THE COTTAGE:
The Hostess House is a lovely 2 story cottage on Herrick Road Road, in Brooksville, Maine, within eyesight of beautiful Eggemoggin Reach looking near Deer Isle, and only a short walk to an ocean dock, a beautiful ocean beach, and a nice lake beach on Walkers Pond. It has 5 bedrooms, a large enclosed front porch for easy relaxing, 4 bathrooms, and a nice full-sized kitchen - with it's own full size refrigerator and gas stove. It also has a nice large living room area to relax, with Dish TV and internet. You may also enjoy 2 kayaks on Eggemoggin Reach, and a canoe on Walkers Pond. This is a very comfortable cottage with access to a beautiful beach on Eggeomoggin Reach and it's stunning views of the Camden Hills, Deer Isle, and Cape Rosier nearby Deer Isle, Stonington, and Mount Desert Isle. Additionally, Bar Harbor and the infamous Acadia National Park is within any easy drive. It is approximately 2 1/2 hours from Portland, Maine. It is relaxing living at its best, in one of the most beautiful areas of the world.
Availability: The Hostess House is available on a weekly basis from Saturday to Saturday. Other shorter or longer options may also be available. The season is between May 1st and October 15th.
THE COMMUNITY/AREA:
Brooksville, Maine is surrounded by some of the best scenery in the world, and is renowned for its beauty and natural setting. The following provides samples of some places that you can visit while in this area:
Acadia National Park and Mt. Desert Island: An hour away you can visit Acadia National Park, known for its beautiful views, its rocky shoreline, its rugged mountains, and it picturesque lakes. Here you can rent bikes to ride on the Acadia carriage trails, enjoy easy to difficult hikes [including the ‘Precipice,’ which includes a portion that goes up a sheer cliff], or drive or walk up Cadillac Mountain, the first place in America to receive sunlight. Bar Harbor is near the park and has bustling summertime crowds, plenty of restaurants and shops, and excursion companies that will take you on whale-watching trips. You can also take a high speed ferry to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia.
Blue Hill: This quaint New England town is about 15 minutes away and features art galleries, clothing stores, authentic country stores and casual and fine dining. Blue Hill is the home to the Blue Hill fair every Labor Day weekend, and is also the home to Blue Hill, the very large hill in town that offers a good half day hike to a fire tower on top. There are various musical events and other goings-on in town throughout the summer.
Brooksville: The Hostess House and Retreat are located in the town of Brooksville and about five minutes from the town’s ‘downtown’ of South Brooksville, also called Buck’ Harbor. Buck’s Harbor was the basis for Robert McCloskey’s award winning children’s books, “One Morning in Maine” and “Time of Wonder.” The Harbor – arguably the most picturesque in all of Maine – is a stopping point for Maine’s Windjammer fleet. On select Mondays through the summer, a local steel band plays calypso dance music in front of the general store to hundreds of visitors from the ships and the region. On Thursday evenings there is a weekly square dance at the Bucks Harbor Yacht Club each week that is open to the public. You might also stop at the Good Life Center, which is open to the public and was the homestead of the late Helen and Scott nearing, who are sometimes credited with being founders of the back-to-the-land movement after they wrote “living the Good Life” and settled here in the 1950’s. This is also the area that James Wyeth withdrew towards to do many of his paintings.
Castine: This small coastal village is about 30 minutes away by car, with a picturesque harbor and a lazy downtown where you can meander from gift store to antique shop to a restaurant for lunch or dinner on a deck on the water. Here you will find the Maine Maritime Academy, the academy’s training ship the State of Maine [which you can take wonderful tours of each day], the Castine Golf Club, Leila Day Antiques stores, The Wilson Museum, and John Perkins House, a small complex of buildings for summer visitors to explore. It is a great little town with excellent restaurants and charm.
Deer Isle – Stonington: The island of Deer Isle – only a 5 minute drive from the Hostess House and Retreat and the home to the towns of Deer Isle and Stonington – is known for its spruce-crowned pink granite ledges quiet woods and open fields, vistas of islands and sparkling waters that are Down East at its most beautiful. The island brings together artists, photographers, writers and musicians with lobstermen, fishermen, and farmers who make a living off the ocean and the land just as their fathers, grandfathers and those before them did. For more than a century artists of all types have come to Deer Isle, attracted by the scenery and the modest way of life. Haystack Mountain School of Crafts has brought many craftspeople to the area, a number of whom have chosen to live here permanently. Across the island, in Stonington, you’ll find more than 20 art and craft galleries, some of which display work produced by some of the most accomplished artists of the century. More than a dozen antique, gift and book shops invite leisurely browsing. In Stonington, you will find a large fleet of lobster boats and a smaller fleet of ground fishing boats. Maine’s world-famous granite was quarried on the islands off Stonington. Excursion companies offer cruises around the islands surrounding Deer Isle as well as trips to Vinalhaven, North Haven, and Isle au Haut. Nearby is the island Country Club, a quirky nine-hole golf course.
This is a place you will never forget
