Experience Wiscasset's romantic past on a twilight tour of this grand 1807 mansion on July 19, 7 to 8:30 p.m. Admission is $10 Historic New England members, $20 nonmembers. Advance registration is required. Space is limited. Buy online at http://shop.historicnewengland.org/NIC-TWILIGHT-1-8516 or call 882-7169.

Nickels-Sortwell House was built as the trophy house of shipping magnate Captain William Nickels in 1807, just as the Jeffersonian Embargo of 1807 was about to destroy the East Coast shipping economy. Within seven years, Nickels lost his fortune, his daughter and his wife died before his own death in 1814. The mansion became a hotel, run by various owners over the next eighty-four years. In 1899, successful industrialist and outgoing mayor of Cambridge, Massachusetts , Alvin Sortwell bought the hotel as a summer home for his family. New Englanders proud of their Revolutionary War era ancestors, Alvin’s wife Gertrude and daughter Frances lovingly restored the house over the years in the Colonial Revival style. The Sortwell family enjoyed the mansion as a private home and family gathering place until 1957, when it was given to Historic New England. Come hear stories of life in the Gilded Age through the early twentieth century, when Wiscasset was a charmed summer getaway filled with relaxation, yachting and entertaining.

For more information and a full calendar of summer programs, call 882-7169 or visit www.HistoricNewEngland.org