photo/The Fuge

Bay Street has no claim to fame. The dead-end near Cheverus High School is like many other residential streets in off-peninsula Portland — detached homes on large lots, intermittent sidewalks and, surprisingly, substantial swaths of wilderness that have somehow, so far, eluded the eyes of suburban housing developers. 

There’s not much to do on Bay Street other than watch the grass grow — or, in the case of 46 Bay Street, watch the grass grow in the rain gutters on the roof. 

This forlorn, boarded-up bungalow is slowly being reclaimed by Mother Nature. The south wall is starting to cave in; the yard is overgrown with a thicket of burr-bearing weeds; shrubbery is poking out of the chimney. 

To add insult to inattention, the heavily vegetated yard is strewn with the leavings of losers too lazy to haul their broken appliances and worn-out furniture to the transfer station — much to the chagrin of once and future Bay Street resident Keith Craig.

“You drive by a house that’s not lived in and not maintained, some people think it’s an opportunity to empty their car,” Craig said. “It’s become a kind of smudge on the landscape.”

Portland City Councilor Cheryl Leeman, who’s gotten an earful from her district’s constituents about the property over the years, put it more bluntly: “It’s an eyesore.” 

Long before the wildlife moved in, the house belonged to the late Llewellyn “Louie” Leavitt, whose name is still on the city tax rolls as its legal owner. The assessor’s record lists his last address, on Campbells Pond Road in West Bath. That’s where I found Gary Roberts, his nephew by marriage. 

According to Roberts, Uncle Louie worked in Portland in the 1940s. When his boss’ daughter got pregnant, they married and shacked up in the house his in-laws built for them across Bay Street from their own. That was 1949. Time passed, and was not especially kind to Leavitt. By the 1990s, he was living in the bungalow alone, and then dementia came knocking. A nursing home drained his savings in short order, prompting Roberts and his wife, Francena, to take on his care. 

Leavitt died several years ago and left the house to Francena, said Roberts. A retiree who lives in a very modest dwelling in the woods along Campbells Pond, Roberts said he and his wife have so far been unable to pool the money (about $1,200) necessary to have the property legally transferred to them through the county probate office. He reckons that once that’s done, the property will fetch a quarter million dollars or so. (The land — two-and-a-half lots’ worth, Roberts said — and building are assessed at $109,100 combined.) 

Craig looks forward to seeing a “for sale” sign in the yard. He and his family are moving to Seattle, but plan to return in a few years and will be renting out their Bay Street home in the meantime. Craig said he’d prefer his tenants not have to reside near the impromptu landfill, where raccoons, woodchucks and feral cats have taken up residence inside and outside the house. 

Roberts and his wife are on fixed incomes, but manage to have the brush whacked down every season or so. “We try to do as much as we can to keep an eye on it,” Roberts said. 

That grass sure will grow…

— Patrick Banks