Location, Location, Location: Mount Desert Island, Maine
July 2, 2004
The Rockefellers know how to avoid crowds. So do the Pierreponts, the Drexels,
the Biddles, the Strawbridges and Brooke Astor. They all spend the summer in the
quaint villages of Northeast Harbor and Seal Harbor on Mount Desert (pronounced
“dessert”) Island, Maine. Since most of the island is occupied by Acadia
National Park’s 30,300 unspoiled acres, the villages are safe from encroaching
development. Rolling hills dotted with tall spruce give way to granite seaside
cliffs. Winding roads sprinkled with capacious Shingle-style and New England
colonial white clapboard homes reveal glimpses of the sparkling
Atlantic.
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Southerly was built in 1994 in the Shingle
style and
sited to face Acadia National Park. Listed with Story Litchfield of
LandVest at $12.75 million. (Click image to enlarge)Old-guard Bostonians, Philadelphians and New Yorkers are regulars, but outsiders from Texas, including Robert Bass, and the South have lately discovered the isle. In 1997, Martha Stewart purchased Skylands, the 12-bedroom Seal Harbor house on 60-some-acres originally owned by Edsel Ford.
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Southerly, in Seal Harbor. (Click image to enlarge)Although Mount Desert, named L’Isle des Monts-Deserts by French explorer Samuel de Champlain in 1604, attracted artists, intellectuals and affluent families in the 1840s, the 1908 arrival of John D. Rockefeller Jr. helped secure the area’s noncommercial look. He purchased 30,000 acres for his family and gave 11,000 acres to the nascent Acadia National Park, which opened in 1916.
But this is not Palm Beach or Southampton, and there is no Worth Avenue or Job’s Lane. You have arrived in Seal Harbor when you pass the café next to the storefront office of architect Peter Forbes. Northeast Harbor’s main street extends several blocks with shops, cafés and inns. Residents are happy to keep a low profile and entertain at home. A big night out includes dinner at Abel’s Lobster Pound on Somes Sound (go by boat for the scenery) or the restaurant Islesford Dock on Little Cranberry Island, which can only be reached by water.
Yachters can set sail at Northeast Harbor Fleet or Seal Harbor Yacht Club (to get in, it helps to be born into the club’s membership). The swimming and tennis clubs—the Northeast Harbor Swim and Tennis Club and Seal Harbor’s Harbor Club—are even more difficult to join (they say married members often stay together since memberships cannot be split in a divorce). While golf is available, the private 18-hole Northeast Harbor Golf Club has a waiting list.
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