Here to Stay

MORE FOLKS ARE DISCOVERING THAT IN ADDITION TO BEING A GREAT PLACE TO VISIT, BELFAST AND THE SURROUNDING TOWNS ARE AN INCREDIBLE PLACE TO LIVE YEAR-ROUND.

Like a lot of folks, Zach Schmesser fell in love with Maine the first time he visited. After growing up in New Jersey, he was taken by Waldo County’s rural character, its rocky beaches, and the hive of activity in downtown Belfast. After graduating from Unity College, he lived in Bangor, Biddeford, then Portland. But when Schmesser and his wife — a Montville native — were ready to have kids, Belfast beckoned.

“It’s small enough that people know their neighbors, but big enough to have amenities all year,” says Schmesser, 35, executive director of Our Town Belfast the nonprofit downtown development group. Schmesser and his family, which now includes his three-year-old daughter and one-year-old son, love living close enough to shops, restaurants, festivals, the parks, and the rail trail and Harbor Walk, while still being close enough to the rural landscape they treasure. He’s heartened to see so many other young families, as well as young professionals, empty nesters, and retirees, putting down roots here too.

“We have this great cross-generational community that includes young people who grew up here and stayed, young people who grew up here and have returned, as well as those folks who are discovering this area for the first time,” he says. “The area isn’t all just one thing, and that makes for this really rich experience of living here.”

Schmesser is one of an increasing number of people who are discovering that in addition to being a fun place to visit in the summer, Belfast and the surrounding towns offer a quality of life that is hard to come by. There just aren’t that many places in Maine or anywhere where there’s so much year-round activity and unspoiled natural beauty within such easy reach.

Jonathan Perkins & Dan Despain

“There are so many fun places to explore without having to deal with the congestion,” says Dan Despain, who moved from San Francisco to Belfast in 2017. “The trees, ocean, and lakes are so beautiful, and the fact that you can take a ferry out to these islands is amazing.”

Despain, like Schmesser, immediately felt at home in Waldo County. Despain’s husband, Jonathan Perkins, grew up in Belfast. When Despain’s high-tech company announced it was relocating from San Francisco to Dallas, shortly after the couple had come to own Perkins’ childhood home, Despain, 62, got a job as a senior associate for athenahealth’s population health data delivery team. “The pace of life in the Bay area, the churn, and the competitiveness of the work environment were really taking a toll,” he says. He also enjoys this chapter of his career at Boston-based athenahealth, which employs a staff of 800 in Belfast. “We’re doing really exciting technical work, and people are always willing to take on a new challenge.”

Despain especially appreciates the warmth of being on a first name basis with the owners of the local businesses. “Here, you get to know people as well as you want to, and have an impact,” says Despain, who grew up in Utah. “There’s a sense of history and continuity here that you don’t find in big western cities where there’s constant change. find that refreshing.

Beth Lykling and her family were living near Waterville and driving to Belfast weekly so that their young daughter could attend a primitive-skills class here. They loved exploring the town, grabbing ice cream at Wild Cow Creamery on the Harbor Walk, and walking along the waterfront whenever they visited.

They loved that there were so many community cultural events, like yoga in the park and contra dancing, as well as strong farming, permaculture, and home-schooling communities in the area.

This area just seemed to be filled with people to learn from and share knowledge with,” says Lykling, 44, a family physician. She now works at Waldo County General Hospital in Belfast, and the family moved to Searsport last summer. They love tidepooling at Moose Point State Park, exploring Sears Island, and being close enough to Acadia to adventure there in the off-season. She loves stocking up for craft projects at Fiddlehead Artisan Supply and Heavenly Yarns, and shopping at the Belfast Co-op and the Green Store.

“To know that I don’t have to shop at a big-box store is kind of amazing,” she says. “I feel great knowing that I’m buying local. I feel like I know these people, I see them every week, and they recognize my face when I come in.”

Erin Herbig, former Maine State Senator and current Belfast city manager.

Native Erin Herbig, 40, moved back to Belfast about 12 years ago, after attending Boston College and living in Nantucket, Los Angeles, Portland, and hiking the Appalachian Trail.

“Until you spend time traveling and living in other places, you don’t realize that Belfast is one of the most beautiful places in the world,” she says. She also craved the warmth of the close-knit community and the opportunity to make a difference.

“I realized I could make such a larger impact here at home than I could anywhere else,” she says.

By the time she returned, Belfast had changed dramatically from what it was in the 1980s and 1990s, when Herbig was growing up here. Galleries, shops, artist studios, and performing-arts groups were thriving in the city. The Belfast Co-op had expanded, Waterfall Arts had moved to Belfast, and companies like MBNA had brought hundreds of well-paying jobs to the area. Maine Farmland Trust and the Belfast Farmers’ Market had moved downtown, and along with Unity’s Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association and Common Ground Country Fair, created a center of gravity for the region’s farmers and food makers. Events like Belfast Summer Nights, Arts in the Park, All Roads Music Festival, Maine Celtic Celebration, and Belfast Harbor Fest were drawing scores of people downtown.

“So many people in our community have put their expertise to work to put economic growth at the forefront and create this enchanting downtown that people want to visit,” she says. “But we also preserved this sense of grit and authenticity that makes Belfast so unique, and a place that people want to live and work.”

Herbig has dedicated her life since then to serving the community. She was elected to the Maine House of Representatives in 2010, and spent a decade serving in the state government as a four-term state representative, including one term as House Majority Leader, and one term as a state senator representing Waldo County. In March 2020, Herbig became Belfast’s city manager.

“I am so proud of how far we’ve come and where we’re headed,” she says. “It is an honor to serve as the city manager in Belfast and be part of the team that provides services to our citizens and visitors every day. We are stewards of Belfast and we will be for generations to come.”