The new owners of the Folsom Inn & Spa in front of the building: Philip McCormack, Lisa Andrade, Jen Whitehead and Elijah Whitehead. (Staff Photo / Madeleine Kaptein/Staff Writer)

The Pinecrest Inn on South Street has new owners with a vision for the space inspired by its history.

Two married couples, Lisa Andrade and Philip McCormack and Jen and Elijah Whitehead, purchased the property together from Kathy Powell for $1.2 million this year after approaching her last fall. Powell wanted to sell and move closer to family in Virginia, having run the inn mostly alone for over eight years.

“I became a grandmother two years ago, and it was time for the inn to be handed off, for the legacy to move on,” Powell said. “I feel very confident (these two couples) are going to succeed.”

Andrade and Jen Whitehead also run Dream Home Realty in Gorham. Once the businesses partners and friends decided to buy the Pinecrest, they dove into its past, digging up tidbits of information and tracing the fuller story of the building through historical records. It has served as an orphanage, a residence for various families and an inn under several keepers.

In 1825, respected Gorham Dr. Dudley Folsom and his wife lived on the property. A sudden late night fire in June that year burned their home to the ground.

Jane Robinson, the Folsoms’ 15-year-old servant, was accused of setting the fire as rumors circulated that she had been furious they had barred her from traveling to Portland that night to see the French military officer Marquis de Lafayette on his visit to town.

Robinson was sent to trial for arson and acquitted. Some written accounts even claimed that she had actually awoken and alerted the Folsoms to the blaze, saving their lives. On the Fourth of July that year, hundreds of Gorham community members came together to help the couple rebuild the house.

 “It just took on its own life,” Andrade said. “We just saw it as such an amazing opportunity to kind of take the reins where Kathy left them.”

The couples are working toward changes that will make the inn accessible to the public beyond overnight guests, including reshuffling its rooms to add two spaces for spa services. One spa room will open next month — they are interviewing massage therapists — and the second, a head spa, will open in the winter. The initial spa room is on the first floor and has a side door near the building’s parking lot for guests to exit after treatment.

The new owners will no longer serve meals at the inn, but will maintain the kitchen and dining space for catered events, such as baby or wedding showers and office meetings. There is a back patio and courtyard they hope to eventually use to host town events.

“We would love for this space to be used for the town and for people here in Gorham to be able to enjoy it,” Andrade said.

In their greatest nod to the Folsom fire story, the owners are transforming the other rooms in the inn to reflect the various historical “characters” involved. They are nearly done decorating the Mrs. Folsom room, with the Dr. Folsom suite, Jane Robinson suite, “grand Folsom suite” in the one-bedroom apartment where Powell formerly lived, and a room based after the newspaper reporters that documented the fire and its aftermath.

The Mrs. Folsom-themed room on the first floor. (Madeleine Kaptein/Staff Writer)

“We just felt like every time we came through this room and the more we learned about the Folsom family, this felt very Mrs. Folsom,” Andrade said, stepping into the pale blue-and-white-color-schemed room toward the front of the inn. “You’ll notice the great blue heron on the wall, very still and patient.”

Dr. Folsom’s room will be “darker, more professional, contemplative and mature,” Andrade explained, while the Jane Robinson-themed suite will feature bold colors, as well as some French influence based on the teen’s alleged interest in seeing Marquis de Lafayette. Andrade and Whitehead are on the hunt for pieces with the right aesthetic, searching everywhere from vintage shops to Facebook marketplace.

“I feel like there are just so many stories to this place that we can tell,” Whitehead said. “As we’re being here and changing it, the story is coming even more alive.” 

The Whiteheads have three teenage children who will work at the inn. Their youngest, 14-year-old Zoe Whitehead, is the most enthusiastic, planning to help out with room turns and check-ins. Andrade and McCormick have five children between them, and Sofia Andrade, 18, worked at the inn as her first job when Powell owned it.

“It’s really such a family thing,” Whitehead said.

Passersby so far may have already noticed the Adirondack chairs the couples have put out front, but the rest of their progress is happening slowly, behind the scenes, Andrade said. Even so, she’s been getting texts from friends and acquaintances who have spotted her on the porch from the road.

“We’ve kind of been keeping it a little bit under wraps that we bought it,” she said. “But people have figured it out.”

Rooms are currently available for bookings on select weekends throughout the summer.