WISCASSET — Historic New England’s Castle Tucker and Nickels- Sortwell House will be open for free tours on Saturday, June 1, and Sunday, June 2, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Tours begin on the half hour. The last tour begins at 4 p.m. All tours are guided. Whether you are local or just visiting, this is a great opportunity to see these wonderful historic homes.

Castle Tucker is an architecturally unusual mansion, dramatically seated on a hill overlooking the beautiful Sheepscot River. Built in 1807 and lived in by one family for almost 150 years, Castle Tucker takes the visitor back in time to the life of an upper middle class 19th Century shipping family.

After purchasing the house in 1858, wealthy Wiscasset shipping broker Capt. Richard Tucker Jr. and his young wife, Mollie, redecorated what had become a slightly rundown house and furnished it in the latest Victorian fashion. They added a three story piazza and filled new barns with carriages and wagons.

Visitors see original interior decoration and furnishings as they were preserved by three generations of Tucker family women. Mollie and Richard raised five children here, but as the American economy fell more often than it rose in the late 19th Century, so did the Tuckers’ fortunes.

Tours include stories of relationships and issues drawn right from family letters. The Tuckers survived both economic and emotional hard times, all while maintaining their public image of gentility and social prominence.

Castle Tucker is located at 2 Lee St.

Just a few blocks away, visitors can hear and see a very different story. Nickels-Sortwell House is one of the most outstanding examples of high Federal style architecture north of Boston, a grand mansion built by a wealthy sea captain at the peak of Wiscasset’s prosperity in 1807.

After his early death, the house was run as a hotel before its rescue by successful Cambridge industrialist and mayor, Alvin Sortwell and his wife, Gertrude, in 1899. Sortwell’s mother’s family had deep roots in Wiscasset, and the mansion became a muchloved family vacation house for the Sortwells and their six children for more than 50 years. Both Gertrude and daughter Frances were dedicated to historic preservation and philanthropy.

Visitors hear stories and see photographs of a happy and carefree lifestyle when Wiscasset was a summer playground for privileged Gilded Age families. In 1947, the house became Gertrude and Frances’ principal residence where they lived until their deaths in 1956 and ’57. The house is furnished with Sortwell antiques in the Colonial Revival style. Nickels-Sortwell House is located at 121 Main St.

Historic New England is the oldest, largest and most comprehensive regional heritage organization in the nation. For more information or to explore the authentic New England experience from the 17th Century to today, visit www.HistoricNewEngland.org.

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