“It was bound to happen, my being here,” actor Bette Davis once said of her estate on Maine’s Cape Elizabeth, which has sold for $13.4 million after two months on the market. The coastal dwelling, which the late star of Hollywood’s Golden Age called Witch Way, was where she raised her children with fellow actor (and All About Eve costar) Gary Merrill throughout the 1950s.
“I’ve always believed most native New Englanders come home in one way or another,” Davis, a Massachusetts native, told the New York Times in 1955. “Up here we keep active with the interesting shore crowd, not the sophisticated suburbanites, and the kids’ schools are good and convenient. It’s possible to have a happy family life in Hollywood, but this is what I really want.”
Although Merrill recalled the family’s residency at Witch Way as “the best times in his life” (according to Legacy Properties Sotheby’s International Realty broker Sam Michaud, who shared the listing with his colleague, Bill Gaynor), the Hollywood pair divorced in 1960, leaving behind the shingle-style estate where Merrill trapped lobsters and Davis enjoyed panoramic views of the Atlantic Ocean.
The compound, which is situated on eight bucolic acres with over 1,000 feet of water frontage, features a 7,600-square-foot main home with five bedrooms and six bathrooms. Naturally, picture windows throughout the dwelling take full advantage of the property’s picturesque sea view; the eat-in kitchen foregoes upper cabinetry in favor of a row of tall windows along its curved wall (providing the dreamiest possible setting in which to wash the dishes).
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It also has a breakfast bar and a casual dining area warmed by a wood-burning fireplace. Elsewhere, a chandelier-lit dining room with French doors leading out toward the water provides a more formal space for hosting visitors. Other notable features of the estate include a wood-paneled study, a winding staircase leading up to a grand yet cozy window seat, and a stone fireplace built into a covered deck patio.