (177 km) north of Boston. It lies between bedrocks at the southwest, sometimes known as Thunder Cove, and the Spurwink River on the northeastern end. This small seaside community has approximately 300 cottages. In addition, the community has two inns (The Breakers and the Higgins Beach Inn) which are open during the summer season. Higgins Beach is most known for its family-oriented oceanside neighborhood, striped bass fishing, the beach's quaintness, the shipwreck embedded in the beach's sands, and surfing. The beach has had public access for as long as the town has record, but with very little public parking. In 2010, the town of Scarborough purchased a small parking lot accommodating approximately 75 vehicles. Higgins Beach has managed to retain at least some of its small-town characteristics, something that larger beaches in the area such as Old Orchard have lost in return for commercialization and tourism. However, residential gentrification has taken place in the neighborhood steadily since the early 2010s, with numerous new and affluent homes recently appearing in the community. However, the vast majority of the neighborhood still survives on the small number of families who have owned property in the area or otherwise returned year after year for decades. Some of its current residents began coming to Higgins Beach in this way.

Scarborough River
Scarborough River

Scarborough River is a 3.7-mile-long (6.0 km) coastal estuary and river draining through the Scarborough Marsh in Scarborough, Maine. It empties into Saco Bay between Pine Point Beach and Western Beach and marks the bay's northern end. The main tributaries are the Nonesuch River, Dunstan River, and Libby River, as well as smaller brooks and streams. In its natural state, it was a sediment sink for Saco Bay, storing sediment migrating northward up the bay from the beaches to the south and ultimately from the Saco River. The channel migrated regularly in response to natural events; as it did so, abandoned sand banks would replenish the sand on both Pine Point Beach to the south and Western and Ferry beaches to the north. In the early 17th century, Christopher Levett gave the name of the river, or perhaps the marshes it drains, as Owascoag, after the Abenaki Indian name. The English fishing fleet offshore in 1624 was over 50 vessels, and the shores of the river were settled by fishermen and their families early in the period of English settlement; when the primary road in Maine ran along the coastline for its entire length, a ferry operated across the mouth of the river, running from Pine Point Beach to Ferry Beach. In the late 19th century, Little River Inlet, a tidal reentrant located at the south end of Pine Point Beach, was dammed and diverted into the Scarborough River. In 1962, the Army Corps of Engineers stabilized the river channel, in part by building a jetty at the southern edge of the river mouth. This has allowed a stable river channel for use by those fishing and pleasure boats harbored in the river and for occasional launches from a town-managed dock. The stabilized channel gradually fills with sediment, and has needed to be dredged roughly every five years. Materials from the 2004 dredging were deposited on Western Beach in imitation of the natural sediment flow.