AUBURN — To be listed on the National Register of Historic Places a building has to meet certain criteria, according to Doug Hodgkin, historian and retired Bates College professor.

One factor is its architectural significance.

The William A. Robinson House on Forest Avenue on Goff Hill meets the standard and then some.

The house, listed as a Victorian Gothic, was built in 1874 and is on the National Register of Historic Places.

The house was bought last year by Pete and Migdalia “Mindy” Mass.

According to the register, “The William A. Robinson House is one of the most outstanding examples of late 19th century Gothic style domestic architecture in western Maine. It is also significant as the only important surviving example in Maine of the work of the Auburn architects Robert and Balstron Kenway.”

The Kenway brothers were from Wales, immigrated to Portland and settled in Auburn, working as architects and civil engineers.

The 12-room house is currently gray with red and white detail trim. The house has multiple gables, or high pitched peaks. The building overall is asymmetrical, with many Gothic features including projecting gable ends, an L-shaped porch and a commanding tower with elaborate trim. Each roof peak is also decorated with classic Gothic-style carved wood trim.

Second-floor windows are supported by brackets featuring carved gargoyles; the tower roof is also supported by gargoyle brackets.

The exterior has vertical board-and-batten siding, which is alternating wide and narrow boards giving it a distinctive look.

Windows are mounted in frames that “project boldly” from walls, according to the register, topped by curved hoods that come off the roof. The hoods of the windows are embellished with diamond-shaped shingles.

The property has a carriage barn where, in the 1870s, carriages and horses were kept.

In the era the house was built, Lewiston-Auburn was growing rapidly. The railroad arrived in the 1840s, the mills were built in the 1850s, and “by 1874 this was a boom town. Lewiston-Auburn was a boom community,” Hodgkin said. The population was growing rapidly.

William A. Robinson, who was a druggist, was clearly prosperous to have that kind of home built, Hodgkin noted.

“It was a way of showing off, that you have arrived in the community up there on Goff Hill,” he said. The size and unique style “make a statement.”

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