GARDINER – This classic 1830 Cape has been in the same family since before World War I. Consequently, the home’s arrival on the market marks an occasion. And the property’s many features, and affordable asking price, mark it as a rare opportunity for home-seekers.

Growing families, for example, will appreciate the four bedrooms, and the spacious main level, whose rooms offer floor-plan flexibility; to say nothing of the appeal of a sunny, eight-acre lot of lawn, meadow and woods – a park unto itself – only a half-mile from the town center, and very close to schools. The gardening potential is immense.

As for pricing, the property presents three options: Home with all acreage, $244,500. Home with two acres, $194,900; or the six additional acres, $55,000. For the latter, a road plan has town approval, and there is building potential.

Set about 200 feet of lawn back from the road, amid a grassy expanse that once was the center of the Skehan family farm, the home is well maintained, and spacious at 2,402 square feet. The original owners – Martin Esmond, an Irish native who moved here from Boston, and his wife, Jane – were prosperous, to judge by the large scale of the home; the number and size of their closets (very unusual in a house of this vintage); and the quality of construction and materials, as seen in the massive brick arches in the high-ceilinged basement, for example, or the marble surrounds of the fireplaces in the two front rooms.

Mostly, the home’s woodwork (chair rails, mantels, wide pine floors upstairs) embodies the Yankee aesthetic of simple elegance. Downstairs, the flooring is newer – linoleum, carpeting, or maple, as in the dining room, which has lots of built-ins, and a massive brick fireplace.

The large kitchen is perfectly functional and includes delightful details such as a retractable stand for the mixer and flour drawers for dry storage. A refrigerator is needed, and many buyers would probably swap out the Hotpoint stove for a matching set. (Probably for a gas cooktop, since natural gas is newly available from the street. But the vintage NuTone vent hood may prove a keeper.)

Upstairs are four corner bedrooms and the full bath, which has been nicely updated. Downstairs, there’s a powder room (also newer) off the dining room, and a commode in the big laundry room, which could be converted to bath-with-shower, and stacked washer and dryer.

Bonuses include an attached cold-storage room that would make a nice studio, plus more storage/workshop on two levels as part of the vehicle-storage barn (which still has its walk-in cooler from the property’s dairy farm days).

The home at 242 Brunswick Ave., Gardiner is listed for sale by Heather Hinton of Century 21 Baribeau Agency in Brunswick.

For more information or to arrange a private viewing, please contact Heather at 729-3333, 485-5575, or at heather.hinton@century21.com.

Produced by the Marketing Department of the Kennebec Journal and Morning Sentinel, the Home of the Week is provided at no cost.

Send HOW suggestions to jrolfe@pressherald.com.

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