The cause of a fire that took down a beloved local home in Newcastle May 12 is undetermined, according to the State Fire Marshal’s Office.

Investigator Mary MacMaster said that’s how she’ll classify it in her report, which she expected to close and then only reopen if there was new information. She viewed the scene on South Dyer Neck Road the day of the fire. The damage was too extensive to determine the cause, MacMaster said in a phone interview Friday.

Family members escaped the home on their own after fire broke out upstairs for an unknown reason, Newcastle Fire Chief Clayton Huntley said.

“The fire was through both ends of the house when we got here,” Huntley said at the scene the evening of May 12. The home was lying in ruin, with parts of the pile still smoking.

A Damariscotta firefighter and a Newcastle one were OK after being treated for dehydration, Huntley said.  A cat and two birds may have been lost in the fire, he said.

The property belongs to the Lochhead family, Huntley said. The fire destroyed the home and the wind sent cinders from the fire onto the barn nearby, but firefighters were able to keep the barn from catching fire, the chief said. “We saved the carriage house,” he added.

Sheep at the property were out in the pasture at the time and were unharmed, he said.

Neighbors and other residents said the home dated to the 1800s. The property is known as Two Rivers Farm, because the Sheepscot and Dyer rivers are on either side, and it has long been a popular subject for photographs, according to those gathered by the guardrails downhill near the Sheepscot Road intersection early Thursday afternoon.

During the early hours of the firefighting effort, the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office was limiting traffic up the hill to emergency vehicles which kept coming and going from the scene.

Nearby homeowner Peter Keyes said the home was so well-known and loved, “It’s like a person in town.

“A family has lost everything and the community has lost a sort of touchstone,” he said.

“It’s the end of an era,” Maggie Atwood of Newcastle said.

Newcastle, Alna, Damariscotta, Wiscasset, Edgecomb, Nobleboro and Bristol firefighters responded, Huntley said. Newcastle continued to check on the scene and add water and foam to the debris pile in the days that followed.

Neighbor Leah Sprague said she is one of the organizers of a fund to help the family with temporary expenses. Checks should be made payable to Two Rivers Farm Fund and mailed to P.O. Box 390, Newcastle, ME 04553, Sprague said.