The original Alheim house was donated to Laudholm Trust by John L. Alheim in 1984.  A new Alheim Commons building was completed in December 2005. It is a 20-bed housing facility for the Wells National Estuarine Research Reserve. It was designed and constructed to accommodate coastal scientists, educators and resource managers who are visiting south coastal Maine and working on projects with the Reserve, or working independently on projects directly related to the Reserve’s coastal resource stewardship mission. Several AmeriCorps volunteers who are assisting with various tasks at the Wells Reserve are residing at the Alheim Commons during the summer of 2013.