Yankee Magazine July/August 2019

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For more than a century, the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire, has been giving writers, visual artists, and composers the freedom to create some of the most enduring works in their fields.

By Mel Allen

How a generational divide is upending the market for that most New Englandy of commodities: antiques. By Howard Mansfield

Swimmers beat the heat with a plunge into the waters off Vinalhaven, Maine.

At sunset, after a day of sailing, I had no idea where we were. So I asked the captain. He unrolled a huge paper map, which seemed a little old-timey but I was curious. He called it a nautical chart. Then he weighed down the edges with funny smelling lanterns and my dad said, “No batteries. Just good old kerosene.” He is such a nerd. The captain traced our route with his finger. We could have gone anywhere, but here we are. This is me.

BE ORIGINAL. BE INSPIRED AT VISITMAINE.COM

home

28 /// Call of the Wildside

A Massachusetts green thumb is gardening to change the world, one acre at a time. By Katy Kelleher

36 /// Open Studio

A family tradition of hand-making Windsor chairs lives on in Vermont. By Annie Graves

39 /// House for Sale

Pondering genius and controversy in a stunning glass-walled Connecticut home. By Joe Bills

44 /// The Jewels of Summer

At New Hampshire’s Edgewater Farm, tomato time is the sweetest season of all. By

Jessica Battilana

54 /// Cooking at Cottage Farm

A hot day on the farm inspires a cool way to cook with orchard-ripe fruit. By Krissy

56 /// Weekends with Yankee

O’Shea

Baking wild Maine blueberry pie with Portland’s Two Fat Cats. By Amy Traverso

travel

62 /// Could You Live Here?

When summer comes to Burlington, Vermont, you’ll want to take everything outside. By Annie Graves

70 /// The Best 5

Leave your cares on land with one of these breezy sailing adventures. By Kim

Knox Beckius

74 /// Out & About

From big-top thrills to signature seafood festivals, these New England events are worth the drive.

10

DEAR YANKEE, CONTRIBUTORS & POETRY BY D.A.W.

12

INSIDE YANKEE

14

FIRST PERSON

The Newport Folk Festival and the power of music to knock down walls. By Rick Massimo

16

LIFE IN THE KINGDOM

Reconciling memory and change in the place you love. By Ben Hewitt

20

FIRST LIGHT

A visit to the Desert of Maine finds a new wind blowing at this old-school attraction. By Joe Bills

24

KNOWLEDGE & WISDOM

Taking the measure of Rhode Island, and going to the dogs with Connecticut romance novelist Kristan Higgins. 26

BY THE NUMBERS

Doing the math on the Vermont cheese industry. 136

UP CLOSE

The Massachusetts innovator who was behind all those Foster Grants.

This is the stuff movies are made of…

The Clipper Ship Trade Wind Jewelry Collection

Early December, 1868 –A man left Gardiner, Maine, traveled to New York City, boarded his clipper ship, sailed it as its captain around the tip of South America up to San Francisco, then on to Java, Burma, and China. Almost two years later with his ship laden with sugar and tea, he returned home first to New York then to Gardiner, Maine, and his loving family as he had done many times before.

Captain Drew kept an unusually detailed handwritten account of his journeys. We have the captain’s log, a beautifully written document also illustrated by the captain. We are serializing this story on our website.

The captain’s log was loaned to us by the captain’s great-great-grandson Keith, who goes on gem-buying expeditions to the Orient each year to aquire gems in the cutting centers of the world. Keith brings these gems back to New England where he creates beautiful jewelry, making monthly additions to our Clipper Ship Trade Wind Jewelry Collection. We have the journal and Keith’s jewelry collection. Visit our website, then visit our store to see the entire Trade Wind Jewelry Collection.

Over 125 pieces of jewelry on display.

EDITORIAL

EDITOR Mel Allen

DEPUTY EDITOR Ian Aldrich

MANAGING EDITOR Jenn Johnson

SENIOR EDITOR/FOOD Amy Traverso

HOME & GARDEN EDITOR Annie Graves

ASSOCIATE EDITOR Joe Bills

SENIOR DIGITAL EDITOR Aimee Tucker

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Kim Knox Beckius, Ben Hewitt, Rowan Jacobsen, Krissy O’Shea, Julia Shipley

ART

ART DIRECTOR Lori Pedrick

PHOTO EDITOR Heather Marcus

CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS Adam DeTour, Megan Haley, Corey Hendrickson, Little Outdoor Giants, Michael Piazza, Greta Rybus

PRODUCTION

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Travel:

Best Beach Towns

Whether you prefer seaside solitude or family-focused getaways, we’ve got the perfect beach town for you.

NEWENGLAND.COM/ BEACHTOWNS

Lemon Blueberry

Zucchini Bread

Make the most of summer’s bounty with this favorite from Yankee’s archives.

NEWENGLAND.COM/ BLUEBERRYBREAD

Lighthouses That Are Worth the Drive

Among the lighthouses that dot the New England coast, these 10 are must-sees.

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Summer Road Trips

From back roads to coastal highways, these routes pave the way to stunning views and great destinations.

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Chatham, Massachusetts

ON THE TRAIL OF Lewis & Clark

COLUMBIA AND SNAKE RIVERS

Follow Lewis and Clark’s epic 19th-century expedition along the Columbia and Snake Rivers aboard the newest riverboats in the region. Enjoy unique shore excursions, scenic landscapes, and talented onboard experts who bring the region to life.

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READERS RESPOND

Peace Keeping

JESSICA BATTILANA

For her story on tomatoes [“The Jewels of Summer,” p. 44], this San Francisco–based cookbook author returned to a favorite farm from her New England childhood with her own two boys, ages 4 and 7, in tow. “If the highlight for me was getting to eat (lots of!) sun-warmed tomatoes straight off the vine,” she reports, “the highlight for them was getting a ride around the farm on an ATV.”

MARK FLEMING

Being turned loose on “Maine’s Magical Islands” 82] was a “dream assignment” for Yankee ’s former staff photographer—but wrangling ferries was another story. “I spent a lot of early mornings holding my spot in line at the Rockland terminal,” says Fleming, now Down East ’s director of photography. “Once I even slept in my car to make sure I’d be on the early boat—gotta be on the island for the best light!”

WINKY LEWIS

Freelance photographer Lewis contributed to our cover story [“Maine’s Magical Islands,” p. 82] with images from Peaks Island and Isle au Haut. And while the former is just a quick ferry ride from her Portland home, she especially enjoyed shooting the more remote Isle au Haut: “I’ve been documenting my kids on this special island for years, as we’re lucky enough to spend time there every summer.”

ROWAN JACOBSEN

Profiling a world-acclaimed Vermont brewer [“Shaun Hill and the Price of Perfection,” p. 106] not only provided Jacobsen the chance to sample beer that made his heart “flutter,” but also gave this native Vermonter and award-winning food writer new favorite lake for swimming and paddling, in preserve near Hill Farmstead Brewery that includes land from Shaun Hill’s family.

COREY HENDRICKSON

In addition to photographing stories for the pages of Yankee —including “Shaun Hill and the Price of Perfection” [p. 106]—Hendrickson has worked as a director of photography on Weekends with Yankee and also has published photos in Vanity Fair, Forbes, Popular Mechanics, and Food & Wine, among others. Born in Massachusetts, Hendrickson now lives in Vermont with his wife, two kids, and dog.

RICK MASSIMO

The author of I Got a Song: A History of the Newport Folk Festival, Massimo still vividly recalls a 2009 interview with festival founder George Wein [“Folk Heroes,” p. 14]. It left Massimo, a veteran Providence Journal writer, with the conviction that society needs both people who devote their lives to making change and, like Wein, “people who stand up in quiet ways in the everyday world as well.”

Ian Aldrich’s very excellent article about the ATV economy in northern New Hampshire [“Northern Exposure,” March/April] was worth the entire price of my subscription.

My husband and I once owned a condo at the foot of Mount Washington. It provided true escape from the stressful lives we led in Boston. Then the bikers moved in. On weekends, the road sounded like the runway at Logan Airport. Tranquil enjoyment of the beautiful woods and mountains ended; wildlife raced away in terror.

The wilderness should belong to everyone, and everyone’s rights are to be respected. This is not what is happening in northern New Hampshire. The greed of the Gorham deciders and business operators doesn’t take into account the people who don’t spend tourist dollars there anymore because they can’t stand the noise. I hope these people realize they may be killing the goose that laid the golden egg.

Susan K. O’Brien Sharon, New Hampshire

Moving Pictures

Thank you for introducing me to the world of Kosti Ruohomaa [“Bringing Kosti Home,” March/April 2019]. Kosti’s photographs on your website and in the magazine are wonderful. I’ve requested a library copy of his Night Train at Wiscasset Station , and when I visit the area this year, I’ll check to see if there is another exhibit of Kosti’s photos.

Maria Leveton Hamden, Connecticut

Friends & Family Plan

As I read the latest issue of Yankee , my mind wandered through all the years of reading about our New England— all the stories, recipes, poems, and best places to eat and view the fall scenery. And I realized that I’ve had a subscription since 1971.

LORI PEDRICK (BATTILANA); GABE SOUZA (FLEMING); INDIAN HILL PRESS (“SALTWATER SOUVENIR”)

SALTWATER SOUVENIR

Driving home from summer’s beach

A colored taffy slips from reach…

A touching treasure from afar,

To find when autumn cleans the car. —D.A.W.

Actually, though, I’ve never been a subscriber. When I came back from Vietnam, I received Yankee as a Christmas present from a little old lady friend who knew I loved to read it. She continued to give me that same gift every year until she passed away in 1985. Then my mom took up the mantle, until she passed away in 1997.

Now what? Would I actually have to buy my own Yankee ? No. My dad took over the duty of continuing my free subscription, before passing the torch on to my wife in 2000.

To this day, 48 years later, I have yet to buy a single issue of my favorite magazine.

Norman VanCor Spofford, New Hampshire

Treasured Islands

ecades ago, on a blustery spring day, I boarded a ferry in Rockland, Maine, and a long two hours later, after a wave-tossed crossing of 23 miles, I stumbled, white as a ghost, onto the wharf where a watchful contingent of Matinicus islanders waited to see the hopeful prospective teacher for their one-room school. I am certain my wobbly steps and ashen countenance did not encourage them that I was the chosen one.

My wife had accompanied me, and a generous-hearted lobsterman and his wife put us up and fed us for the several days we would be interviewed by islanders. I remember sitting in the home of a fisherman who was on the selection committee and being asked if we would be keeping the curtains of our house open or drawn. Others wondered aloud if we understood the isolation that newcomers can feel, this far out to sea. (I don’t think they felt I would relish the heaving ferry crossings to reach the mainland when island life proved a bit too “islandy,” especially in winter.)

It worked out for the best that I did not become their island schoolteacher. But I left with the profound certainty that there were few places on this earth as elemental, as beautiful, as compelling as an island in Maine. I had walked the rockbound shores, smelled the salt-soaked air, listened in the dark to the wind banging against the lobsterman’s cottage. When dawn broke over the sea, I had wandered down to the harbor and watched the fleet heading out to the lobstering grounds, where there would be no mercy for carelessness.

Last summer Yankee sent photographers Mark Fleming and Winky Lewis to five Maine islands—Peaks, Mohegan, Vinalhaven, North Haven, and Isle au Haut—to capture this intimate world. Both Mark and Winky have deep ties to Maine: He grew up in the Midcoast region, while she has long summered on Isle au Haut. To complement their images, we spoke with people on these same five islands about what made their home special. The only things missing from the resulting story [“Maine’s Magical Islands,” p. 82] are the haunting sounds of foghorns, the steady churn of fishing boats coming into the harbor, the cry of gulls, and the deeply satisfying scent of the ocean. For those things, you must—and should—see a Maine island for yourself.

In the conference room where our pages are hung on the wall before going to press, every time I looked at our islands feature I found something new: a dart of light on the water, or the mood of the sky. I never taught in that one-room school, but I learned long ago that an island in Maine is impossible to forget.

Mel Allen

Folk Heroes

A conversation with one of the creators of the Newport Folk Festival reveals the power of music to knock down walls.

lot of musical history has happened at the Newport Folk Festival, which began 60 years ago this July. There was the “We Shall Overcome” performance in 1963, at the height of the civil rights movement, and Bob Dylan defiantly “going electric” amid boos in 1965. I’m not the only one who has dozens of stories from the dusty fields of Fort Adams. But the moment that never leaves me happened in the Manhattan apartment of festival cofounder George Wein.

We’d spent a long day in 2009 talking for a series I was writing for the Providence Journal to celebrate the festival’s 50th anniversary, and we were beginning to wind down. But there was still something I wanted to ask him—something I wanted to hear from him on the record.

At the 1964 festival, as Wein detailed in his memoirs, an all-white Sacred Harp singing group from Alabama was heading to their stage on a full bus when it stopped to let on the all-black Georgia Sea Island Singers. It had been only nine years since Rosa Parks and the Montgomery bus boycott. The two groups looked at each other along the aisle of the bus; then, the Sacred Harp singers stood and gave their seats to the Sea Islanders.

“Many beautiful things like that happened,” Wein said.

“You knew what you were doing,” I said.

There was a pause. “Oh yeah— that was intentional,” he said. “I can’t say we were color-blind.” And then the floodgates opened.

Wein told me about his marriage to Joyce Alexander, which was illegal in 24 states at the time because he was white and she was black; about the musicians who would play together at Newport but couldn’t sit on the same porch back home; about how the philosophies behind his two most famous festivals, Newport Jazz and Newport Folk, constituted two ways of reaching the same goal. “The jazz festival was an instruction on how things could be if people worked together,” he said. “The folk festival was very political.”

And he told how his other signature creation, the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival,

six years to come to fruition because city officials were—as he put it, with a laugh—“trying to figure out a way around their own laws,” which included prohibitions on “mixed” bands and

took

From the start, the Newport Folk Festival has welcomed artists that were barred from other venues due to race, sexual orientation, or politics. In a memorable moment at the end of the 1963 festival, performers united for a group sing of “We Shall Overcome.” FROM LEFT : Peter, Paul, and Mary; Joan Baez; Bob Dylan; the Freedom Singers; Pete Seeger; and Theodore Bikel.

audiences, as well as social mores that frowned on the Weins’ interracial marriage.

Wein recounted how, throughout his life, he wore people down with nothing but persistence, and worked from the inside.

“I never wanted to be a rebel. I never thought I was doing anything different by marrying Joyce. I wanted the same kind of respect my father had as a doctor. I wasn’t going to live an outsider’s life; I was part of society. And to this day I still am.

“And that’s why I’ve lasted all these years, I think. I don’t compromise, but at the same time I don’t tell anyone else they’re wrong. They have to find out that they’re wrong. And they’ll find out.”

He was 84 then. As I listened to him explain his ambitions and describe his steady, determined work, I was at the beginning of my midlife, a time when you begin to wonder whether you’re going to accomplish anything that lasts.

No one would put George Wein in with the front-line activists of the civil rights movement who risked life, limb, and freedom—least of all Wein himself. But that afternoon, I saw that working for change could include putting on music festivals. I saw that those who make phone calls and sign contracts and hassle with vendors and watch the money, they also serve. To ensure that their creation lives another year, and another, and another. To take a little kick against the wall, again and again and again.

The 60th annual Newport Folk Festival will be held July 26–28 at Fort Adams State Park in Newport, RI. Among the musicians scheduled to perform are Sheryl Crow, Lake Street Dive, Trey Anastasio, Jeff Tweedy, and Preservation Hall Jazz Band. Although all tickets have been sold, the festival offers a link to a fan-to-fan ticket exchange on its website, newportfolk.org.

Family

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Something Lost, Something Gained

At midlife, a Vermonter tries to reconcile memory and change in the community he loves.

n July, an ocean of high pressure settles over us, and the long summer days feel longer still. It is warm when we wake, hot when we work, and it would likely feel even hotter when we bed down for the night if not for our nightly swims in the spring-fed depths of the pond. Despite the heat, I start a small fire in the wood stove every morning, just enough to brew coffee and do what cooking needs to be done for lunch, which we’ll eat cold later, if we eat at all. On these hot days, sometimes a glass of cold milk with an egg yolk or two and a splash of maple syrup is the only thing on the menu.

The wood stove is the sole cooking range in our house, and kindling a fire at the height of summer reminds me of the cabin I was raised in, for it, too, featured only a wood range for cooking. I was 6 when my family moved from our northern Vermont homestead to a rural community about 10 miles north of Montpelier, the state capital. I do not remember much about the move, though I do remember the novelty of so many amenities: Hot running water and electric lights. My very own bedroom, and, just down the hallway (a hallway!), a flush toilet. An electric range. My parents never left; they are in their 70s, still feeding the wood stove, my father still tending a small garden, my mother still walking daily along the ridge of a neighboring meadow. They

JOHN CLARK OLSON

did at some point replace the original electric range with a new one that has too many buttons for my liking; when we visit for a meal, I can never figure out how to get it to do my bidding.

In those days, a full four decades ago, our new town was made up primarily of working-class folks. Many of my schoolmates’ fathers ran heavy equipment or worked in the woods; many of their mothers were full-time homemakers, or kept the books for the family construction business. During rifle season, the shoulders of the back roads were dotted with parked pickups, nosed into the forest’s edge, their drivers deep in the woods in search of the big buck they’d been scouting all summer.

Despite the fact that Montpelier was barely a 15-minute drive along a winding stretch of blacktop, few of our neighbors worked there, it seemed to me—though perhaps there were more than I remember or knew of. Still, I’m certain that 40 years ago, the village where I spent much of my childhood was a place radically different from what it is now.

Oh sure, there are still plenty of tradesmen and -women inhabiting the hills and hollows around my parents’ home, and come hunting season, you’ll still pass the occasional gun rack–equipped pickup truck. But just as surely, things have changed, and in looking back, I see that my parents were part of that change, and in particular my father, with his deskbound career, commuting to town in his little Honda to earn the money necessary to support his young family. Then, he was among the minority; now, the town is predominantly for commuters driving to well-paying service-sector jobs in Montpelier and, to a lesser extent, Burlington, another 40 minutes to the north.

There’s nothing unique about all this. Changes are happening every -

where, although of course it’s my home state that I know and understand best. For instance, I know that in 1971, the year I was born, there were more than 4,000 working dairy farms in Vermont, and today there are fewer than 800. I know that over the past 30 years or so, annual sales of hunting licenses have dropped by nearly half. I know that in just the past decade and a half, 20,000 more homes have been built on land of less than 50 acres statewide. In other words, properties like the very one my parents purchased when I was a boy—a sturdy Cape situated on 10 acres—are increasingly commonplace. And as the land is steadily, inexorably carved into smaller, more numerous parcels, many ringed in “No Trespassing” signs, our common access to the land changes. And as our common access to the land changes, our relationship to the land changes: It becomes primarily a place of recreation, rather than vocation or even avocation.

A culture changes for many reasons. Money is high on the list, and, indeed, economics is the primary driver in Vermont’s loss of dairy farms. Simply put, milking cows is too much work for too little money. And while you’ll rarely hear farmers complain about the former, you’re sure to hear them lament the latter, and for good reason: Most Vermont dairy farmers are being paid less than their cost of production. A friend of ours who milks about 60 head recently told me he’s losing $5,000 every month. He’s refinanced pretty much everything he owns and is crossing his fingers that the price of milk increases before his notes come due. And if his 200-acre farm is forced out of business? Eventually, perhaps, it becomes 20 ten-acre home sites. They’d be beautiful building lots—the views are outstanding. I can

Sometimes I worry New England will become overly reliant on our collective nostalgia.

see why someone might want to put a house on one. Put up “No Trespassing” signs. Sit out on warm summer evenings, surveying their domain.

There is a feedback loop that is amplified when a farmer quits farming, or when a logger quits harvesting trees, or when a hunter decides not to renew their license, and the family deer camp is slowly subsumed by the forest. There is a feedback loop when the rural places that so many of us know and love become less and less accessible, when we ourselves feel compelled to protect what is ours, perhaps in part because we recognize the scarcity of it. Maybe even because we wish to protect it—after all, not everyone lives with the land in the same way, and today we have more options than ever, and some leave scars. Last summer I stumbled across the aftermath of an ATV gathering in the far corner of our unposted land;

the machines had left deep, muddy, purposeful trenches in their wake, a flesh wound that, in time, would heal. As my anger would subside.

I think a lot about the future of this place I love so much. And by place , I mean this land, this town, this county, this state, this region. I mean the people and the land and the animals. Streams and rivers, lakes and ponds. The trees. I love the trees, the ash that are succumbing to the emerald ash borer, the old mother maples that form a tunnel where the road narrows at our friend Tom’s farm, just a mile down the hill. I drive past them every day. They are scarred from the town plow and the occasional misjudgment (or, let’s be honest, lapse in sobriety) of passing drivers. The spruce and fir I harvested last winter, sawn into lumber and now framed into the walls of the rental house we’re building. I love the trees maybe most of all.

It is only now, in middle life, that I can see so clearly that everything is dependent on everything else. The way we live now, as individuals, families, and communities, will inform the way we live tomorrow, and the way we live tomorrow will inform the day after that. Some of the ways we live will be informed by circumstances beyond our control—the price of milk, say, or the demand for forest products, or the broader economic and cultural forces that define our lives in ways that are often hard to see.

Not all this change is bad, of course, and yet it can feel that way to me when I see yet another farm auction notice, or drive past our friend’s barn after dark, the lights shining through the windows, and know he’s in there milking his cows, losing money on every gallon.

Sometimes I worry New England will become overly reliant on our col-

Retirement of a Lifetime

lective nostalgia, while retaining just enough of what we’re nostalgic for to remind us to be nostalgic for it. There’s nothing wrong with nostalgia, I suppose, and I’m as susceptible to it as the next person. But when it becomes our only connection to the things we care deeply about, we have lost something very precious indeed.

I now live about 20 miles north of the home my parents moved to when I was a boy. This community reminds me very much of where I grew up: Farmers and loggers and tradespeople. A smattering of artists and teachers. Big parcels of land, mostly unposted. Come deer season, lots of trucks. Actually, come any season, lots of trucks. When I tell people where I live, they’ll often say something like “Oh, I love it up there. It’s the way Vermont used to be,” and the look of nostalgia on their face is unmistakable. But I know that this place will change, too. And I know that, just like my parents 40 years ago, my family and I are part of that change.

I sometimes wonder if this is why I cling so stubbornly to our wood stove, even in summer. It’s a connection to my past, an easy conduit to early memories of hauling firewood in the back of my father’s little Honda, or even just the way it felt to sit by its iron sides, soaking up the heat. But maybe it represents something even more; maybe it’s my small contribution to keeping something the way it was. For just a bit longer, at least. I know that in the big picture, cooking on a wood stove isn’t going to stem the inevitable tide. Sitting in my chair on a summer morning while I wait for the fire to perc my coffee, I am merely the smallest of eddies in the midst of a very strong current.

That’s OK. I’m not looking to change the world. Like so many, I’m just enjoying the fact of something so ingrained in my life that it’s become ritual. That, and I really want a cup of coffee.

FUN WATER’S EDGE AT THE

MAINE

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VERMONT

First LIGHT

Opened in 1925, the Desert of Maine briefly had a live camel among its attractions; however, today’s visitors are greeted by fiberglass versions.

Shifting Sands

A one-of-a-kind Maine tourist attraction is being reinvented for a new generation.

BY JOE BILLS

BENNETT

Amodest slice of glacier-scoured land that generations of settlers then plowed into ruin seems an unlikely candidate for celebrity. But for nearly a century, the Desert of Maine has reigned as New England’s very own Sahara, drawing some 30,000 people a year to marvel at a 40-acre expanse of white sand that sits just a few miles from Freeport’s bustling downtown.

When I visited the Desert of Maine last fall, I found the venerable tourist attraction at a crossroads. It had recently been sold, and the new owners were bringing with them a vision that, for the first time in a long time, is focused as much on the future as it is on the past.

Although I didn’t know it at the time, I would be one of the very last people to have the “old” Desert of Maine experience, as I climbed aboard a Jeep-pulled tram for a half-hour tour. En route, our guide shared a wellworn collection of anecdotes while pointing out the property’s highlights.

As we passed the fiberglass camels (a nod to the real one—sometimes friendly, sometimes prone to spitting—that had greeted visitors in the 1950s), a vista of sand dunes opened before us. The Desert of Maine gets way too much rain to be a true desert, but it sure does a credible impression. Now and then sandstorms kick up, making it hard to breathe. Looking around, I find it difficult to believe that this was once a fertile farm.

As the story goes, in 1797 a man named William Tuttle purchased this land as part of a 300acre parcel and founded a farm on it that was successful for many years. His descendants, however, did not share his green thumb, and after ruining the soil for crops, they turned to raising sheep. Voracious eaters, the sheep stripped the land of its natural vegetation, and the topsoil eroded. At first a patch of sand the size of a dinner plate appeared. The patch grew steadily—and did not stop.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY CHRIS

INSET : New owners Mela and Doug Heestand.

By the time the Tuttle heirs abandoned the property in the early 20th century, locals derided it as an allbut-useless “sand farm.” No one quite believed it when a man named Henry Goldrup ponied up $300 to buy it from the town in 1919. Goldrup, though, was betting on a coming wave of tourists in America, people who would travel to see unique and strange places. He dubbed the land “the Desert of Maine” and opened it to visitors in 1925. It became a popular midcentury attraction, advertised by roadside signs along still-new highways. “Gen-u-ine tourist traps” like this and others were all the rage at a time when Americans had newfound mobility and were forever in search of a place to go.

As we motored toward the pine forest at the far end of the desert, I saw what countless tourists before me had likely marveled at: a springhouse, built in the 1930s, the entire building now deeply buried in the dunes; full-size pine trees almost engulfed by drifting sand, so that only their tops are visible. And I learned that the dunes aren’t true sand—they’re silt, which was dropped over a swath of southern Maine by receding glaciers. On sunny days, the mica in the silt glistens, and its reflective nature makes this landscape one of the hottest places in Maine.

The Desert of Maine has a natural advantage over many other roadside attractions: It’s real . Not a real desert, but a bona fide geological oddity. An entertainment that made you think. Education at its sneakiest.

The educational aspects of the property were part of what inspired Mela and Doug Heestand—a former professor at Merrimack College and an IT entrepreneur, respectively—to buy this landmark last year from Gary and Ginger Currens, who had owned it since 2004 and were ready to retire.

When I met the Heestands last fall, their enthusiasm for the property was

obvious, as was their respect for its history. In a release announcing their purchase, the Heestands had written, “We want families in the area to think of the Desert of Maine as a place they can come to spend the day walking the trails, learning about history, or just taking in the view.” That was true enough, but the wheels were also already turning on a grander vision.

The first change is the one that longtime fans of the desert may find the hardest to accept: replacing the Jeep and trams with walking tours (guided ones for a fee, and appbased, self-guided ones at no charge). Accommodations for visitors unable to walk the grounds are still being worked out.

“We want the property to be accessible to as many people as possible, for both education and entertainment,” Mela said, setting the stage, so to speak, for the part of the new plan that she’s most excited about: the transformation of an on-site barn into an arts and performance center. An amateur musician, Mela wants to develop programs that let fledgling musicians play with and learn from more experienced players—and maybe even stage concerts on the dunes one day.

The Heestands have also been working with geologists to learn more about the desert’s natural significance. “Rather than telling the singular story of the owners of this property, there is a tale to be told about the difficulties of farming and the history of Maine,” Mela said. “We can’t be certain which of the old anecdotes are true, but there are exciting opportunities for in-depth, fact-based programs here.” In addition to creating programs for locals, the Heestands want to launch an arts foundation to draw kids from other states.

Reinventing an iconic landmark while preserving its legacy is a daunting task, but the Heestands are counting on visitors’ willingness to see the desert with fresh eyes even as they feel the same appreciation for its wonder. “People seem happy that we want to do something different,” Mela said. “It’s time for a new chapter.”

To learn more, go to desertofmaine.com.

A school group heads into the dunes during a visit to the Desert of Maine in the fall of 2018, one of the last guided tours to be done via Jeep-pulled tram.

Rhode Signs

Taking the measure of the nation’s smallest state.

In 1983 The Wall Street Journal described Rhode Island as “a smudge beside the fast lane to Cape Cod.” That’s a bit of an exaggeration: Rhode Island, with its 39 cities and towns, is more than just a scenic overlook on Interstate 95.

But it’s small enough that journalists all over the country have often seized on it as a unit of measurement. The BP spill in 2010, according to some reports, left on the sea floor “an oily ‘bathtub ring’ the size of Rhode Island.” National Geographic and Reuters described Yosemite and Big Bend National Park, respectively, as being roughly as big as the Ocean State. And the National Training Center, where test pilots flew the first supersonic airplanes, was described by The Washington Post as “a chunk of the Mojave Desert as big as Rhode Island.”

All of which got us thinking: Just exactly how big is Rhode Island?

■ Its total area is 1,214 square miles: one-quarter the size of Connecticut or a seventh of Massachusetts.

■ If squished into a ribbonlike shape, Rhode Island would fit quite nicely into the Grand Canyon.

■ The state’s land area is 1,054 square miles, which is smaller than 16 national parks, two national recreation areas, and any of the Great Lakes.

■ The 1,049-mile Iditarod sled dog race is equal to a dozen laps around the Ocean State.

■ The Sahara Desert would hold 2,883 Rhode Islands. That said, not everything is bigger than Rhode Island. Entire countries—at least 25 at last count—are smaller. The Vatican, for instance, could be housed inside the Breakers mansion in Newport. Perhaps we should start describing Rhode Island as “equal to almost five Tongas.”

—Adapted from “Just How Big Is Rhode Island, Anyway?” by Jamie

Kageleiry,

June 1990

UNCOMMON SENSE

“When an 85-pound mammal licks your tears away, then tries to sit on your lap, it’s hard to feel sad.”

From Catch of the Day by Kristan Higgins (born May 1, 1965, in New Haven, Connecticut). As National Dog Day comes bounding in on August 26, we salute this Nutmeg State author whose best-selling romance novels usually include an affectionate nod to our four-legged friends. Higgins releases her 20th novel, Life and Other Inconveniences , on August 6; she lives in Durham with her family and their two adopted dogs (and, OK, one cat).

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Vermont Cheese

8/11/19

Date of annual Vermont Cheesemakers Festival in Shelburne, VT

1:13,000

Ratio of Vermont cheese makers to residents (more per capita than in any other U.S. state)

$700M

Annual value of Vermont cheese

150+

Different varieties of cheeses made in Vermont

280

Length in miles of the Vermont Cheese Trail, which stops at more than 40 cheese makers

5

Years running that Vermont cheeses have won Best in Show prizes at the American Cheese Society contest

27

Number of Vermont cheese businesses owned and operated by women

1882

Date of founding of Crowley Cheese Factory (oldest cheese factory in the state) in Healdville, VT

100

Years since Cabot Creamery Cooperative was founded in Cabot, VT

5

Years needed to age Cabot’s Centennial Cheddar (currently the longest-aged Vermont cheese)

$399.95

Cost of a 38-pound wheel of aged cheddar at the Vermont Country Store

600

Estimated number of cheeseburgers you can make with 38 pounds of cheese

“STAGE HARBOR LIGHT, CHATHAM”

In the Late Afternoon

Forrest Pirovano’s painting, “Stage Harbor Light, Chatham” portrays the solitary lighthouse in the afternoon sun.

Stage Harbor Light was placed on the northeast side of the Chatham Roads Channel in 1880. It was a guide to vessels seeking refuge in Stage Harbor during bad weather and extreme fog which was common in Chatham. The lighthouse was removed from service in 1933 and is privately owned today. This beautiful limited edition print of an orignal oil painting, individually numbered and signed by the artist, Forrest Pirovano, captures the detail of the painting and gives the subject a sense of time and place.

This exquisite print is bordered by a museum-quality

white-on-white double mat, measuring 11x14 inches. Framed in either a black or white 1-½ inch deep wood frame, this limited edition print measures 12-¼ X 15-¼ inches and is priced at only $149. Matted but unframed the price for this print is $109. Prices include shipping and packaging.

Forrest Pirovano is a Cape Cod artist. His paintings capture the picturesque landscape and seascapes of the Cape which have a universal appeal. His paintings often include the many antique wooden sailboats and picturesque lighthouses that are home to Cape Cod.

FORREST PIROVANO, artist

P.O. Box 1011 • Mashpee, MA 02649

Visit our studio in Mashpee Commons, Cape Cod

All major credit cards are welcome. Please send card name, card number, expiration date, code number & billing ZIP code. Checks are also accepted.…Or you can call Forrest at 781-858-3691 …Or you can pay through our website www.forrestcapecodpaintings.com

CALL OF THE

WILDSIDE

A MASSACHUSETTS GREEN THUMB IS GARDENING TO CHANGE THE WORLD, ONE ACRE AT A TIME.

BY KATY KELLEHER • PHOTOGRAPHS BY MICHAEL PIAZZA

Wildside Cottage and Gardens founder Sue Bridge and consultant Jono Neiger take a look at the permaculture homestead’s kiwi arbor.

OPPOSITE : A sod roof insulates Bridge’s solar-powered cottage at Wildside while helping it blend into the natural landscape.

Some gardens are defined by straight lines and right angles, plants trimmed into geometric shapes, bricks laid in accordance with the golden ratio. Wildside Cottage and Gardens, in Conway, Massachusetts, is not one of those places. ¶ Here, there are tangles of blackberries and sweet fern. Fields

of blooming Queen Anne’s lace, heads high and blowsy in the wind. Even the cottage is blanketed in green grasses, the roof planted like a meadow, lush and untamed. The garden follows rules deeper and more significant than those that govern most landscapes. Wildside has wild logic.

This verdant 8.3-acre teaching compound is the work of Sue Bridge, founder and “resident steward.” With her short, no-nonsense hair, sun-lined face, and simple, practical clothes, Bridge doesn’t quite fit the earth mother stereotype. She has a professorial air, paired with a keen ability to sense when her visitor is getting lost in the weeds (and the grace to subtly redirect the conversation whenever this happens).

For the past dozen years, Wildside (a nonprofit since 2013) has been inviting kids and adults to come and learn from the landscape, to absorb the ins and outs of the kind of gardening practiced here, known as permaculture.

As Bridge explains it, permaculture ( permanent plus agriculture ) goes beyond organic gardening to encompass an interconnected system that includes not only food and garden -

ing but also buildings, animals, and people. Bridge’s longtime friend and Wildside consultant Jono Neiger, author of The Permaculture Promise , says it’s about integrating all of it to create a sustainable way of living that uses less energy, produces less waste, and works with the local rhythms of the earth, the needs of that particular soil, and the lives of the regional flora and fauna.

Neiger leads fourthgraders on a tour of the forest garden at Wildside, which hosts school groups and offers public workshops throughout the summer and fall.

LEFT

Sickle in hand, Bridge inspects sheaves harvested from Wildside’s experimental rice field.

:

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Treasure Hunt

and what we are finding inthe Western Mountains of Maine

Just twenty-eight miles north of our Portland, Maine store, on the banks of the Little Androscoggin, beneath a meadow, lies the richest part of the world…gems. Gem tourmaline has been found: tourmaline the color of spring and the color of the sky, two distinct colors commingled in a single crystal.

From these crystals, our gem cutter has coaxed out their true light and life, creating a gem and a unity of color we call SparHawk Mint Green Teal. This is the color of life; color that moves with swiftness of thought; color that sweeps, darts, and soars; color so precise, so graceful that once chosen it alights upon your hand or nestles safely near your heart.

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Ancient Celts Tide’s Edge

But to really understand permaculture, you can simply look around.

Bridge lives off the grid in an 800-square-foot solar-powered home, high on a hill, overlooking a terraced edible landscape planted with tomatoes, broccoli, asparagus, and sea kale, among others. Herbs include comfrey, mint, and chives, while flowers such as bee balm and milkweed attract pollinators. A winding path leads around the property, from the open meadows into the forest, where tall Fraser firs from an old Christmas tree farm provide a contrast to the American persimmons, pawpaws, and Asian pear and peach trees that populate the forest garden.

On the east side of the land, there is even a wet meadow with a boardwalk and an experimental rice field. “It’s not quite a rice paddy,” says Bridge, as she watches students slop manure onto the rectangular patch. “But I’ve taken great joy from trying to grow rice here.” Her 240-square-foot unheated greenhouse is more successful, sheltering figs and sweet potatoes; a nut grove is planted with oak, chestnut, and Korean fir trees. These gardens are not just functional and productive—they’re also inviting, interesting, and beautiful, so that people will want to spend time there.

Schoolchildren, garden clubs, and nature-curious city dwellers are frequent guests, and Bridge also hosts specialty workshops. Her wild kingdom is open to the public (though she does ask that you call ahead—she lives here, after all), because the purpose of Wildside isn’t just to grow good, fresh food. “The learning is the thing,” she explains. “It’s important to get close to plants, to hear and see and sense their needs. To keep our noses to the ground, smelling and seeing and sensing.”

One of the less obvious lessons of what she has created is that it’s possible to practice permaculture with difficult land. When Bridge first moved onto the property, the soil was mark-

edly degraded, and the hillside presented its own agricultural challenges. Neiger observes, “We’re showing resilience—how to create your own energy, grow your own food, and store it in the winter.” He calls the greenhouse and its fruitful lands a “community building project” and suggests that Wildside offers “a little glimpse” into another way of living. He adds, “Sue has a gift—she can reach across a lot of different boundaries to connect people. She has an apt name. She’s a bridge builder.”

But it’s more than that. Bridge treats her plants like old friends; she tells stories about the local wildlife, naughty raccoons, clever deer. She makes time for little things, like drinking sumac tea as summer rain patters down on her leafy domain. Her house is filled with books and drying herbs, and her bedroom is decorated with framed lace doilies. There is a sweetness to her life.

OPPOSITE : Scenes from a recent visit to Wildside. The center row, from left, shows Wildside’s earthbermed greenhouse; school kids learning about peach cultivation from Neiger; and Bridge leading visitors through Wildside’s root cellar.

We are exploring the freestanding greenhouse down by her vegetable garden when we are interrupted by a tiger swallowtail. It is trapped inside, trying to fly back to its natural habitat. “Hey darling, don’t worry,” Bridge says to the butterfly. “I’ll get you out.” She carefully cups her hands around the swallowtail and ushers it back into the bright August air. “Doing what I’m doing brings me joy,” she says. “You can be happy, even as you’re putting your shoulder to the wheel.” 413-369-4616; wildsidecottageandgardens.org

RULES OF THE WILD

BUILD YOUR SOIL: The first step in creating a permaculture garden, Sue Bridge says, is to have your soil tested by a reputable university lab or a company such as Ohio’s Logan Labs. “Soil fertility is your first, last, and always job,” she says.

DIAL INTO THE SUN: “Map the shifting sun and shade patterns on your land, and give thought to where you have full or partial sun—and to where larger perennials may themselves throw shade,” advises Bridge. (You can also ask a local permaculture expert to help with this step, though a little observation tends to go a long way.)

EXPAND YOUR PALETTE: While Bridge tells gardeners to choose plants according to their personal tastes, she notes that there are many options they might not be aware of, such as Asian pears—“a super-willing crop”—and Turkish rocket, a broccoli-like perennial. Have a mixture of fruits, vegetables, nuts (such as blight-resistant chestnut), and culinary herbs.

FEED THE BUGS: “Pollinators need our help, desperately,” says Bridge. “Especially in the shoulder seasons.” Plant shadbush, witch hazel, and Turkish rocket in the spring, and bush clover and anise hyssop for the fall.

PRESERVE THE WEALTH: Take a class on lacto-fermentation and make your own sauerkraut for winter snacking. Or buy a small electric food dryer to preserve those fresh summer strawberries and autumn apples.

GIVE FREELY: “Overabundance in year six or seven? It could happen,” says Bridge. While homeless shelters and churches don’t always take fresh produce, some do accept donations of homegrown food. Ask around and give what you can, so that your neighbors can benefit from your bounty.

A Legacy of Simple Beauty

In the woods of Vermont, George Sawyer continues a family tradition of hand-making Windsor chairs.

BY ANNIE GRAVES

step inside the creaky workshop tucked behind a no-nonsense 1860s farmhouse in the hinterlands of Woodbury, Vermont, an hour and a half from the Canadian border. Dust motes drift over old wooden tools, workbenches, and bits of carvings.

Strong, honest lines carry their own poetry, and here, where the ceiling is decked out in random chairs and slung with cobwebs that remind me of beach hammocks, George Sawyer, 37, is building on his father’s legacy of simple beauty: the art and craft of fashioning Windsors. ¶ “It feels like home to me,” George says, his nod encompassing the stuff dangling from beams; the artful calipers, chisels, and hand drills; the lathe that dozes in the corner.

George lives a mile down the road, but this house has been in the family of his mother, Susan, since the early 1930s. His father, David, converted the living room (once a woodshed) into a workshop in the mid-’70s. “Dad was primarily self-taught,” he explains. “There was a group of folks doing green woodworking then. He was making pitchforks, ladder-back chairs—that’s how he got started making chairs.”

The art of making chairs from green wood goes back centuries— moist wood is kinder to hand tools than, say, kiln- or air-dried. George quickly teases out the first inklings of a spindle by splitting a fresh piece of ash with a brake and a froe, tools that allow him to guide the split. With

the rough piece in hand, we cross the workshop to the shave horse—a kind of cobbler’s bench—where he scrapes the wood from four sides to eight, then to 16. “The first thing I teach is how to read the grain,” he says, referencing the chair-making classes he leads. Day one is making spindles. “I don’t care if the piece is straight or not—it’s more important that it be strong.”

By 1982, David Sawyer had decided to make something more complicated than pitchforks. “He moved on to Windsor chairs,” George says. “That was the year I was born.” George grew up hearing the sound of metal scraping on wood, playing in piles of wood shavings that flew off the lathe as it turned chair legs,

OPPOSITE , CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT : George Sawyer in his Woodbury, Vermont, workshop; spring calipers, used for measuring chair turnings as they’re shaped on the lathe; a finished example of one of Sawyer’s Windsor chairs, all crafted one at a time; buckets of turnings.

THIS PAGE : A Windsor-style “continuous arm chair” designed by Sawyer’s father, David.

and sitting in a Windsor child’s chair that his father made. He shows me two other chairs: his brother’s and his sister’s. Of the former, “It’s sort of agreed upon in the chair community that this is the best one out there,” he says proudly, admiring the graceful swoop of wood.

Still, apart from helping out in the workshop as he grew up (and making lots of wooden swords), George headed off in his own direction: first to the Rhode Island School of Design, then working at an architecture firm and designing ski helmets, and moving around the country. But in 2012, “my dad started to talk about retiring,” he remembers. “I couldn’t picture this shop without somebody building chairs in it.”

By that time, George had moved back to Vermont. He started learning from his father, working with him part-time. “He’s very patient. And

pretty hands-off,” George says. “He would show me, and then go take a nap. And let me struggle. And then come back, and give me pointers.” He laughs. “And go away again.”

The first five or six chairs were a challenge, but George stuck with it. “And I still ask him questions. The chairs are complicated. And there are a lot of different styles.” He opens a drawer and pulls out his father’s drawings: exquisite renderings of each chair, “to give you an idea how much thinking goes into it. He was a draftsman—he figured out every last angle, every last dimension. I still work off of these.”

But it’s not until George starts explaining the chair seat—with its elegant pommel—that I begin to fully appreciate the complexity of making something so beautifully simple. There are angles for drilling leg holes (19 and 20 degrees), and sight lines

to consider, and bevel gauges to contend with. “Finding this sight line when you’re designing a chair is a bit of trigonometry, like wizardry,” he says. He confesses to using a CAD program when designing (a modern perk). I confess to blanking out while he’s talking.

And then I ask him where his child’s chair is. I’ve seen his brother’s. And his sister’s. “I don’t know,” he admits. “It was loaned out to another kid, no one can remember who. I’m sure it’ll come back—they always do.” He pauses. He and his wife, Erin, have a toddler, Theo. If that chair doesn’t resurface.... “Oh, I’m planning on making one,” he assures me. “I’ve been looking for a pattern. Every kid should have their own chair, right?”

For more information, go to sawyermade.com.

For three generations, the builders, blacksmiths and cra smen at Country Carpenters have put their hands and hearts into designing and building the nest New England Style buildings available, using hand-selected materials, hand-forged hardware, hand-built and hand- nished by real people. You can feel the di erence in your heart.

Though Philip Johnson is best known for his 1949 Glass House (now a museum), he designed five other dwellings in the same town, including the Wiley House, below.

Full Transparency

Pondering architect Philip Johnson’s genius—and controversial past— in a stunning glass-walled Connecticut home.

MICHAEL BIONDO

hen a group of leading architects flocked to New Canaan, Connecticut, in the years during and just after World War II, this quiet community was recast as an epicenter of modernist design. Over the following decades, the so-called Harvard Five— Eliot Noyes, Philip Johnson, Landis Gores, John Johansen, and Marcel Breuer—built at least 30 houses in their adopted hometown. These dwellings reflected a midcentury move toward functionalism, with their spartan interiors, asymmetrical designs, open floor plans, and large windows that blurred the lines between interior and exterior spaces.

Today my destination is one of the jewels of that collection. Situated near the terminus of a dead-end road, the Wiley House is low-slung and fitted into a landscape of hickory trees and rolling hills; from the road, you’d be unlikely to give it a second glance. Heading up the driveway, I follow a branch that leads to a two-car garage partially buried in one of those hills. And from this vantage point, I get my first good look at the Wiley House’s gleaming glass facade.

Philip Johnson designed this home in 1953 for a real estate developer named Robert Wiley. Though outwardly simple—a rectangle of glass and wood perched upon another of concrete and stone—this is a building that must be experienced to be fully appreciated.

Johnson has been in the news in recent years, with the resurfacing of allegations that he was briefly a Nazi sympathizer as a young man. This raises fascinating questions about guilt and redemption, as well as whether it’s possible to separate the beauty of the art from the failings of the artist. I’m admiring the view, and pondering those questions, when John Hersam arrives. He is both a Realtor and my guide for the day, and as we walk the grounds, he shares the property’s more recent history.

The Wiley House has been owned by commodities trader and noted art collector Frank Gallipoli since 1994. In a 2012 interview with The New York Times , Gallipoli admitted he hadn’t set out looking for a Philip Johnson house, but the six-acre property seemed like a good value in a town where real estate prices were escalating rapidly. “It had the utility of a house,” he said, “but I was getting an art object.”

The entry level is dominated by a glass-walled living, dining, and kitchen area with a 15-foot ceiling. The space feels expansive in part because of its open concept, but more because of how the glass merges the indoors with the outdoors. An indoor fire pit completes the illusion. A few places to sit and a large sculpture round out the room.

The Wiley House’s “public” space—aka the living, dining, and kitchen area ( ABOVE )—is in a cantilevered glass pavilion that sits atop a stone and concrete structure, which holds the “private” space (bedrooms, bathrooms).

“I’m told that Johnson chose this property because of the [hillside] slope and the hickory trees,” Hersam says. “I love this room at any time of day, but to really get the full effect you have to experience the trees at night.” I get what he means: While the way the daylight plays through the trees is beautiful, it’s easy to envision what a splendor the nighttime silhouettes must be.

Given how it merges art with life, this house seems to need a special type of owner, I think. It’s hard to imagine living here with a family (although Gallipoli did). My outlook changes, however, when we descend the stairs into what from the outside looks like a solid base for the glass box above.

Here are four small bedrooms, bathrooms, a kitchen, and a sitting room. The rooms are simple in a way that makes the details important, from the wraparound mirror in the master bathroom to the seamless walls. The

exterior wall of each bedroom is glass, with a door opening onto the backyard. It’s all quite utilitarian, but the effect is homey and warm.

Gallipoli has invested heavily in restoring and upgrading the property. Taking pains to stay true to Johnson’s design, he had the original single-pane windows replaced with insulated glass and warmed the marble floors with radiant heat. Working with architect Roger Ferris, Gallipoli added a pool house and the garage that I first encountered (whose doors, rather than rolling up, retract sideways—something that fascinated me more than I probably should admit). Perhaps the most compelling change, though, was turning a barn into a gallery for Gallipoli’s collection of modern British art.

These additions are meant to complement, rather than compete with, the original house. The result is a blend so organic, everything feels as though it

belongs. The landscaping is large-scale sleight of hand, with elements of the property disappearing and reappearing as your vantage point changes.

Back at the house, we take a seat on a little patio just off the kitchen area. “There is a very small market for a property like this,” Hersam says, “but it will be irresistible to the right buyer. This is art you can live in.”

And at that moment, I feel as if my earlier questions have been answered. This is art waiting for the next collaborator to step into it. But in the meantime, it stands just fine on its own. —Joe Bills

The Wiley House is listed at $8.5 million. For more information, contact Inger Stringfellow or John Hersam at William Pitt Sotheby’s International Realty, 203-9662633, or go to williampitt.com.

NEW ENGLAND Summer Essentials

JULY 2019 SUMMERGIVEAWAY!ESSENTIALS

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Giveaway runs 7/1/2019 through 7/14/2019 Winner will be chosen 8/1/2019

The rainy days of spring are behind us, and it’s finally summertime in New England! Whether you’re planning a luxurious retreat on the beach or having friends over for a backyard barbecue, our Summer Essentials are sure to keep you satisfied and stylish all season long. Keep your Sea Bags tote stocked with skincare, snacks, drinks, and a towel, so you’re ready for whatever summer adventure comes your way.

Essential Summer Getaway

ISLAND STRIPE OGUNQUIT BEACH TOTE

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Handmade by Peapod Jewelry in Edgecomb, Maine. The Peapod Lobster Buoy Pendant (sterling silver or 14k gold) can be personalized with your choice of colored buoy “peas”— pearls or gemstones.

WWW.PEAPODJEWELRY.COM • 207-882-9500

DULCE & RUGOSA – MAINE ISLAND BOTANICALS

Discover the power of seaweed with Dulse & Rugosa’s Sunburn Survival. Our handcrafted blend of sugar kelp and oarweed is soothing and calming. Relief for sunburns, naturally from the ocean.

WWW.DULSEANDRUGOSA.COM • 207-812-0947

DRINK SIMPLE MAPLE WATER

Nutritious and delicious water that comes from the tree. It is superhydrating and naturally full of antioxidants and electrolytes. With half the sugar of coconut water and tapped from a New England sustainable resource, this is the perfect summer hydration.

WWW.DRINKSIMPLE.COM • KATEANDJEFF@DRINKSIMPLE.COM

FLICK THE TICK

Flick The Tick is an all-natural tick and insect repellent that is DEET-free and smells great. Made for adults, kids, and dogs! Our product helps repel ticks, mosquitoes, black fl ies, sand fl eas, and horse fl ies.

WWW.FLICKTHETICK.COM • 207-500-2040 • INFO@FLICKTHETICK.COM

BEELINE SKIN CARE APRÈS SUN AND SURF SET

Pamper yourself after a day of sun, sand, and saltwater with Bee Soothed Oatmeal Honey Soap and Sea Sponge, Bee Heeled Foot Scrub, Bee Fresh Toner, Bee Silk Lotion, and the Honey Bee Kissed Lip Smoother. From the essential shower tools to the moisturizing lotions— Bee Silky Smooth all summer!

WWW.BEELINESKINCARE.COM • 603-470-6661

KLOTER FARMS PATIO FURNITURE

You furnish the inside of your home with high-quality furniture—why do anything less outside? Make your decks and patios a stress-relieving extension of your home. Ask about Kloter Farms’ free delivery and set-up in CT, MA, and RI. Nationwide delivery is also available.

WWW.KLOTERFARMS.COM • 860-871-1048

WOODS & SEA PATRIOT LOBSTER T-SHIRT

Stars, stripes, classic American colors, and a lobster! What better way to show o your New England pride?

WWW.WOODSANDSEA.COM

INFO@WOODSANDSEA.COM

NORTH COUNTRY SMOKEHOUSE LINKS

Nothing signals summer quite like the smell of smoky, savory sausage. North Country Smokehouse introduces two new certified-humane, local links: Jalapeno Cheddar Sausage made with Vermont Farmstead Cheddar, and Harpoon IPA Bratwurst with the hoppy citrus finish this Boston brew is known for.

WWW.NCSMOKEHOUSE.COM • 800-258-4304

THEJEWEL S OF SUMMER

At New Hampshire’s Edgewater Farm, the late summer tomato harvest is the sweetest season of all.

BY JESSICA BATTILANA

• PHOTOGRAPHS BY LORI PEDRICK • FOOD AND PROP STYLING BY LIZ NEILY

Pottery by Laura White lwpottery.com

Ray Sprague disappears for a second, then pops up at the end of a row between two towering Purple Russian tomato plants. He’s holding an oblong, deep-red fruit. “This one’s my favorite,” he says with a grin, before encouraging me to bite into it like an apple. I oblige, spraying juice and seeds down my shirt: There’s nothing quite like a ripe, sun-warmed summer tomato.

It’s August at Edgewater Farm, a 220-acre swath of alluvial soil in Plainfield, New Hampshire. The fields are full, the farm stand abundantly stocked. It’s a time of riotous profusion. The greenhouses, where a majority of the 60 varieties of tomatoes are grown, resemble jungles, with some tangles of plants dwarfing even Sprague, who stands 6 foot 5. Stems bend beneath the weight of tomatoes of every size and description, ranging from tiny orange Sun Gold to Chile Verde, a green-fleshed tomato with a blush of yellow. Out in

the fields, the red slicing tomatoes ripen under the long hours of sunlight.

The farm was founded in 1974 by Sprague’s parents, Pooh and Anne Sprague, who continue to run the business with Ray and his sister, Sarah. What began with ornamental plants, strawberries, and asparagus has blossomed into a diversified operation with pick-your-own strawberries, a CSA, and a wholesale operation that sells produce to the greater Upper Valley region. At the timber-framed seasonal farm stand, visitors can select choice

produce and stock up on farm-made pesto, salads, and frozen entrées packed full of Edgewater vegetables.

Every crop receives attention, but Sprague admits that he’s “gotten a little nutty” about the tomatoes, particularly the 40 or so heirloom varietals and 10 types of cherry tomatoes he plants each season. The work begins in March, when he starts the process of grafting each heirloom tomato seedling onto a rootstock to improve the plant’s vigor. After some time in the propane-heated greenhouses, and once the threat of frost has passed, the starts are transplanted directly into the nutrient-rich soil. With luck, cooperative weather, and the tempering effects of the greenhouses, the Edgewater team will be picking the first tomatoes around Independence Day and the last in November—an impressive run, by New England standards. In a single season, each 21-by-96-foot greenhouse cranks out between 4,500 and 7,000 pounds of tomatoes.

The author with New Hampshire farmer and unabashed tomato lover Ray Sprague.

Sprague’s obsession is a boon for his customers. In the height of summer, it’s not uncommon to see a kaleidoscopic array of tomatoes for sale at the farm stand: fat, heavy slicers ready for a BLT; jewel-like cherries to be eaten in the car on the way home; tomatoes perfect for risotto or for a simple herb-packed salad. A far cry from the pale red baseballs that flood the markets in the colder months, these tomatoes—picked ripe and, Sprague stresses, never refrigerated— are the jewels of summer, as precious as any gem.

VIETNAMESE-STYLE

TOMATO SALAD WITH HERBS AND FRIED SHALLOTS

Fresh tomato salads are among the best ways to highlight summer’s most beloved fruit. Instead of opting for the traditional mozzarella-and-basil combination, this salad draws inspiration from Vietnam, with a punchy vinaigrette, whole leaves of mint and cilantro, and a golden crown of irresistible crispy fried shallots.

FOR THE DRESSING

¼ cup fish sauce (such as T hree Crabs brand)

2 t ablespoons granulated sugar

2 t ablespoons fresh lime juice

1 clove garlic, minced

1 T hai chili, stemmed and minced, or half a serrano pepper, stemmed and minced

FOR THE SALAD

2 cups canola oil

4 shallots, peeled and thinly sliced

4 cups cherry tomatoes, halved

¼ cup chopped mint leaves

¼ cup chopped cilantro leaves

Kosher salt, to taste

First, make the dressing: In a small jar with a lid, combine fish sauce, sugar, lime juice, garlic, chili, and ¼ cup warm water. Seal and shake vigorously until the sugar has dissolved. Set aside. (The dressing will keep, refrigerated, for up to a week, though it gets spicier as it sits.)

Next, make the fried shallots: Pour the oil into a 2- or 3-quart heavybottom saucepan over medium heat

and add the sliced shallots to the cold oil. Line a plate with paper towels and set nearby. Fry the shallots, stirring frequently so they cook evenly, until they begin to brown, 6 to 8 minutes. Continue cooking, stirring constantly, until they are crisp and an even golden brown (at this stage they can go from nicely browned to overcooked very quickly, so be vigilant). Use a slotted spoon to transfer the shallots to the paper-lined plate. Let the oil cool, then pour through a finemesh sieve into a clean jar. (Do not discard the oil—it’s liquid gold, great for dressings and sautéed or roasted vegetables.) Store in an airtight container at room temperature.

Assemble the salad: Combine the tomatoes and herbs in a serving dish. Drizzle in some dressing and toss gently to coat. Season to taste with salt, if needed. Top with shallots and serve immediately, with any remaining dressing alongside. Yields 6 servings.

OVEN-ROASTED TOMATO AND RICOTTA TOASTS

Roasting tomatoes with lots of olive oil and aromatics concentrates their sweetness, yielding silky flavor bombs with myriad applications. Toss them into pasta, pile them onto a sandwich, stir them into a grain salad, or do as I’ve done here and use them as a topping for toasted bread slathered in good ricotta cheese.

VIETNAMESE-STYLE TOMATO SALAD WITH HERBS AND FRIED SHALLOTS

MY New England

VERMONT CHEESEMAKERS FESTIVAL

August 10-11, 2019 | Shelburne, VT

Join the Vermont Cheese Council for their 11th annual Vermont Cheesemakers Festival! Recently named a USA Today 10 Best ® Specialty Food Festival in the United States, this premier summer celebration at Shelburne Farms highlights cheese, dairy, food, and beverage producers from across the state.

Bring the whole family for Saturday’s Education Day and stay for a delectable Vermont Cheese Dinner at the Round Barn Farm in Waitsfield, VT. On Sunday, roam Shelburne Farms and take in the scenic views of Lake Champlain as you shop for tasty artisan products.

www.VTCheeseFest.com

MAINE LOBSTER FESTIVAL

July 31-August 4, 2019 | Rockland, ME

From creamy lobster chowder to buttery lobster rolls to grilled lobster with savory sides and toppings, it’s hard to go wrong with this classic seafood treat. To find it all, look no further than the internationally recognized Maine Lobster Festival at Rockland’s Harbor Park. With entertainment, fine art, and 20,000 pounds of lobster in the world’s largest lobster cooker, what’s not to love?

www.MaineLobsterFestival.com

LEAGUE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE CRAFTSMEN’S FAIR

August 3-11, 2019 | Newbury, NH

Join the League of New Hampshire Craftsmen as they celebrate the handcrafted work of hundreds of local artisans. Located at the base of Mount Sunapee Resort, the annual Craftsmen’s Fair features live music, a craft beer and wine garden, and booths brimming with handmade goods. There’s something for everyone at this nine-day celebration!

www.NHCrafts.org

LET HISTORY RING: BELL CASTING EVENT

August 31-September 1, 2019 | Plymouth, MA

Join Plimoth Plantation and world-renowned bell makers The Verdin Company as they cast a new ship’s bell for the Mayflower II, kicking off a series of exciting homecoming events for this iconic vessel following her three-year, stem-to-stern restoration ahead of the 400th anniversary of the Pilgrims’ arrival to New England’s shores.

Watch it all unfold live with expert narration, from the passing of bronze ingots and veterans’ medals to pouring the bell and casting it in its custom mold against the backdrop of the day’s last light. Honored guests will dedicate and ring the bell for the first time before it heads to Mystic Seaport Museum for the official launch of the Mayflower II. Local food trucks, entertainment, educational programming, and A Night of Fire & Wine fundraiser will round out this unique event!

www.SailingMayflower.org

AMY TRAVERSO @ STONEWALL KITCHEN

September 20, 2019 | York, ME

Amy Traverso’s demonstration class, For the Love of Apples, will take you from the orchard to the kitchen with both sweet and savory recipes. This menu starts off with a tasting of Carr’s Ciderhouse Hard Cider, followed by Bacon-Wrapped Dates with Apple Slaw, Pork and Apple Pie with a Cheddar Sage Crust and a Pear and Apple Cobbler with Lemon-Cornmeal Biscuits. This is a class you don’t want to miss!

www.StonewallKitchen.com

MARTHA’S VINEYARD FOOD & WINE FESTIVAL

October 23-27, 2019 | Martha’s Vineyard, MA

Don’t miss this quintessential food and wine festival on one of New England’s most beautiful islands. Located on picturesque Martha’s Vineyard, this festival is a four-day celebration of local talent and tradition working alongside globally recognized guest chefs and vintners to create a uniquely delicious experience.

www.MVFoodandWine.com

Celebrating the people, destinations, and experiences that make the region and Yankee Magazine so unique. Follow along @YANKEEMAGAZINE #MYNEWENGLAND

FOR THE TOASTS (CROSTINI)

1 baguette, sliced on the bias into

1⁄ 3 -inch-thick slices

Extra-virgin olive oil

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

1 clove garlic, peeled

FOR THE TOPPING

1 pound small tomatoes, cored and halved, or cherry tomatoes, halved

¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil

2 cloves garlic, peeled and slivered

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

2 sprigs fresh thyme, plus more for garnish

1 cup whole-milk ricotta

½ teaspoon lemon zest

First, make the crostini: Preheat oven to 350°. Brush each bread slice with olive oil on both sides, season with salt and pepper, and arrange on a baking sheet. Bake until crisp but not brown, 7 to 10 minutes. Remove from oven and rub the garlic over each toast once. Let cool. (Note: Crostini are best the same day they’re made.)

Next, make the topping: Increase oven temperature to 375°. Put the

tomatoes in a baking dish, cut side down, and drizzle with olive oil. Tuck garlic in between the tomatoes and season with salt and pepper. Add thyme sprigs. Bake until tomatoes are soft and slumped, about 30 minutes (for cherry tomatoes, begin checking after 15 minutes; they won’t take as long). Remove from oven and let cool; if you want, pluck off the skins. Note: The tomatoes can sit at room temperature for a few hours or cooled, covered, and refrigerated for up to three days (let them come to room temperature before using).

In a small bowl, stir together the ricotta and lemon zest. Season with salt and pepper. Spoon some ricotta onto each crostini, top with some tomatoes and their juices, and garnish with thyme. Yields about 20 toasts

MR. ELLIS’S TOMATO TART

This savory tart was created by my friend Cole Ellis, who runs the Delta Meat Market in his hometown of Cleveland, Mississippi. It has a buttery crust, a righteous mayonnaise-buttermilk-Parmesan custard, and loads of tomatoes. Though it goes without saying, this should be made only in deep summer, when you can get the best, juiciest tomatoes of all colors and sizes.

FOR THE CRUST

2½ cups all-purpose flour

1½ teaspoons kosher salt

1 cup (2 sticks) cold unsalted butter, cut into ½-inch cubes

¼ cup ice water

FOR THE FILLING

1 cup mayonnaise

½ cup buttermilk

2 eggs

½ cup plus ¼ cup grated Parmesan

6 scallions, white and light green parts only, finely chopped

¼ teaspoon fresh-ground black pepper

3 medium tomatoes, cored and cut into ¼-inch wedges

½ cup fresh basil leaves

First, make the crust: Using a food processor, pulse together the flour and

MR. ELLIS’S TOMATO TART

salt. Add the butter and pulse until the pieces are the size of small peas. Pour in the ice water and pulse until the dough comes together in a ball. Place a long piece of plastic wrap on a cutting board, turn the dough out onto the plastic wrap, flatten the dough into a 1-inch-thick disk, then wrap in plastic. Refrigerate for at least an hour or up to three days; it can also be frozen for up to a month, but let thaw overnight in the refrigerator before rolling.

Preheat oven to 350°. Place dough on a lightly floured cutting board and use a lightly floured rolling pin to make a 14-inch circle about ¼ inch thick. Transfer to a 10-inch removable bottom tart pan, fitting dough into the bottom and sides and pinching off any excess. Refrigerate for 10 minutes.

Remove from refrigerator and use a fork to prick the bottom of the dough all over. Place a 14-inch sheet of parchment paper or aluminum foil into the tart pan, and add dried beans or pie weights to weigh the paper down. Place pan on a baking sheet and bake until the crust edges are firm and beginning to turn golden, about 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and carefully remove the paper and pie weights. Return to the bottom rack and continue to bake until the crust is golden, 10 to 15 minutes.

Now, make the filling: In a large bowl, whisk together the mayonnaise, buttermilk, eggs, ½ cup Parmesan, chopped scallions, and black pepper. Pour ¾ of the mixture into the crust, then arrange the tomato wedges in a circular pattern, overlapping them slightly. Roughly tear the basil leaves and distribute evenly over the top of the tart. Pour the remaining custard over all and sprinkle with the remaining Parmesan.

Bake until crust is a deep golden brown and filling is set and beginning to brown on top, about 30 minutes. Transfer to a rack and let cool at least 30 minutes, then unmold and cut into wedges. Serve warm or at room temperature. Yields 6 servings.

FRESH TOMATO RISOTTO

For this risotto, a portion of the stock is replaced by the juice and pulp of ripe tomatoes. It can stand alone as a main course, but it is also a beautiful side dish for grilled fish or sausages.

8–10 juicy red tomatoes (or 4 cups tomato puree)

4–6 cups chicken stock

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

½ small yellow onion, finely diced Kosher salt, to taste

2 cups Arborio rice

½ cup dry white wine

1 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, plus more for serving

½ cup mascarpone cheese

Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Torn basil, for garnish

Halved cherry tomatoes, for garnish

Using the large holes of a box grater, grate the tomatoes into a bowl, discarding skins and cores. You should have 4 cups of tomato puree. Transfer to a large saucepan, add 4 cups chicken stock, and warm over medium heat.

In a 3- or 4-quart heavy pan over medium-low heat, melt the butter. Add the diced onion and a generous pinch of salt and cook, stirring, until onion is translucent but not browned, about 5 minutes. Stir in the rice and cook, stirring, until the grains begin to turn

FRESH TOMATO RISOTTO

translucent. Add the wine and cook, stirring, until it’s evaporated.

Then add the tomato-broth mixture one ladleful at a time, stirring often and allowing each addition of liquid to be fully absorbed by the rice before adding more. Monitor the heat; the risotto should be bubbling faintly. Cook, stirring frequently, until the rice is tender and creamy, about 30 minutes; if you run out of liquid before the rice is tender, warm the remaining 2 cups chicken stock and add it by the ladleful. The finished risotto should have the texture of a very thick soup.

Remove from heat and stir in the cheeses. Season with salt and pepper and spoon into warmed bowls. Garnish with basil, cherry tomatoes, and grated Parmigiano-Reggiano and serve immediately. Yields 4 to 6 servings.

PAPPA AL POMODORO

Somewhere between a soup and a stew, pappa al pomodoro is quintessential Italian peasant food, quick to make and requiring few ingredients. Putting burrata—a fresh mozzarella-style cheese filled with cream—on top is a very luxurious addition.

3 pounds ripe red tomatoes

6 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling

3 large leeks, white and light green parts only, thinly sliced (about 4 cups sliced)

Kosher salt, to taste

2 cloves garlic, minced

4 ounces crustless country-style bread, cut into 1-inch cubes (about 3½ cups)

Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

3 balls burrata (optional)

Flaky salt, such as Maldon, for garnish

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Fill a large bowl with ice and water and set nearby. Remove stems from the tomatoes and, with a sharp knife, cut a shallow “x” into the bottom of each tomato. Drop the tomatoes into the boiling water and cook for 30 seconds, until the skins begin to split. With a slotted spoon, transfer to them to the ice bath. When cool enough to handle, peel the tomatoes, then halve them and pass them through the fine plate of a food mill.

In a 4- or 5-quart saucepan, heat the olive oil over medium-low heat. Add the leeks and a generous pinch of salt and cook, stirring, until leeks are translucent but not browned, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook 1 minute more. Pour in the tomato puree, reduce heat so the mixture is simmering gently, and cook, stirring occasionally, for 15 minutes. Stir in the bread and continue cooking, stirring occasionally, until the bread breaks down and thickens the soup, about 15 minutes more. The texture should be like a thick porridge; if it’s too thick, thin with a bit of hot water.

Season to taste with additional salt and pepper. Spoon into warmed bowls. Halve the burrata balls, if using, and place a piece on top of each serving. Drizzle with a bit of olive oil, sprinkle with flaky salt, and serve immediately. Yields 4 to 6 servings.

PAPPA AL POMODORO

Todd

Family Owners, Running the

Grilled Peaches with Gorgonzola

A hot day on the farm inspires a cool way to cook with orchard-ripe fruit.

STORY AND PHOTOGRAPH BY KRISSY O’SHEA

tanding at the kitchen sink, eating a just-picked and slightly overripe peach from our tree, I eye the barn’s deep shadow spreading across the lawn. It calls out as shelter from the heat, an inviting backdrop for an outdoor meal. Fresh fruit, dinner in the shade—this is a season of simple pleasures. ¶ Tonight I’ll make grilled peaches with a wedge of Gorgonzola, which combines some of my favorite summer flavors with an added boost from the grill. The intense heat caramelizes the peaches’ sugars and makes the fruit almost jammy, so the soft peach in my hand won’t suffice. The fruit needs to be firm.

Served with a drizzle of lemon verbena dressing (you can also use basil, mint, or tarragon), this dish lands somewhere between a salad and a cheese plate. The toasted buckwheat adds crunch and nutty notes; plus, you can store any leftover buckwheat in an airtight container for up to a week for a welcome addition to salads and morning yogurt bowls.

The recipe also makes more vinaigrette than needed, but that’s OK: I love having a jar in the fridge to dress any and all grilled fare this time of year.

GRILLED PEACHES

WITH GORGONZOLA

TO TAL T IME : 25 MINU T ES

H ANDS- ON T IME : 20 MINU T ES

FOR THE DRESSING

4 t ablespoons white wine vinegar

3 t ablespoons olive oil

1 t ablespoon fresh lemon verbena, chopped

½ teaspoon freshly grated ginger

FOR THE PEACHES

½ t ablespoon salted butter

¼ cup raw buckwheat groats

4 f irm, ripe peaches

C anola oil, for brushing Kosher salt, to taste

3 ounces Gorgonzola (or other mild blue cheese)

2 t ablespoons aged balsamic vinegar

¼ cup loosely packed basil leaves

First, make the dressing: Place all the ingredients in a jar, seal the lid, and shake vigorously to combine. This can be used immediately or refrigerated for up to five days (just bring it to room temperature and shake once more before serving).

ble, add the buckwheat. Stir to coat and then cook, stirring consistently, until the buckwheat has turned golden, 3 to 5 minutes. Remove from heat and transfer to a plate to cool.

Prepare a grill for medium-high heat. Cut the peaches in half, remove the stones, and skewer each half horizontally. Brush lightly with oil on both sides and sprinkle with a pinch of salt. Lay the peaches skin-side down on the grill grate, and cook for 4 minutes with the lid closed. Then turn the peaches over and grill until the fruit has softened a bit and has some charring, about 2 minutes more.

2

½ t ablespoons fresh lemon juice

1 teaspoon honey

Next, prepare the peaches: Melt the butter in a small frying pan over medium heat. When it begins to bub-

Slice the peach halves into wedges and assemble on a platter or board with the wedge of blue cheese. Spoon dressing over the peaches, drizzle with balsamic vinegar, and sprinkle with a few tablespoons of toasted buckwheat. Cut or tear the basil into small pieces and sprinkle over the dish. Serve immediately. Yields 4 servings.

Yankee contributing editor Krissy O’Shea shares stories, recipes, and home style tips at cottagefarmblog.com.

In the Kitchen with Two Fat Cats Bakery

A behind-the-scenes look at a Maine highlight from season three of Weekends with Yankee

BY AMY TRAVERSO

ortland is New England’s best bakery town. If that claim sounds familiar, it’s because I also made it in our March/April issue for the feature “Food Town Showdown,” in which Portland triumphed over Boston in the bakeries category.

I say it again here with a conviction born of many a carb crawl. Portland shines because the croissants at Belleville are so flaky, the cinnamon buns at Tandem are so fragrant, and the baguettes at Standard Baking Co. could make a Parisian’s heart flutter. These three eateries make up Portland’s baking trifecta—and are the most readily lauded whenever hungry food writers roll into town.

But there’s another kind of bakery that gets even closer to the heart of a city. It’s where you buy your kids’ birthday cakes, where the pie can cure whatever ails you, and where you stop on a whim for a simple but unimprovable chocolate chip cookie. Though often overlooked by trendspotters, this is the kind of bakery that’s woven into holiday and anniversary memories.

Two Fat Cats is just this sort of place. It was founded in 2005 by the team behind Standard Baking Co. but was purchased by Stacy Begin and Matthew Holbrook seven years later. From the beginning, Begin and Holbrook knew exactly what their mission was: to make “elevated homey desserts,” as Begin puts it. “We know that we’re baking for the milestones.”

They also make an outstanding blueberry pie, which is why I spent an afternoon baking with their team as part of a segment on Maine blueberries for season three of Weekends with Yankee

TWO FAT CATS’ WILD MAINE BLUEBERRY PIE CHRISTINA WNEK PHOTOGRAPHY

Amy Traverso is Yankee’s senior food editor and cohost of our TV show, Weekends with Yankee (weekendswithyankee.com).

We filmed the blueberry harvest in Machias, Maine, then returned to the Two Fat Cats kitchen to pile a mix of blueberries, lemon, cinnamon, nutmeg, and sugar into a flaky crust.

Then we got to taste a freshly baked pie. Eating on camera is always a little awkward, but this pie was worth any bit of self-consciousness.

TWO FAT CATS’ WILD MAINE BLUEBERRY PIE

Stacy Begin recommends baking this pie with unthawed frozen berries for two reasons: Freezing sets the berries’ pigment, which makes a prettier filling, and the cold fruit keeps the fat in the crust from melting before it hits the oven.

FOR THE CRUST

2½ cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting

1 teaspoon granulated sugar, plus more for sprinkling

¾ teaspoon table salt

8 tablespoons (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into small cubes

5 tablespoons vegetable shortening, cut into small pieces

6–8 tablespoons ice water

2 tablespoons milk, for brushing

FOR THE FILLING

4½ cups wild Maine blueberries, frozen (do not thaw)

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

2 tablespoons tapioca starch

2

⁄ 3 cup granulated sugar

½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

¼ teaspoon grated nutmeg

First, make the crust: In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, and salt. Sprinkle the butter and shortening over the dry ingredients and use your fingertips to gently rub them into the mixture so that they form flakes and small lumps. The dough will begin to take on a pale yellow color and look a bit like lumpy cornmeal. Add the ice water, a few tablespoons at a time, until the dough holds together but isn’t sticky or wet.

Divide into two equal parts. Wrap each in plastic wrap, press into disks, and chill for at least one hour.

Now, make the filling: In a large bowl, combine the berries and lemon juice. In a small bowl, whisk together the tapioca, sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Sprinkle the dry ingredients over the fruit and mix thoroughly. Let sit for 5 to 10 minutes, then mix again.

Preheat the oven to 375° and set a rack to the lowest position. Remove the first disk of dough from the refrigerator. On a clean, floured surface, roll it out to a 10-inch circle. Transfer this to a 9-inch pie pan, letting the excess hang over the sides. Pour the filling into the pan.

Remove the second disk from the refrigerator and roll it out to a 10-inch circle. Lay it over the filling. Pinch the bottom and top dough edges together and crimp firmly. Make three 1-inch steam cuts in the crust, then brush

with milk and sprinkle liberally with sugar. (At this point you can wrap the pie in plastic wrap and freeze for up to two months. When ready to bake, unwrap pie and allow to thaw for two hours, then bake as instructed, adding an extra 15 to 20 minutes to the bake time.)

Bake on the bottom rack until the top is browned and the juices are bubbling through the vents, 50 to 60 minutes. Let cool completely before serving. Yields 6 to 8 servings

TUNE IN FOR MORE!

Follow Amy Traverso’s culinary adventures on our public television series, airing nationwide and online at weekendswithyankee.com

PROMOTION

YANKEE EDITORS’ CHOICE

BEST OF NEW ENGLAND

BEST OF NEW ENGLAND

BEST MADE-INCONNECTICUT SHOP MYSTIC KNOTWORK MYSTIC, CT

Mystic Knotwork is the growth of a family business that started with sailor bracelets and fancy work in 1957. First featured in Yankee Magazine in 1962, our tradition continues to grow and now includes Home & Wedding decor, and even more wearable jewelry designs. Still handmade right in Downtown Mystic, CT.

860-889-3793

MysticKnotwork.com

HILL-STEAD MUSEUM

FARMINGTON, CT

Hill-Stead Museum in Farmington, CT, is a 1901 Colonial Revival mansion

filled with Impressionist masterpieces by Monet, Degas, Manet, Whistler and Cassatt. Situated on 152 acres of meadows, trails and gardens, it is home to the Sunken Garden Poetry Festival.

860-677-4787

HillStead.org

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The idyllic seaside town of Old Saybrook is located on the Connecticut shoreline overlooking the Long Island Sound. Enjoy water-view rooms (most with private balconies), two luxurious guesthouses and a spectacular Lighthouse Suite, voted “Most Romantic Place to Stay” by Connecticut Magazine.

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Discover big eats in the smallest state while walking, sipping, and eating your way through historic neighborhoods in Providence and Newport. If you like seeing architectural gems and listening to historic tales, this fun food experience is for you or your private group. April–November.

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RhodeIslandRedFoodTours.com

BEST FRIED CLAMS

TWO LITTLE FISH

WESTERLY, RI

Join us at 300 Atlantic Avenue to enjoy classic clam- shack fare at Misquamicut, Rhode Island’s largest beach. Serving fresh, affordable seafood with a smile since 1997. Awardwinning clams, chowder, lobster rolls. Serving only local, sustainable, wild-caught seafood with no single-use plastics to preserve ocean health!

401-348-9941

BEST WATERFRONT DINING COAST GUARD HOUSE RESTAURANT NARRAGANSETT, RI

Sea Food Sea Friends Sea View

Perched on a rocky ledge overlooking Narragansett Bay, it offers an unparalleled view with many unique outside dining and gathering spaces. The seascape is spectacular, and the service, food, and beverages are what will keep you coming back. Open year-round seven days a week.

401-789-0700

TheCoastGuardHouse.com

BEST ICE CREAM GIBBY’S FAMOUS ICE CREAM WORCESTER, MA

Offering 70-plus flavors of delicious ice cream, frozen yogurt, and all the traditional treats. Homemade brownies for our sundaes. Fresh fruit toppings include strawberries and real Maine blueberries. Over 20 soft-serve flavors. Try a Wizard, a root beer float, or an old-fashioned Ice cream soda! Open daily.

508-753-1095

GibsonsDairy.com

BEST ART-FILLED HOUSE

Reconnect with past Editors’ Choice winners and see for yourself why they received Yankee Magazine’s copy blocked can’t make

they received Yankee Magazine’s highest accolade.

BEST COLONIAL DINING

SALEM CROSS INN

WEST BROOKFIELD, MA

Experience food cooked as it should be . . . Enjoy creatively prepared, fresh from the garden, seasonal fare while relaxing in our restored 1705 farmhouse on 600 acres of tranquil New England countryside. Fireplace cooking featured November through April. 260 W. Main Street.

508-867-2345

SalemCrossInn.com

BEST ADVENTURE LODGING

BERKSHIRE EAST RESORT

CHARLEMONT, MA

The Warfield House Inn at Valley View Farm is a fantastic retreat with an upscale inn. This lovely location hosts a stunning wedding venue, breathtaking views, and an expansive list of outdoor adventures for our guests to explore beautiful Charlemont.

413-339-6617

BerkshireEast.com

BEST SPECIALITY COLLECTION

SPRINGFIELD MUSEUMS

SPRINGFIELD, MA

The Amazing World of Dr. Seuss Museum is an interactive, bilingual experience that explores the childhood and stories of Springfield, MA, native Theodor Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss. Five museums and a sculpture park offer Seuss, science, art, and history—something for everyone!

800-625-7738

SpringfieldMuseums.org

HANCOCK SHAKER VILLAGE

PITTSFIELD, MA

Hancock Shaker Village, a living history museum, is a National Historic Landmark that includes 20 historic buildings and the oldest working farm in the Berkshires. With more than 22,000 artifacts, it is one of the premier Shaker collections in the world. Find us at 1843 W. Housatonic Street in Pittsfield.

413-443-0188

HancockShakerVillage.org

BEST LIVING HISTORY EXPERIENCE

PLIMOTH PLANTATION

PLYMOUTH, MA

A must-see New England destination that tells the story of Plymouth Colony in the early 1600s and its shared history with the Pilgrims and native people. Visit the 17th-Century English Village, Wampanoag Homesite, Plimoth Grist Mill, Craft Center, and Plimoth Bread Co.

508-746-1622

Plimoth.org

BEST LUXURY INN

BEDFORD VILLAGE INN

BEDFORD, NH

Nestled in the beautiful green hills of New England, the Bedford Village Inn & Grand is a four-diamond property that perfectly blends historical character with a luxury boutique ambiance. Its 64 gorgeously designed rooms retain the rustic charm of days gone by, while simultaneously offering everyday modern comfort and amenities.

800-852-1166

BedfordVillageInn.com

HAMPTON BEACH VILLAGE DISTRICT

HAMPTON, NH

Free activities include fireworks, nightly entertainment, talent competition, Country Music Week on the Coast, Movies on the Beach Monday Nights, volleyball, Children’s Week, Circus on Labor Day Weekend, Fire Show, and more.

603-926-8717

HamptonBeach.org

MT. WASHINGTON AUTO ROAD

GORHAM, NH

Climb this historic 7.6mile road to the summit of the Northeast’s highest peak—drive yourself, or take a guided tour. This must-do drive is America’s oldest manmade attraction. During the winter, take a tour on the Mt. Washington SnowCoach.

603-466-3988

MtWashingtonAutoRoad.com

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BEST BEACH TOWN

BEST ROAD CLIMB

BEST OF NEW ENGLAND

BEST WALKING TOUR

BLACK HERITAGE TRAIL OF NEW HAMSPIRE PORTSMOUTH, NH

Experience this stunning historic estate with unmatched views of Lake Winnipesaukee and the surrounding mountains. Tour the 1914 Arts and Crafts–style mansion, dine on the lake-view terrace, explore the estate’s 28 miles of trails and waterfalls, and more

603-476-5900

CastleInTheClouds.org

BEST FAMILY RETREAT BY A POND

LOCH LYME LODGE LYME, NH

A scenic lakeside family resort on Post Pond, near Dartmouth College, offering one- to threebedroom B&B or efficiency cabins. Easy access to lots of outdoor activities, area attractions, sightseeing and antiquing—or just relax at our sandy beach. Our Lodge Restaurant serves delicious, fresh local fare. Pet-friendly!

800-423-2141

LochLymeLodge.com

BEST FAIRYTALE LUNCH PICKITY PLACE MASON, NH

Experience the enchanting cottage that inspired Elizabeth Orton Jones’s Little Golden Books version of “Little Red Riding Hood.” Untouched by time, this is a mecca for gardeners, epicureans, and anyone looking for inspiration and relaxation. Have a Pickity day!

“Forgotten. Buried. Denied. No More.” Experience Portsmouth’s rich Black history. Hear stories of Ona Marie Judge’s escape from George Washington. Visit the wharf where Africans were unloaded as cargo. See the memorialized site of a Colonial African burying ground, and more.

603-570-8469

BlackHeritageTrailNH.org

BEST FARM STAY

LIBERTY HILL FARM INN ROCHESTER, VT

603-878-1151

PickityPlace.com

Experience life on a Vermont dairy farm. Country lodging and farm-fresh meals served family style. Swimming, hiking, then home to feed the calves and milk the cows. Reunions, family, and friends welcome. Explore the heart of Vermont!

802-767-3926

LibertyHillFarm.com

BEST LAKEFRONT CABINS

AMES FARM INN

GILFORD, NH

Enjoy a quarter mile of sandy beach and docks on the shores of Lake Winnipesaukee. Lakeside cottages, apartments, and rooms available. Great location for fishing, hiking, kayaking, boating, and more. Family owned and operated since 1890.

603-293-4321

AmesFarmInn.com

BEST DESIGNER ROOM

THE HARRASEEKET INN FREEPORT, ME

A family-owned, AAA Four Diamond hotel featuring two restaurants, fireplaces, indoor pool, select pet-friendly rooms. Book direct and get free breakfast and tea. Complimentary transportation from Amtrak Downeaster station. Two blocks to L.L. Bean. Best shopping in New England.

800-342-6423

HarraseeketInn.com

BEST OCEAN VIEW

BAR HARBOR INN BAR HARBOR, ME

Steps from downtown Bar Harbor, along majestic Frenchman Bay, this iconic inn has been welcoming guests since 1887 with genuine hospitality, signature service, and timeless charm. Enjoy the area’s finest waterfront dining, accommodations, and spa services on this stunning eight-acre property.

844-249-3584

BarHarborInn.com

BEST GIFT STORE GALLERY GIFTS AT 136

DAMARISCOTTA, ME

Gifts at 136 offers a large selection of fine crafts and art from Maine, including furniture, paintings, sculpture, jewelry, pottery, glassware, lighting, and more. Gifts at 136 has won multiple awards for its well-curated collection of accessible art. Open all year.

207-563-1011

GiftsAt136.com

Reconnect with past Editors’ Choice winners and see for yourself why they received Yankee Magazine

’s highest accolade.

BEST INN FOR FOODIES

HARTSTONE INN AND HIDEAWAY

CAMDEN, ME

Two-night packages starting at $360. Steps from Camden Harbor, minutes from lighthouses, wineries, beaches, kayaking, hiking and biking. Enjoy the outdoor fun, have a relaxing massage or become Chef for a Day. Pamper yourself … Sophisticated getaway with memorable cuisine!

207-236-4259

HartstoneInn.com

SPRUCE POINT INN

BOOTHBAY HARBOR, ME

Spruce Point Inn has built a distinctive reputation for its glorious location and warm hospitality. Condé Nast Traveler’s Readers’ Choice and Down East magazine’s “Best Hotel in Maine,” the 57-acre waterfront resort helps guests create “oceanside memories made in Maine.”

800-553-0289

SprucePointInn.com

BEST FAMILY INN THE NONANTUM RESORT

KENNEBUNKPORT, ME

Traditions begin here. Enjoy the seasonal family activities program, kayak and bike rentals, outdoor heated pool, magical fairy garden, scenic lobster boat cruises, and trolley tours! Walking distance to the beaches and Dock Square shops. TripAdvisor Certificate of Excellence winner.

888-205-1620

NonantumResort.com

BEST COLLEGE ART MUSEUM

COLBY COLLEGE MUSEUM OF ART

WATERVILLE, ME

Considered one of the best academic museums in the country, the Colby College Museum of Art offers a vibrant exhibition program. It serves as a cultural resource to the Waterville community and visitors to the state. Always free and open to all!

207-859-5600

Colby.edu/museum

BEST ROMANTIC GETAWAY

THE JACKSON HOUSE INN

WOODSTOCK, VT

A historic inn meets contemporary luxury just outside one of Vermont’s most beautiful villages. Refined sitting rooms, world-class art, glorious gardens, and luxurious lodgings featuring fireplaces and Frette linens meet gourmet breakfasts in our AAA Four Diamond boutique inn.

802-457-2065

JacksonHouse.com

BEST ART AND AMERICANA SHELBURNE MUSEUM SHELBURNE, VT

Forty-five acres, 39 buildings, 22 gardens, over 100,000 items in the collection. A steamboat, carousel, locomotive, special exhibitions, paintings by Impressionist masters and American artists like Wyeth, Homer, and more. Located 10 minutes south of Burlington, VT.

802-895-3346

ShelburneMuseum.org

BEST LUXURY STAY

LODGE AT SPRUCE PEAK

STOWE, VT

Travel is all about cultivating new experiences—and that’s exactly what Spruce Peak has to offer. At the base of Mount Mansfield, we are Stowe’s only ski-in/out luxury lodging, featuring 300 guestrooms, suites, and residential offerings, and year-round recreation opportunities.

844-382-2838

SprucePeak.com

BEST B&B FOUR CHIMNEYS INN BENNINGTON, VT

Luxury lodging in a Revival mansion tucked behind a 100-year-old stone wall. Set the stage for your perfect romantic getaway and Vermont vacation. Crisp, clean rooms. Modern amenities in a quintessential Vermont village inn. Book direct for best rates.

802-447-3500

FourChimneys.com

PHOTO: SARAH MCELVAIN LAVOIE

Burlington, Vermont

BY ANNIE GRAVES

all it alfresco, call it plein air, there’s a certain je ne sais quoi to Burlington, Vermont, once the warm weather sets in. Folks seem giddy with possibilities. The largest lake in New England—490 square miles—laps at the city’s feet, with beaches carved end to end. The Island Line Trail darts alongside, kicking off a 10-mile ride to a ribbon of causeway where you can catch a bike ferry to the Champlain Islands. Did I mention it’s beautiful?

Naturally, there is an outsize emphasis on doing—with sailboats, paddleboards, and bikes for hire. There is also righteous support for just being. For sitting and watching and stretching out on the grassy lawn of Waterfront Park. Farm-to-fork is a mantra here, along with the inventive brewing and distilling that have brought national attention. Church Street’s four blocks of pedestrian-only restaurants and shops hum into the night, or play host to festivals celebrating everything from jazz to fools.

With the University of Vermont at its back, this college town of 42,239 lives outside in summer. Yes, the season is all too brief, but while it’s here, you can eat, play, and even shop in the great outdoors. The ultimate summer on a lake, with all the fresh air you could ask for.

When summer comes to this lakeside city, you’ll want to take everything outside.

CLOCKWISE FROM FAR LEFT : Shopping and dining have their day in the sun on Burlington’s busy pedestrian mall, Church Street; young sailors at play on Lake Champlain; cyclists glide alongside the water on the Island Line Trail, which runs from Burlington toward the island of South Hero; a platter of eastern Mediterranean nibbles from Honey Road. STACEY CRAMP (CHURCH STREET); JTYLER/ISTOCK.COM (SAILING); JEB WALLACE-BRODEUR (BIKING); OLIVER PARINI (FOOD)

The Setting

Imagine French explorer Samuel de Champlain’s awe when he first saw the lake in 1609. Lake Champlain has been called the “Sixth Great Lake,” and it dominates Burlington, the largest city on its shores. A major waterway in the 18th and 19th centuries, it still teems with sailboats and ferries crossing to the New York side, with the Adirondack Mountains pulling them on. The lake’s depths are rumored to harbor a sea monster, Champ; its 107-mile length ignores borders, crossing into Canada. With Montreal just two hours away, you’re as likely to hear French on the streets as read it on menus.

Eating Out

Since 1980, Leunig’s Bistro has been at the heart of downtown, a little piece

of Paris blown onto Church Street. Over the years, I’ve warmed myself with rugged pistou and cones of frites, but on a steamy Friday night, crunchy salads and local charcuterie hit the perfect note for people-watching from an open-air café table.

It’s only the beginning of alfresco farm-to-fork. On Saturday, outdoor breakfast crepes at the Skinny Pancake constrain an unruly volume of ingredients (“Sassquash” crams together local squash, chèvre, and apples). The following morning, it’s avocado toast and a quinoa bowl with a Brooklyn vibe at August First. Saturday lunchtime rolls around, and I find myself at Spot on the Dock, with fish tacos on a sun-drenched patio where ferries pull up, and an open-air bar that feels like Hemingway might stop by. Come

above : The Burlington–Port Kent ferry provides a backdrop for the seasonal eatery Spot on the Dock. right : The Island Line Trail runs past beaches and nature preserves and onto this spectacular 3.5-milelong causeway.

Sunday, I’m at Istanbul Kebab House, eating crunchy falafels on a rooftop. And on the dinner front, I score a coveted seat at James Beard finalist Honey Road, the red-hot ticket in town, serving Mediterranean mezze dishes high on vegetables. Next night, it’s gastropub Farmhouse Tap & Grill, chopping a definitive Pitchfork Farm beet salad, as tunes spill out from Capt’n Tom’s Tiki-Bar next door. I could be in the tropics….

Snapshots from the Burlington Farmers’ Market, one of the largest in Vermont. Among its nearly 100 vendors you’ll find folks such as ( BOTTOM LEFT) Juan Marguite, left, and Pat Cogan of Arcana, an organic nursery, and ( BOTTOM RIGHT) Scott Medellin of Slowfire, an artisanal bakery.

Shopping

Somehow I’ve got four kinds of cheese. And I’m still only partway through the Burlington Farmers’ Market, a seasonal ode to abundance every Saturday. Since 1980, vendors have corralled heirloom tomatoes, stacked dewy lettuce, and cubed cheese into irresistible samples. “This is the best two-year cheddar I’ve tasted all year,” enthuses a cheese maker at the Shelburne Farms booth (who am I to refuse?).

On the liquid front, if it’s distillable, it’s in a bottle—like Elm Brook Farm’s Literary Dog Vodka (maple). There are handcrafted pretzels, live-edge wooden bowls, cupcake dog treats, bear-fat salve with balsam. I’ve admired sunflowers at Ardelia Farm’s stand, sampled spirulina shots, and watched two cable guys (T-shirt logos gave them away) debate over kimchi. It’s possible to tiny-bite your way through this market, but then you’d miss out on Green Mountain pot stickers (made “with kung fu and love”) and Pak-Afghan spinach samosas. Ultimately, I succumb to a Sisters of Anarchy “Bronx Cheer” raspberry cone. A dog grazes the ground nearby, finding traces of who-knows-what. The market is like an artisanal salad you can actually walk through.

Family Fun

Like the city’s former mayor, Bernie Sanders, the Burlington bike path is egalitarian, embracing everyone from hard-core cyclists to hardpedaling parents hauling tiny spaceships. Local Motion rents bikes and makes trail suggestions; they’ll set you on the path to friendly shallow-water beaches, or Colchester’s causeway and the Island Line Bike Ferry to South Hero, gateway to the Champlain Islands.

Don’t-Miss Attractions

As the setting sun casts strips of ripe plum into Lake Champlain and

MONICA DONOVAN (6); ANNIE GRAVES (3)

sailboats drift to the foot of College Street, a bartender at Splash at the Boathouse mixes a brilliant Aperol spritz. A half hour ago, I joined the trickle of hungry, thirsty, and just plain inspired who are headed to the lake to watch the nightly spectacle from this floating dock. The landing is packed now, the day about to end in a wash of color. Beauty feeds everyone.

Uniquely Burlington

Is being a spectator a spectator sport?

If so, Burlingtonians excel, whether they’re watching street performers on Church Street, sitting in a lawn swing by the lake, or taking in a festival. From Discover Jazz, to Pride, to Vermont Brewers, to the Festival of Fools, the street scene is thriving. In the artsy South End, rich in studios and galler-

ies, the Friday-night convergence of food trucks at ArtsRiot Truck Stop makes for an outdoor foodie scene you can dance to. Or cheer on the Vermont Lake Monsters minor league baseball team, an affiliate of the Oakland A’s, playing at UVM’s Centennial Field.

Where to Stay

Sharing an inner courtyard (and local owners), the sleek Hotel Vermont and its sister, Courtyard by Marriott Burlington Harbor, are just blocks from the lake on one side, and Church Street on the other, with dining options that include Juniper (Hotel Vermont), on an outdoor deck, or Bleu Northeast Seafood (Marriott), with fresh local fish. Added perk: Bike & Brew tours to local treasures Zero Gravity, Switchback, and Citizen Cider.

Offering more than a dozen acres of lakeside green space, Waterfront Park is a popular setting for wedding photos and even ceremonies.

If You Could Live Here

In the spirit of outdoors, an 1899 twobedroom condo three blocks from the bike path sells for $199,000, while a historic 1927 duplex (former saloon) with original woodwork and a southfacing yard lists at $474,500. Or go for broke with an 1896 slate-roof Victorian mansion with Tiffany windows and gardens galore: $1,995,000.

To see more photographs from our trip, go to newengland.com/burlington-2019.

COME FOR THE MOUNTAINS, STAY FOR THE VALLEY .

Very Vermont 26 unique rooms, clean comfort, good food. Come breathe the mountain air!

Photos by Phil Bobrow, Corey Hendrickson, Mad River Glen, Sugarbush Resort

During an afternoon cruise on Newport Harbor, young sailors from a local yacht club kick back aboard Weatherly, which successfully defended the America’s Cup in 1962.

Sailing Adventures

Leave your cares on land with one of these breezy New England escapes.

KIM KNOX BECKIUS

f all the ways we’ve harnessed elemental forces to carry us from place to place, sailing is most exhilarating … and serendipitous. Aboard a tall-masted relic of the Age of Sail, a racing yacht, or a pleasure boat, you can let go of the need for an itinerary. Embrace the all-hands-on-deck camaraderie, or be as idle as you’d like. A sailboat can be your floating hammock, your refuge, your passage to uncharted waters within.

America’s Cup Charters

The sleek yacht heels over, shifting your equilibrium; the flapping of sails tickles your ears. You might reach 10 knots (about 11.5 mph) on a cruise aboard Intrepid , American Eagle, Weatherly, or Nefertiti , and it’ll feel like flying. As America’s Cup winners or contenders during the ’60s and ’70s, these sailboats were born to race. And they still do: The whole fleet will compete when Newport hosts America’s largest-ever gathering of historic 12-meter yachts July 8–13. Newport, RI. 401-849-5868; americascupcharters.com

Maine Windjammer Association

In all the world, there is no collection of boats quite like this: Four are National Historic Landmarks; the newest windjammer—Heritage —was hand-built by its long-married captains in 1983. And while accommodations are varying degrees of rustic, your sail on Penobscot Bay will be softened by the sounds of guitar strumming, the mystic glow of moonrise, and the promise of unlimited lobster. From a three-day jaunt to a 10-day voyage, the experience will make real-world reentry bitter sweet. Rockland and Camden, ME. 800-8079463; sailmainecoast.com

Moment Sailing Adventures

Entrepreneur and lifelong sailor Chris Bartick invested 10 months of loving labor getting the Moment, a classic Stevens 47, shipshape—and the result can be your special vessel for a proposal, “weddingmoon,” or just a few hours of gliding on southwesterly breezes in sheltered Provincetown Harbor. Captain, chef, and ordained minister Craig Hawley takes the helm for most charters and will cater to your whims, whether you want to moor and swim or lounge and savor lobster guacamole. Up to six people can enjoy a two-, four-, or six-hour cruise; one or two couples can book a 48-hour jaunt that includes time ashore in Wellfleet and Plymouth before they’re rocked to sleep in their private staterooms. Provincetown, MA. 347-857-7245; momentsailing.com

Mystic Whaler Cruises

In their playful banter, their devotion to preserving nautical traditions, and their obvious care for the 83-foot Mystic Whaler and its guests, husbandand-wife captains John Eginton and Pat Beck set the tone for every sailing. And no boat in the region undertakes a more diverse lineup for all tastes and budgets: A luncheon, sunset, lobster dinner, or Sunday brunch cruise is an

easy way to get out on the water, while two-to-five-night themed trips with enticing ports of call like Block Island and Jamestown and bright, comfortable cabin accommodations make a sailcation attractive. This 52-year-old tall ship, modeled after a late-1800s cargo schooner, docks steps from New London’s train station, so even carless city dwellers have no excuse for staying ashore. New London, CT. 800-6978420; mysticwhalercruises.com

Whistling Man Schooner Co.

Winds are moody on Lake Champlain, and that makes sailing a challenge and a treat for captain Hannah Langsdale and her crew. Langsdale owns Friend Ship , a replica of a 1901 lobstering sloop, which departs two to five times daily for private charters and two-hour public tours on New England’s most lore-rich lake. Dangle your feet in the water and listen to tales of battles fought on Champlain before, during, and after the American Revolution. Never mind that a rumored sea monster lurks beneath the surface: You’ll feel carefree and inspired, especially late in the day, when the sun sinks behind the Adirondacks, turning clouds into wisps of ruddy-purple fire. Burlington, VT. 802-825-7245; whistlingman.com

CONNECTICUT Bruce Museum

1 Museum Dr. • Greenwich, CT 203-869-0376 brucemuseum.org

Connecticut River Museum

67 Main St. • Essex, CT 860-767-8269 ctrivermuseum.org

Mystic Seaport Museum

75 Greenmanville Ave. • Mystic, CT 860-572-0711 mysticseaport.org

Nature’s Art Village

1650 Hartford-New London Tpke. Montville, CT 860-443-4367 naturesartvillage.com

Quinnipiac University

3011 Whitney Ave. • Hamden, CT 203-582-6500 ighm.org

MAINE Camden Premier Inns Camden, ME camdeninns.com/yankee

Pejepscot History Center 159 Park Row • Brunswick, ME 207-729-6606 pejepscothistorical.org

MASSACHUSETTS

Emily Dickinson Museum 280 Main St. • Amherst, MA 413-665-2805 emilydickinsonmuseum.org

Magic Wings Butterfly Conservatory & Gardens 281 Greenfield Rd. • South Deerfield, MA 413-665-2805 magicwings.com

Memorial Hall Museum 8 Memorial St. • Deerfield, MA 413-774-3768 deerfield-ma.org

The Mount Edith Wharton’s Home 2 Plunkett St. • Lenox, MA 413-551-5111 edithwharton.org

Russell Orchards, Farm & Winery 143 Argilla Rd. • Ipswich, MA 978-356-5366 russellorchards.com

Salem Witch Museum 19-1/2 Washington Sq. • Salem, MA 978-744-1692 salemwitchmuseum.com

NEW HAMPSHIRE White Mountains Visitors Center 200 Kancamagus Hwy. • N. Woodstock, NH 603-745-8720 visitwhitemountains.com

Family-owned farm and unique store featuring their own produce, local goodies, and ice cream. Animal barnyard, u-pick fruits in season. Specializing in award-winning fruit wines, with wine tastings Friday-Sunday. From-scratch bakery serving cider donuts and fruit pies. A beloved tradition for families and a must-see destination. 978-356-5366 www.russellorchards.com

OLD DEERFIELD, MA

MA

HISTORY & BEAUTY Without the Velvet Ropes

Sat & Sun

Retreat. Relax. Recharge.

New Hampshire’s White Mountains are a wonderful place to escape, explore and create unforgettable memories. Experience towering peaks, stunning scenery, spectacular waterfalls, limitless recreation and 17 legendary attractions that have provided a lifetime of memories and cheer for generations of visitors.

NEW HAMPSHIRE’S WHITE MOUNTAINS

Out About

Yankee ’s favorite events this season

VERMONT CIRCUS SMIRKUS

JULY 2–3

Fresh off their June 29 season opener at their Greensboro headquarters, these award-winning troupers ages 10 to 18 hit the road for a two-month, five-state tour. First up is St. Johnsbury, where the Green Mountain Mall hosts this impressive array of young aerialists, acrobats, clowns, and more. St. Johnsbury, VT. See the full tour schedule at smirkus.org.

MAINE

YARMOUTH CLAM FESTIVAL

JULY 19–21

Over 100,000 people are expected to show up for this homage to the humble clam—and they’ll be bringing their appetites, with more than 6,000 pounds of clams expected to be consumed. There’s more to the fun than just the food, though, thanks to live music, a shucking contest, a firefighters’ muster, a parade, street dancing, and fireworks. Yarmouth, ME. 207-846-3984; clamfestival.com

NEW HAMPSHIRE LEAGUE OF N.H. CRAFTSMEN’S FAIR

AUG. 3–11

Showcasing the talents of more than 300 juried artisans, this annual event at the Mount Sunapee Resort represents a wonderful chance to peruse and buy—but also to learn and make, thanks to all the live demonstrations and DIY workshops. Newbury, NH. 603-224-3375; nhcrafts.org

MASSACHUSETTS PROVINCETOWN CARNIVAL WEEK

AUG. 15–24

Hands down, there’s no livelier place on Cape Cod in August than Provincetown, where parties, art fairs, a costume ball, and other celebrations of LGBTQ life all lead up to the vibrant spectacle of the Carnival Parade. Provincetown, MA. ptown.org/provincetown-carnival

RHODE ISLAND

WASHINGTON COUNTY FAIR

AUG. 14–18

The biggest fair in Rhode Island returns to delight all ages. Topname musical headliners and New England’s largest traveling roller coaster are just the beginning: Factor in animal shows, grange and 4-H exhibits, crafts, games, and tractor and horse pulls, and you’ve got a celebration well worth the drive. Richmond, RI. 401-539-7042; washingtoncountyfair-ri.com

CONNECTICUT DRAGON BOAT & ASIAN FESTIVAL

AUG. 17

The Connecticut River comes alive with the flashing paddles and pounding drums of dragon boats, a Chinese tradition that’s made itself at home in Hartford’s Riverside Park since 2000. Aside from watching 80-plus teams of rowers duel it out on the 500-meter course, attendees can partake in the accompanying celebration of Asian dancing, music, and food. Hartford, CT. riverfront.org

For more best bets around New England, see p. 76

Founded in 1987, Vermont’s Circus Smirkus gives young circus performers from around the world a chance to shine during its annual Big Top Tour.

ROBERT SANSON

CONNECTICUT

THROUGH AUG. 17: NORFOLK, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival. Believed to be the nation’s oldest active summer music festival, this annual Yale University School of Music event offers 30-plus performances and events. norfolk.yale.edu

JULY 12–14: NEW LONDON, Sailfest. More than 300,000 visitors are expected on the New London waterfront this weekend for entertainment on two stages, roughly 200 food and craft vendors, amusement rides, and a fireworks show. 860-444-1879; sailfest.org

JULY 19–21: GUILFORD, Craft Expo. Historic Guilford Green is the backdrop for one-of-a-kind ceramics, fiber, glass, leather, metal, painting, and more—with everything on display and offered for sale being proudly hand-made. guilfordartcenter.org/expo

JULY 19–21: HARTFORD, Greater Hartford Festival of Jazz. Since it was started by bassist Paul Brown in 1991, this free festival in Bushnell Park has played host to many of the biggest names in jazz (Dave Brubeck, Herbie Mann), along with rising stars from the New England scene. hartfordjazz.com

JULY 20–21: WESTPORT, Fine Arts Festival. Along the picturesque Saugatuck River you’ll find works from 175 national and international fine artists, including paintings, ceramics, photography, sculpture, and jewelry. 203-293-0099; westportdma.com

JULY 26–28: WASHINGTON, Litchfield Jazz Festival. This jazz fest got under way in 1996 with a lineup that any well-established festival would envy (e.g., Diana Krall, Christian McBride, and Terence Blanchard). The event continues to spotlight up-and-coming talent. litchfieldjazzfest.com

AUG. 8–11: GOSHEN, Podunk Bluegrass Music Festival . Head to the Goshen Fairgrounds to groove to some of the finest bluegrass anywhere. Other highlights include free workshops and storytelling and jam sessions. podunkbluegrass.com

AUG. 10–11: MYSTIC, Mystic Outdoor Art Festival . All told, there’s more than two miles’ worth of arts and crafts booths to peruse, a children’s “art park,” plus food and drink for sale by local charitable organizations. 860-572-9578; mysticchamber.org

AUG. 17: MILFORD, Milford Oyster Festival . An impressive music lineup featuring nationally known headliners, an artisans fair, kids’ rides and games, and a shucking contest round out the fun, but the true stars of this show are the oysters. Sample them all! milfordoysterfestival.com

AUG. 22–25: BROOKLYN, Brooklyn Fair

The food, the animals, the midway, the entertainment, the arts and crafts, the contests—there is something for everyone at the area’s oldest agricultural festival. 860-7790012; brooklynfair.org

MAINE

JULY 5: PENOBSCOT BAY, Great Schooner Race. North America’s largest annual gathering of tall ships will see at least 20 schooners—

Arnold Skolnick, Concert poster for the Woodstock festival, August 1969.

The Final Impossibility: Man’s Tracks on the Moon (detail), 1969. Norman Rockwell Family Agency. All rights reserved.

including members of the Maine Windjammer Association—face off in a race from Islesboro to Rockland, followed by a festive awards ceremony. greatschoonerrace.com

JULY 6: BAR HARBOR, Native American Festival and Basketmakers Market. The Abbe Museum hosts this showcase of handcrafted Wabanaki ash and sweet grass baskets, wood and stone carvings, jewelry, beadwork, and more. 207-288-3519; abbemuseum.org

JULY 12–14: LISBON FALLS, Moxie Festival

From soda chugging contests to a fireworks show, this celebration of Maine’s official soft drink is chock-full of fun. moxiefestival.com

JULY 12–21: WATERVILLE, Maine International Film Festival . One hundred films will be screened at various Waterville venues, spotlighting some of New England’s most innovative filmmakers, many of whom will be on hand for the fun. 207-861-8138; miff.org

JULY 26–27: RANGELEY, Logging Festival and Parade. Enjoy an authentic Maine bean hole dinner, music, parade, and logging exhibits, demonstrations, and competitions at the Maine Forestry Museum fairgrounds. 207-864-3939; maineforestrymuseum.org

JULY 31–AUG. 4: ROCKLAND, Maine Lobster Festival . Come ready to do your part as Harbor Park plays host to five days of feasting and fun, during which more than 20,000 pounds of lobster will be consumed. In

between feasts, view a sea goddess coronation, a parade, and live entertainment, arts and crafts, and cooking contests. 207-596-7126; mainelobsterfestival.com

AUG. 2–4: UNION, Maine Antiques Festival . Vintage treasures abound at Maine’s largest antiques festival, featuring dealers from more than two dozen states. 207-221-3108; maineantiquesfestival.com

AUG. 9–11: ROCKLAND, Maine Boat & Home Show. The largest in-water boat show north of Newport lures nautical types with more than 60 boats in the water and 100-plus exhibitors. 207-594-8622; maineboats.com/boatshow

AUG. 15–18: MADAWASKA, Acadian Festival. Explore Maine’s deep French-American heritage with a reenactment of the first Acadian landing, a traditional Acadian supper, a poutine eating contest, cultural displays, and a parade. 207-316-8333; acadianfestival.com

AUG. 16–18: MACHIAS, Wild Blueberry Festival . Head to the scenic Down East village of Machias for blueberry farm tours, cooking and pie eating contests, and art and crafts for sale from more than 250 artisans. 207-2556665; machiasblueberry.com

AUG. 23–25: BANGOR, American Folk Festival. Your biggest challenge will be figuring out where to turn your attention as four stages fill with world music and dance performances. 207-262-7765; americanfolkfestival.com

Over 3,000 animals

Woodsmen’s Field Day

Exhibitions & Museums

Tractor & 4WD pulls

Pari-mutuel harness racing

Night Shows & Fireworks

Grand Parade

Spectacular food

Midway & rides

Campsites

For Reservations & Online Tickets

www.fryeburgfair.org

September 29 - October 6

8 Full Days

Sunday to Sunday

MASSACHUSETTS

JULY 5–7: MASHPEE, Mashpee Wampanoag Powwow . Held at the traditional powwow grounds in Mashpee, this annual get-together dating back to 1921 celebrates Native American culture through dancing, drumming, food, and competitions. mashpeewampanoagtribe-nsn.gov

JULY 12–14: GREENFIELD, Green River Festival. Greenfield Community College plays host to a sprawling array of world-class live music. 413-341-5995; greenriverfestival.com

JULY 13–14: MARBLEHEAD, Glover’s Summer Encampment . At Fort Sewall you can take a peek inside a Revolutionary War camp and watch a regiment of reenactors drill, march, and fight. gloversregiment.org

JULY 20: NORTHAMPTON, Glasgow Lands Scottish Festival. The state’s only Scottish festival is held in Look Park and offers the chance to experience Highland athletic contests, pipe and drum competitions, Scottish food, dancing, and more. glasgowlands.org

JULY 22–28: BARNSTABLE, Barnstable County Fair. A Cape tradition since 1844, this classic fair offers a petting zoo, 4-H demonstrations, live music, arts and crafts, rides, and more. barnstablecountyfair.org

JULY 26–28: LOWELL, Folk Festival. Come out and enjoy authentic world cuisine, crafts, and music at Dutton Street Dance Pavilion and Boarding House Park. 978-970-5000; lowellfolkfestival.org

JULY 27–AUG. 3: WOODS HOLE, Woods Hole Film Festival. With screenings, workshops, panels, readings, and parties, this nonprofit showcase of independent films is a must for cinephiles. 508-495-3456; woodsholefilmfestival.org

AUG. 1–4: NEW BEDFORD, Feast of the Blessed Sacrament. The single largest ethnic festival in all of New England offers Portuguese food and performances, a 5K road race, a midway, and a parade. feastoftheblessedsacrament.com

AUG. 3–4: STURBRIDGE, Redcoats and Rebels. See Old Sturbridge Village transformed into a military camp from the time of the War for Independence, and learn what it was really like for those who fought to win America’s freedoms. 508-347-3362; osv.org

AUG. 16–25: MARSHFIELD, Marshfield Fair. Held at the town fairgrounds, this agricultural fair has been a community tradition for over a century, with midway rides and games, livestock contests, an old car show, and more. 781-834-6629; marshfieldfair.org

AUG. 24–25: SALEM, Antique and Classic Boat Festival. You don’t get to see vintage motor yachts and sailboats like these every day, so set aside plenty of time for strolling. 978-831-7905; boatfestival.org

AUG. 31–SEP. 1: PLYMOUTH, “Let History Ring” Weekend. Part of the homecoming schedule for the newly restored Mayflower II , this Plimoth Plantation event features the casting of a new ship’s bell, plus food, music, and kids’ activities. Slated for Saturday is a “Night of Fire & Wine” soiree at the

museum’s Peabody Pavilion overlooking the Eel River. 508-746-1622; plimoth.org

NEW HAMPSHIRE

JULY 13: EXETER, American Independence Festival . View a rare original printing of the Declaration of Independence, listen to a dramatic reading at the American Independence Museum, then step to the beat of fife and drum while enjoying an arts and crafts sale, kids’ activities, tasty food, and more. 603-772-2622; independencemuseum.org

JULY 18–21: STRATHAM, Stratham Fair Stratham Hill Park provides the backdrop for live entertainment, 4-H exhibits, rides and games, arts and crafts, and the crowning of Miss Stratham Fair. 603-772-4977; strathamfair.com

JULY 27: CANTERBURY, Canterbury Fair Old-fashioned family fun featuring games on the green, farm animals, an antiques mart, a dunking booth, road races, and more. canterburyfair.com

AUG. 8–10: MANCHESTER, New Hampshire Antiques Show . Explore the finds of more than 60 dealers—furniture, paintings, textiles, ceramics, etc.—at the DoubleTree by Hilton. 603-876-4080; nhada.org

AUG. 11: PETERBOROUGH, MacDowell Colony Medal Day. The nation’s oldest artists’ colony opens its grounds to the public. Tour studios and meet artists in residence, picnic on the grounds, and celebrate the contributions of visual artist Charles Gaines, recipient of the 2019 Edward MacDowell Medal. 603-924-3886; macdowellcolony.org

AUG. 16–18: THORNTON, White Mountain Boogie n’ Blues Festival . The state’s largest outdoor blues festival takes place in a natural amphitheater amid a 72-acre pasture. Along with the award-winning blues artists, there’s a climbing wall, fireworks, food, and crafts. 603-726-3867; whitemountainboogie.com

AUG. 17–18: HILLSBOROUGH, History Alive. In Hillsborough Center you can interact with period artisans or watch the cavalry charge and hear the cannons roar. Learn to make butter and ice cream, pan for gold, press cider, and more. 603-464-0377; historyalivenh.org

AUG. 18: HENNIKER, Fire on the Mountain Chili Fest . Chefs and amateur chili makers strut their stuff at Pats Peak Ski Area. Between chili samples, check out the classiccar show, live entertainment, and kids’ activities. chilinewhampshire.org

AUG. 23–24: COLEBROOK, North Country Moose Festival. Pay homage to the giants of the northern forest with a moose calling contest, maple syrup tastings, moose chili, a barn dance, and horse-drawn wagon rides. 603-237-8939; chamberofthenorthcountry.com

AUG. 24–25: MEREDITH, Lakes Region

Fine Arts and Crafts Festival . This juried outdoor festival is filled with works by more than 80 artists and craftspeople, displayed among the Meredith Village Shops and the Mill Falls Marketplace. 603-279-6121; meredithareachamber.com/artfest.php

Travel | OUT & ABOUT

RHODE ISLAND

JULY 4: BRISTOL, Fourth of July Parade. The country’s oldest Independence Day celebration (established in 1785!) draws a crowd in the historic downtown, so arrive early for a key spot along the route. july4thbristolri.com

JULY 13–14: WICKFORD, Wickford Art Festival . The tree-lined downtown streets are filled with 200 fine artisans exhibiting their work. 401-294-6840; wickfordart.org

JULY 25–27: NARRAGANSETT, Blessing of the Fleet Weekend . Highlights include a 10-mile road race that winds through town, and the procession of boats into the Port of Galilee to be blessed by clergy and vie for prizes. narragansettlionsclub.org

JULY 26–28: FOSTER, Old Home Days . Enjoy a dose of classic small-town fun: pony pulls, a skillet toss, a pie eating contest, live music, 4-H demonstrations, and more. 401397-5687; fosterpreservationsociety.org

JULY 27–28: MIDDLETOWN, The Newport Show. More than 40 antiques dealers converge on St. George’s School, with plenty of paintings, furniture, folk art, and jewelry to be appreciated and purchased. 401-8462669; thenewportshow.com

JULY 31–AUG. 18: WESTERLY, Shakespeare in the Park . The Bard’s comedic A Midsummer Night’s Dream provides a free evening of laughs in lovely Wilcox Park. 401-596-7909; colonialtheatreri.org

AUG. 2–4: CHARLESTOWN, Seafood Festival. This gastronomic extravaganza at Ninigret Park highlights the state’s best seafood plus a bevy of other foods, amusement rides, a car show, petting zoo, raffles, and music. 401-364-4031; charlestownrichamber.com

AUG. 3: WESTERLY/PAWCATUCK, River Glow. Take part in hayrides through downtown and enjoy live music as more than three dozen floating bonfires illuminate the Pawcatuck. 401-596-7761; westerlychamber.org

AUG. 6–11: PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island International Film Festival. The RIFF hosts gala celebrations, premieres, and educational programs in addition to a lineup of the year’s most innovative and creative films. 401-861-4445; film-festival.org

AUG. 9–11: BRISTOL, Black Ships Festival Celebrating the 1854 treaty that made Japan and the U.S. trading partners, this festival embraces Japanese art and culture, from music to origami and martial arts. 401-8462720; blackshipsfestival.com

AUG. 10: JAMESTOWN, Fools’ Rules Regatta Participants have two hours to convert a pile of “non-marine items” into a sailing vessel capable of transporting them across the finish line. jyc.org

AUG. 16–18: PAWTUCKET, Grecian Festival . More than 90 years strong, this cultural celebration at the Assumption of the Virgin Mary Greek Orthodox Church features Greek pastries and cuisine as well as dancers performing traditional and modern Greek dances, an indoor-outdoor marketplace, a café, and activities for children. 401-725-3127

Photo: Katie Pritchard

VERMONT

JULY 5–7: STOWE, Hot Air Balloon Festival More than 25 hot air balloons take flight over Stoweflake, while on-the-ground diversions include food, drink, music, and activities. 802-253-7355; stoweflake.com

JULY 11–14: BRANDON, Basin Bluegrass Festival. Bluegrass pickin’ and the rolling green hills of Vermont combine for a weekend of family fun. basinbluegrassfestival.com

JULY 13–AUG. 11: MARLBORO, Marlboro Music Festival. Founded in 1951 by legendary pianist Rudolf Serkin, this world-class chamber music festival showcases the talents of young musicians and master artists side by side. 215-569-4690; marlboromusic.org

JULY 26–28: WOODSTOCK, Bookstock. Bibliophiles, rejoice in three days of appearances by emerging and prize-winning writers plus poetry slams, art exhibits, live music, workshops, and an enormous used and vintage book sale. 802 989-4338; bookstockvt.org

JULY 26–AUG. 4: WILMINGTON, Deerfield Valley Blueberry Festival. A blueberry pancake breakfast and a pie eating contest are only the tip of the iceberg at this sprawling 10-day community party. 802-4648092; vermontblueberry.com

AUG. 1–4: SPRINGFIELD, Stellafane Convention. One of the oldest and largest assemblies of night-sky enthusiasts returns with astronomy talks, telescope-making demonstrations, swap tables, and lots of heavenward gazing. stellafane.org

AUG. 2–4: BURLINGTON, Festival of Fools Starring street performers from around the globe, this weekend is filled with circus arts, music, and comedy, all centered on Church Street Marketplace and City Hall Park. 802865-7166; vermontfestivaloffools.com

AUG. 8–11: WILMINGTON, Deerfield Valley Farmers’ Day Fair. Over a century old and still going strong, this country fair offers fun, food, and friendly competition, from a kids’ tractor rodeo to an exhibit hall filled with prize winners. 802-319-0117; dvfair.com

AUG. 11: SHELBURNE, Vermont Cheesemakers Festival . With more cheese makers per capita than any other state, Vermont knows from good fromage. Sample local cheeses and meet their makers at Shelburne Farms. 866-261-8595; vtcheesefest.com

AUG. 13–17: RUTLAND, Vermont State Fair. Agricultural exhibits, livestock shows, amusement rides, concerts, comedy shows, pig races, and much, much more. 802-7755200; vermontstatefair.org

AUG. 23–SEP. 1: ESSEX JUNCTION, Champlain Valley Fair. The state’s biggest single event is packed with enough exhibits, vendors, rides, games, and entertainment to keep all its estimated 300,000 attendees happy. 802-878-5545; cvexpo.org

AUG. 25: HARTFORD, Quechee Games. Don your kilt for some Celtic fun at the Quechee Polo Field, where good music, microbrewed beer, sheepdog trials, a pipe band competition, Highland games, and a dancing competition will transport you, temporarily, to Scotland. quecheegames.com

MAGICAL MAINE’S

PHOTOGRAPH BY MARK FLEMING

Fishing boats on their moorings in Carver’s Harbor, on the south side of Vinalhaven—an island that is itself surrounded by other, smaller islands, including Lane’s Island ( LEFT), a nature preserve.

ISLANDS

ONCE YOU DISCOVER YOUR FAVORITE, YOU MAY NEVER WANT TO LEAVE…

PHOTOGRAPHS BY MARK FLEMING AND WINKY LEWIS

Through waters gilded by the setting sun, a fishing boat steams home toward the island of North Haven.

When we board an island-bound ferry on the coast of Maine, we sense that a different way of life awaits—one where vigilance toward weather and tides and even ferry schedules cannot be taken lightly. Miles out to sea, nature, not man, is in charge.

Where once there were dozens of year-round island communities off Maine’s coast, only 15 remain. But the beauty of the sea, pine-lined paths, meadows, and sweet cottages on bluffs has never ceased inspiring us. Come summer, like clockwork, day-trippers descend with backpacks and vacationers with suitcases.

Here, summer cottages of the famous and wealthy that have been in the family for generations lie tucked behind lush garden hedges and winding dirt driveways. These islands are where they find normalcy, where fishermen and boatbuilders and carpenters have known them and their children simply as neighbors, even if for only a few months a year.

This was the landscape, both physical and social, that photographers Winky Lewis and Mark Fleming explored last summer on visits to five Maine islands, each one proud of its individual identity, its particular hold on the imagination.

On a fine summer day, when the ferry docks at Peaks Island —only 20 minutes from the bustle of downtown Portland—hundreds of people spill out. You can bike its perimeter in 40 minutes, and that includes pausing to sun yourself on boulders and to buy a jar of honey on the honor system from a tiny roadside stand.

A dozen miles out in Muscongus Bay lies Monhegan , which for more than a century has been an inspiration for artists ranging from Rockwell Kent to Jamie Wyeth. Cliffs tower over the sea, and paths lead to meadows where hundreds of varieties of wildflowers grow.

The two Fox Islands— North Haven and Vinalhaven —are separated by only a narrow thoroughfare, yet they have distinct personalities that reflect divergent histories. North Haven has long been home to the bluest of New England’s blue bloods, as well as artists and writers, while Vinalhaven once teemed with quarry workers, who carved out massive chunks of rock used in the grandest buildings in the land. Today, Vinalhaven’s lobstering fleet is one of the largest on the Atlantic seaboard.

The wildest and most rugged part of Acadia National Park can be found on Isle au Haut, which rewards intrepid hikers with miles of trails and countless indelible views.

In the following pages you’ll discover portraits of these five islands, each described by a longtime resident. The islanders’ words reflect a deep-seated pride and love for their unique slice of Maine—and the moments that Winky and Mark framed with their cameras show why. —Mel Allen

Online Bonus

For even more inspiration for a Maine island getaway, you can find additional photos by Mark Fleming and Winky Lewis at: newengland.com/maineislands-gallery

MARK FLEMING (BOAT); JESSICA MCGUIRL (MAP)

An Islander’s Peaks Island

KIM MACISAAC Co-owner, Peaks Island Tours

I’m a fourth-generation islander on my mother’s side, third on my dad’s. But I’m a newcomer. There are people whose family has been here since 1632, even. Almost all the cottages and homes out here are at least 100 years old.

While the other islands in Casco Bay, the inhabited ones, are pretty much fishing islands, with very few people living there, we’re basically a residential island. The year-

round people all work; the summer people are here for a good deal of the season, and they’re just part of the community. We do get as many as 2,000 visitors a day in the summer—day-trippers—but we’re really like any other neighborhood in Portland. It’s just that we’re separated from it by three miles of water. We’re more like a little village.

It’s great to come, take a tour, rent a golf cart, rent a bike, go exploring, have a nice meal, a drink at the pub, an ice cream cone. It’s basically just R&R here. Take a vacation from stress.

Walking is the preferred method of getting around. Almost everything is accessible from the ferry. A few museums are maybe five or 10 minutes away, but everything else is right there.

That said, the back shore is the spot to go for walks. The best beaches are on the ferry side, but the best views are on the back side of the island. It’s rocky coast, and it’s quieter. There are also hiking paths through the woods—we have almost 200 acres of conservation land.

Be sure to see Battery Steele , a World War II gun bunker. It’s the only one of its size in Maine, and it mounted two battleship guns— huge guns. The island had the largest military base in Casco Bay and somewhere close to 900 soldiers during the war. We’ve got three museums, too, including the Umbrella Cover Museum , which is a hoot. The others are both Civil War museums, the Fifth Maine Regiment Museum and the Eighth Maine Regiment Lodge and Museum

For eating out, I kind of switch back and forth between the Cockeyed Gull and the Inn on Peaks Island . But I also eat at the food truck, Milly’s Skillet , which has a good lobster roll. And really, I try to patronize all the places.

The highlight of the summer season out here is the Lions Club variety show in August. You have some professional entertainers in it, you have normal people who have some talent, and then you have the people who have no talent—that’s the best part! We also have an around-the-island road race in July with over 500 racers, all ages, who get together for a cookout afterward.

In addition, we have a community website ( peasksisland.info ), which gives you all kinds of information about the island. And no, we are not an amusement park anymore! That’s what

Located on the rocky eastern side, or “back shore,” of Peaks Island, Spar Cove offers views of neighboring Casco Bay islands and, looking directly east, the wideopen Atlantic. OPPOSITE : The logoed cask outside the Inn on Peaks Island is a nod to owner Fred Forsley, the founder of Shipyard Brewing Co.

A resting place for Monhegan’s visitors for more than a century, the Island Inn is situated on a bluff that provides a commanding view of the harbor and a front-row seat for sunsets.

Peaks Island was known for until about 1930 or so—we had a boardwalk, and a roller coaster down the street, and all kinds of fast-food stands and shops and everything. We tell people if you want amusements, go down Route 1 to Old Orchard Beach. If you want to shop, go over to the mall! —As told to Cathryn

McCann

An Islander’s Monhegan

MATT WEBER

The thing with Monhegan is, when you’re out here, you’re out here. You have to disconnect. It’s not like going to Cadillac Mountain or Sand Beach in Bar Harbor, where you can be back at your car in five minutes. Here you’re at least an hour by boat from anything.

It’s a little more rugged. Think sneakers, not flip-flops. Bring a sweatshirt. Pack it in, pack it out. There are public restrooms, but if you’re on the back side of the island, you’re going to have to walk a little ways to get to them.

No bike trails, but lots of places to walk. Cathedral Woods is a big forest—dark and quiet and cool—and feels like you’re in a storybook. About 15 minutes from the road, you’ll start to see all these little branches and pine needles and pine cones that people have put together to make fairy houses. I take my niece and nephew out there every year, and they play around in there for hours.

On the very south end of the island, at Lobster Cove , there’s an old tugboat that went ashore in the late ’40s. The hull is still mostly intact, and you can sit right on it and look out to sea. There’s almost always a nice sea breeze, and it’s not uncommon to see whales or porpoises or seals from that spot. All of a sudden, you think, Where in the heck is this place?

The Monhegan Museum is also pretty amazing—artwork by Edward Hopper, all three generations of Wyeths, to name a few— but it’s a museum of art and history, so it’s all about the island, too. You can get a tour to the top of the lighthouse, and the view from up there is the Gulf of Maine on one side, the coast on

Lobsterman and co-owner of the Monhegan Brewing Company

the other, and all the islands in between. It’s a really cool thing.

At 2 o’clock you can go down to the dock and hop on the ferry from Boothbay Harbor, the Balmy Days II , which does a little guided trip around the island and out to the Duck Rocks and back. I’m not sure a lot of people know about it. It’s a great way to see the back of the island from the water, which I get to do all the time when I’m lobstering. When I was first out here, the trip cost a dollar, and now it’s like four or five. Can’t beat it for that.

Even in summer the water seems pretty cold to me, but you know how it is when you’re a kid—it doesn’t seem to matter. The bigger kids jump off the dock, the smaller kids are at Swim Beach , and now everyone’s got kayaks and paddleboards, so there’s always a little fleet roaring around the harbor.

Shermie, one of our older fishermen, he’s been here for five generations now. He runs the Fish House , and you go in and you order food and it gets cooked up right there. The seating is

outside, basically on the beach, and you’re right at the harbor, and it’s perfect.

Our brewery does bring over a band from the mainland for our July Fourth birthday party, when we have live music and stay open a bit later, and we have a couple of special “secret” beers that we pour that night. At the same time there’s a group of musicians on the island—fiddles, violins, a big bass—and about once a week they’ll have an impromptu jam session right on the front deck at the brewery, and that’s pretty fun too. We never know when—they just show up, have a few beers, and start playing.

The thing that we all talk about here more than anything else—and our favorite thing to talk about—is Monhegan. What has happened to me and most of the people who live here, I think, is you may never have really planned on spending your life here, and then you realize you couldn’t live anywhere else. Monhegan just sneaks up on you and shows you something about life that you might never have seen or understood before. —As told to Jenn Johnson

Reborn in 1968 as the Monhegan Museum, this 19th-century lighthouse station holds some of the island’s most prized art and artifacts. OPPOSITE , FROM LEFT : Signs and fliers crowd onto the wall of the Rope Shed, aka Monhegan’s community bulletin board; fifthgeneration lobsterman Shermie Stanley, who also serves as Monhegan’s harbormaster and runs a popular seafood shack.

Formerly a clam and lobster processing plant, Brown’s Boatyard opened in 1888 and is still keeping islanders and visitors supplied with essentials such as fuel, moorings, and the latest local news.

An Islander’s North Haven

EVA HOPKINS Manager, North Haven Gift Shop

Iwork in a building with a lot of personal history. It was once the W.S. Hopkins General Store, owned by my great-great-grandparents. Now my uncle David owns the shop, and also the Hopkins Wharf Gallery, which sells island art including paintings by my dad [nationally renowned artist Eric Hopkins].

As a kid on North Haven, I wasn’t afraid to talk to anyone. On an island there are new people coming every day in the summer. You’re not stuck in little cliques of age groups or interests. I’m proud that I can relate to people from a lot of different angles.

North Haven is seen as the goody-goody island, and Vinalhaven as more rough. But

we’re not the rich person’s island at all. We’re still pretty rustic and unpolished, in a good way. We’re real.

I’m most proud of our theater and music. We’ve had world-quality performers and artists here [at Waterman’s Community Center] to teach us, and we’ve put on shows that are pretty good, I’d say. We’re the smallest K–12 school in the state, but we took our musical, Islands, to off-Broadway [in 2001]. It was about what it’s like to live on North Haven. Our performance was on PBS, too, and a lot of people kind of know of us through that.

We have a great historical society, which does talks all through the summer. And to really get a feel for the island, go to Brown’s Boatyard . It’s been in the same family since 1888, and it’s so visually rich. It’s where the old-timers would gather around the big old stove—that was the place to be.

My favorite place for food is Calderwood Hall It’s where we go to visit with everybody. At night there’s a restaurant serving really

FROM LEFT : Organic-produce mecca Turner Farm, which up until 1984 had been run by six generations of the same North Haven family; seasonal farm worker Qainat Kahn, left, and then-manager Liesel McCleary arrange some of Turner Farm’s summer crops at the island farmers’ market.

top-quality artisan pizza; in the daytime the market sells sandwiches and fresh pastries and bread—the focaccia is to die for. Right below is North Haven Brewing Co. , whose beer is really, really good. A destination for the fancy or upscale is Nebo Lodge, which is very pretty. Something special to do is a round trip on the Equinox , which takes you from Rockland to Nebo Lodge, and you have dinner and a few hours to walk around before going back. It’s an exquisite date night.

To get lobster, you want to talk to a fisherman. April Brown is an island EMT, but she has a boat, and with her father she’ll do your lobster. You order it, and they deliver it live or cooked.

This is a great place for walking. For one of the best views, go to Ames Knob on the north shore. It’s all open, with a 360-degree view of the bay and the Camden Hills, and sunsets are amazing. This is the view I grew up with, just sitting there looking out at the water and the boats. My favorite walk, though, is

Sage Woods. The vista is really different: Usually you’re looking toward Camden, but here you look out to Isle au Haut and Eagle, maybe, and Stonington. It feels a lot more remote. Burnt Island is also worth going to. It’s an island you can walk to at low tide, and it feels familiar and foreign at the same time.

On a hot day, if you want to swim—and you have a car—go to Big Beach at Mullins Head Park, or Smelt Brook , which is a mud-flat cove, so it’s warm. Or you can be like us, and just jump off the town dock.

A few things to remember: Don’t walk in the middle of the road, and get your ferry schedules straight. Unlike Vinalhaven, we have only one boat to the mainland. Know there is no ferry after 3:45. If you forget that, you’ll be spending the night here! —As told to Mel Allen

ABOVE : North Haven is an island playground for Everett Bartovics, 3, and his twin, Russell [not shown], who are the sons of North Haven Brewing Co. cofounder Liz Lovell.

OPPOSITE : North Haven native Eva Hopkins at her family’s art gallery, which showcases the work of island artists. She’s the daughter of Eric Hopkins, who’s among the most celebrated Maine artists working today.

An Islander’s Vinalhaven

PHIL CROSSMAN Co-owner, the Tidewater Motel

The most well-known part of Vinalhaven’s history is the granite quarrying. Two of the old quarries are now town parks and probably the best swimming spots on the island. The Vinalhaven Historical Society has an exhaustive quarrying display that’s quite spectacular.

This was a quarrying town, but it’s now a lobster-fishing or seasonal-resident town. We have one of the biggest lobster-fishing fleets and probably the largest population of people who make their living on the sea.

It’s funny the way people generalize—they often come to Vinalhaven with preconceived notions about islanders, or visitors, or fisher-

men. Another misconception is that our summer residents don’t do much for the island. But they do, and we need them.

There’s a wide range of people that contribute to the character of Vinalhaven. Many come from surprising backgrounds. For example, I belong to a men’s book group, and among the people we’ve invited to speak are Sonia Sotomayor and Senator George Mitchell. [Chief Justice] John Roberts was here in the motel once—I took him and his family up to Booth’s Quarry for a swim.

Many people enjoy kayaking on island waterways. You can see baby seals following kayakers around right now [early July]; it’s just magical. Some people come to look at the lighthouses, or to learn about or swim in the quarries. There are some great hiking trails in the woods, although most of them eventually lead back to the coast. It’s like the coast is the treasure at the end of the trail.

I’ve walked the entire coastline. The views from the shore are extraordinary.

A relic of Vinalhaven’s past as a granite producer, Lawson’s Quarry is one of the island’s classic swimming holes. OPPOSITE , FROM LEFT : One of the island’s two female lobster boat captains, Yvonne “Beba” Rosen; a shot of Vinalhaven Harbor, home to the second-largest lobstering fleet in Maine (after Stonington’s).

Lane’s Island , connected to Vinalhaven by a causeway, is a nature conservancy. It’s beautiful, a great place for kids. I lived on Lane’s Island when I was young, and I walked to school on a plank [bridge]. Workmen told me there was a troll down below … I’m still recovering from that!

The Haven and Salt, which were two favorite restaurants here, closed recently, but I’m optimistic we’ll have great options this summer. The Nightingale is returning for its second year, Dot & Millie’s is opening, and—perhaps most anticipated—we’re getting a Scandinavian speakeasy called Skål that will look out onto Carver’s Pond.

I don’t know quite how to describe it, but a few times each year, the island has a particular smell … a combination of salt water and fog and breeze that’s so profound. I just stand there until it passes, which it usually does in a few minutes. I haven’t experienced that anywhere else.

The best mementos to bring home from the island? Your memories. —As told to Joe Bills

An Islander’s Isle au Haut

KENDRA CHUBBUCK Co-owner, Shore Shop Gifts

The one place that defines Isle au Haut for me is Head Harbor. It’s where I grew up, where I live, and where my ashes will go. It’s where my soul is and where I find contentment; it’s home. I look out my window and I see loons and ospreys and eagles and ducks and terns. People wouldn’t want to leave if they came here.

But getting here, it’s a struggle. You’ve got to pack everything, you’ve got to drive hours, and then take a mail boat because there’s no ferry. We call Isle au Haut “Lug au Haut.” My husband, John, and I took two years to build our house, bringing everything over on that mail boat. The logistics—it was incredible.

On the eastern side of Isle au Haut, Boom Beach is known for its jumble of rocks that have been pummeled by the ocean into rounded, almost sculptural shapes.

OPPOSITE : Off the coast of Vinalhaven, Captain Bobby Warren hauls in lobsters for his guests’ dinner aboard the F/V Seabreeze

A trio of young Isle au Haut summer visitors—Isabel Moran, Harper Frink, and Lolie Millspaugh—take a break from jumping into the ocean. OPPOSITE , FROM LEFT : An island pup, ready to prove that all four legs are sea legs; the mail that comes in on the morning boat winds up here, a fully functioning post office open six days a week.

When people come into my gift shop looking for places to visit, I send them to the Union Congregational Church . It’s 162 years old, and its chandelier is awesome. It takes us 45 minutes to light it. It’s kerosene. It’s huge. It’s got three wicks in each lantern and maybe 20 lanterns.

Then I send them to the town hall , especially if it’s library day. The library is open Monday, Wednesday, and Friday in the summer, and the librarian makes blueberry muffins. The lighthouse, on Robinson Point —it’s awesome there. And Boom Beach , where all the rocks are round, though I don’t know how any are left because people take them for doorstops or to paint!

There’s a food truck, the Maine Lobster Lady, that has wonderful things to eat— chicken, vegetarian, sandwiches, and these great peanut butter balls—and it’s right beside the Island Store , which has garden fruits and vegetables, ice cream, and fresh seafood.

I always send people to Thunder Gulch . It’s a different hike with a different view that’s

not on any national park map. It’s about a mile in, and you climb to a plateau where you can see Head Harbor. Duck Harbor Mountain is another option. It’s short but steep, and you don’t even have to go to the peak to get a super view. About half a mile from the top you can see the western Penobscot Hills, Vinalhaven, North Haven, and Saddleback Ledge.

Some may be bothered by the fact that they can’t get off the island. It’s very isolating to them: When’s the next boat? They feel like they’re trapped. I have landlines out here; my cellphone doesn’t work. That freaks people out.

Kids really love it here, though. We have Long Pond , a playground, games of volleyball or basketball at the town hall. They can ride bikes, play croquet and cards, go squid fishing at night.

You just need to relax and let go and not be so dependent on how you live on the mainland. You have to unhook. —As told to Ian Aldrich

5 MORE ISLANDS TO HOP

From stunning scenery to unforgettable events, you can find a great reason to take a ferry ride.

Chebeague Island, Casco Bay

The largest of the Casco Bay Islands, Chebeague feels like an elegant summer resort town, with its fine old houses, scenic winding roads, and one of the best hidden beaches in Maine. Don’t miss the historic Chebeague Island Inn, whose wraparound porch and ocean views make for an ideal cocktail-hour backdrop. Getting there: Casco Bay Lines ferry from Portland. cascobaylines.com

Islesboro, Penobscot Bay

A stone’s throw from Camden, this rural 14-mile-long island is a delightful day-trip, though you’ll need a car or bike to fully explore it. The most popular destination is Pendleton Point, for its beach and view; on nearby Warren Island lies Maine’s first state park designed specifically for boaters. Getting there: State ferry from Lincolnville. maine.gov/mdot/ferry

Frenchboro, Acadia

Though Frenchboro actually encompasses 12 islands, most people understand it to mean the village itself, on Long Island. Spend a day-trip hiking on the 13.5 miles of trails in this nature lover’s paradise, or plan to attend Frenchboro’s signature event: a lobster feast that’s been held every summer for nearly 60 years (August 10, 2019). Getting there: State ferry from Bass Harbor. maine.gov/mdot/ferry

Swan’s Island, Acadia

An option for day-trippers from Mount Desert Island as well as overnighters (who can rent cottages or stay at the island motel), Swan’s Island has a lighthouse, a museum, beaches, and plenty of trails. It may be best known for the Sweet Chariot Music Festival, which features shanty caroling around the harbor (August 6–8, 2019). Getting there: State ferry from Bass Harbor. maine.gov/mdot/ferry

Little Cranberry, Acadia

Also known as Isleford—the name of the island’s sole hamlet—Little Cranberry is just a half-hour boat ride from Mount Desert Island and offers dramatic views of Acadia National Park (as does its neighbor, Great Cranberry). There’s a harborside restaurant, a historical museum, and a few galleries; lucky art lovers may even see famed painter Ashley Bryan, a longtime resident. Getting there: Privately operated ferries and water taxis from Northeast Harbor, Manset, or Southwest Harbor. cranberryisles.com/ferries.html

TRICIA LADD

A windjammer glides through Gilkey Harbor off the coast of Isleboro, an island perched between East and West Penobscot Bay. In the background is the mainland, a mere 20 minutes away by ferry.

MAINE’S MAGICAL ISLANDS

ISLAND PLANNER

Essential info for your day-trip, overnight, or weeklong escape.

The businesses and services listed below are all up and running in the high season—typically Memorial Day to Columbus Day—but many close or limit their hours at other times of the year. (And early reservations are often essential.) Be sure to check in advance.

PEAKS ISLAND

FOOD & DRINK

The Cockeyed Gull

Eclectic, globally influenced menu in a casual setting, plus a full bar and a deck with Portland skyline views. Facebook

Milly’s Skillet

Everything from cinnamon buns and breakfast subs to sirloin burgers and fish tacos, all cooked up in a cheery food truck. Facebook

LODGING

The Inn on Peaks Island

Six suites with a seaside-cottage vibe, just steps from the ferry, plus a restaurant serving upscale pub fare and ale brewed on-site. innonpeaks.com

Eighth Maine Regiment Museum and Lodge

Rustic 1891 building with 14 tidy guest rooms (shared bathrooms). 8thmaineregimentpeaksisland.com

GETTING THERE

Casco Bay Lines

Daily service from Portland; cars allowed. cascobaylines.com

MONHEGAN ISLAND

FOOD & DRINK

The Fish House

Seafood-shack classics with the bonus of beach access and a harbor view. Facebook

Monhegan Brewing Company

Island-crafted beer and soda, plus occasional food truck fare and live music. monheganbrewing.com

LODGING

The Island Inn

Century-old summer hotel on the harbor; perks include an upscale restaurant and the Barnacle, a popular café . islandinnmonhegan.com

Shining Sails

Comprising a B&B with seven rooms and

suites, an inn with four suites, and weekly cottage rentals. shiningsails.com

Monhegan House

1870s inn with ocean views, a formal dining room, and a café called the Novelty, serving pizza and ice cream. monheganhouse.com

The Trailing Yew

Friendly and simply furnished guest rooms (some lit only by oil lamps) scattered in vintage buildings. trailingyew.com

GETTING THERE

Monhegan Boat Line

Daily passenger service from Port Clyde. monheganboat.com

Hardy Boat Cruises

Daily passenger service from New Harbor. hardyboat.com

Balmy Day Cruises

Daily passenger service from Boothbay Harbor. monhegandaytrip.com

VINALHAVEN

FOOD & DRINK

The Surfside

A breakfast hub for fishermen that’s renowned for its homemade fish cakes. 207-863-2767

Greet’s Eats

Food truck serving burgers, sandwiches, and a cult-favorite lobster roll. Facebook

The Nightingale

Casual, seafood-heavy menu and cocktails crafted with homemade syrups and islandgrown herbs. nightingalevh.com

LODGING

The Tidewater Landmark lodging situated right on the water and offering 20 clean and attractive rooms and suites. thetidewatervh.com

GETTING THERE

Maine State Ferry

Daily passenger service from Rockland; cars allowed. maine.gov/mdot/ferry

NORTH HAVEN

FOOD & DRINK

Calderwood Hall

Homemade pizzas, salads, and other casual noshes, plus a full bar. Note: Hours vary for market/bakery and restaurant/bar. calderwoodhall.com

North Haven Brewing Co.

Three-year-old locally owned brewery with a taproom in Calderwood Hall. northhavenbrewing.com

LODGING

Nebo Lodge

Cozy-chic inn with decor by North Haven’s own Angela Adams; on-site restaurant serving elegant dinners that spotlight in-season ingredients. nebolodge.com

GETTING THERE

Maine State Ferry

Daily passenger service from Rockland; cars allowed. maine.gov/mdot/ferry

ISLE AU HAUT

FOOD & DRINK

The Island Store

One-stop for snacks and basic provisions. theislandstore.net

The Maine Lobster Lady Food Truck Made-from-scratch lunch eats, including lobster rolls and whoopie pies. mainelobsterlady.com

LODGING

Extremely limited and often booked months in advance. Best bets are in nearby Stonington, such as the Inn on the Harbor, whose 13 comfy rooms are named for Maine windjammers. innontheharbor.com

GETTING THERE

Isle au Haut Ferry and Mail Boat

Daily passenger service from Stonington. isleauhautferryservice.com

Old Quarry Ocean Adventures

Daily passenger service, plus water taxi service, from Stonington. oldquarry.com

MAINE’S MAGICAL ISLANDS

“Most of my identity has been wrapped up in beer since I was 18 years old,” says Shaun Hill, who founded the phenomenally successful Hill Farmstead Brewery ( OPPOSITE ) on family land in Greensboro, Vermont.

and the

SHAUN HILL PRICE OF PERFECTION

What do you do after you’ve made the best beer in the world?

BY ROWAN JACOBSEN

PHOTOGRAPHS BY COREY HENDRICKSON

Wednesdays are supposed to be the slow day at Hill Farmstead, the cult brewery in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom, but on a steamy summer day at 11 a.m.—an hour before it opened—30 cars were parked along the dirt road in front of the brewery, and a line of people stood before the taproom door. Families showed up in matching Hill Farmstead T-shirts and lolled on blankets on the lawn. There were 50 cars at noon, and 75 at 1:15. The plates covered every state in the Northeast down to New Jersey and Pennsylvania, plus Florida, Illinois, and Quebec. Inside the taproom, a modern-rustic affair with poured concrete floors and a curving wooden bar, the wait to fill growlers stretched an hour.

No one seemed to mind. Tunes thumped on the speaker system, beer flowed, and the din in the room slowly mounted with the roar of happy people drinking and anticipating. Many Hill Farmstead beers are available only at the brewery, and making the pilgrimage to Greensboro is on the life list of every beer geek.

In the adjacent brewery, visible from the taproom through two large glass windows, Shaun Hill ignored them all. If he stepped into the taproom he would get mired in photo ops and adulation, both of which he dreads. Instead, Hill leaned against the lauter tun,

the gleaming steel tank where the wort for his latest batch of Edward—the beer that made him famous—was being siphoned from the spent grain husks, and pressed his face against the glass porthole, staring motionless at the paddles whirling inside for an unnervingly long time.

When I asked him what he was looking for, he said, “Things that can go wrong.” I wasn’t sure this referred to what was happening inside the lauter tun. Hill was a philosophy major at Haverford College before brewing called him, and he still practices an excruciating amount of self-examination. That and his accolades have earned him a position as the Daniel Day-Lewis of beer, a once-in-a-generation talent whose meticulous attention to craft is paired with a seeming ambivalence toward the craft itself.

This actually was a slow day, Hill told me. Back in the difficult days of 2013, when he ran the brewery out of his garage and was fresh off his first crowning as Best Brewery in the World by the website RateBeer—the arbiter of such things—and the entire beer universe was parading to his door to genuflect, three-hour waits were common. At 7 a.m. he would look out the window of his farmhouse and see people who had arrived the night before, sleeping in their cars.

When you’ve been a home brewer and you finally realize your dream by opening a brewery at your house, you picture your friends coming over to buy some. You don’t picture Joe Public showing up and posting nasty tweets about the lines. Hill cares deeply about both the happiness of his customers and the presentation of his beer, but it came out as irritable perfectionism. “There was a period of time when I was tuned out to the public,” he admitted to me. “I felt like everybody wanted something from me, or thought they knew something about me, and that’s the worst. There’s something in my personality that wants to hide.”

Hill finally lifted his face from the porthole and apologized for being poor company. His on-again, off-again girlfriend, a dairy farmer in Maine, was emphatically off again, and he blamed himself. For years, he said, the brewery had been all-consuming, and that made it difficult to be fully present for other parts of his life.

Hill climbed down a twisting metal stairway to the spotless basement level of the brewery, where rows of gleaming fermentation tanks were connected by a spaghetti network of stainless steel pipes. Touch screens on the tanks monitored every variable, from time and temperature to acidity and specific gravity. He pushed a button, and the wort began to cook in the boiling kettle. It felt more like the engine room of a modern ship than a brewery in the Vermont countryside, and it was a stark contrast to Hill’s famously disheveled look: ratty T-shirt, cargo shorts, three-day beard, thinning hair heading off in random directions.

Until recently, there was no contrast. Hill and his farmstead were one. The gambrelroofed white farmhouse with the peeling paint

(continued on p. 126)

He is the Daniel Day-Lewis of beer, a once-in-a-generation talent whose meticulous attention to craft is paired with a seeming ambivalence toward the craft itself.

Hill was brewing in an unfinished garage when he first made a national name for himself; today Hill Farmstead beers are crafted in a state-of-the-art brewery ( LEFT). Among the array of varieties made at the Greensboro facility are ( ABOVE , FROM LEFT) Edward, an American pale ale; Everett, a porter; and Poetica, a pilsner.

The Gift of Time and Space

For more than a century, the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire, has given writers, artists, and composers the freedom to produce some of the most enduring works in their fields.

BY MEL ALLEN

At the MacDowell Colony, the nation’s oldest and most famous retreat for artists, situated a mile north of downtown Peterborough, New Hampshire, a leafy path leads to a place called “the amphitheater.” Granite benches face west through a stand of trees, and the view opens to the broad expanse of Mount Monadnock. If you visit the colony on the second Sunday in August for MacDowell Medal Day, the only day each year that this cloistered community opens to the public, walk down into the amphi-

theater. Think about those who have sat here, and what has been given to the world from the 32 cabin studios spread among these meadows and forests.

On these grounds, Thornton Wilder wrote his novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey (“I would write a page,” he said in a letter, “and then go out and walk around in the sunlight until I had stopped crying”). Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, and Willa Cather came here. So, too, did James Baldwin, Alice Walker, Jonathan Franzen, and Michael Chabon.

More than 8,000 creative souls—writers, painters, sculptors, filmmakers, photographers, and cartoonists—have stayed where composer Edward MacDowell and his wife, Marian, a concert pianist, first began to nurture artists, back in 1907. (Marian grew the colony through grit and resolve after Edward died a year later.) And while famous names will always catch our eye, the colony’s mission equally touches those more obscure who also burn with talent and desire.

“Nobody cares if you have a Tony Award or it’s your first play,” says David Macy, the longtime resident director. “There are people here age 80, and people at 25. People who have many awards, and people who have yet to get a first book deal. But once here, they are at the same place at the same time. At dinner, you realize the woman sitting across from you won a Pulitzer. You think, Do I belong here? But that goes away. The food brings people together. The culture says we are all of a piece. Everybody goes to the studio by themselves and comes back on the same paths.”

Each new arrival, or “fellow,” learns there is only one unbreakable rule at MacDowell: No one visits an artist’s studio without an invitation. On this crisp October day, I have been invited to the studios of a journalist and two playwrights, who were among the mere 316 to be accepted last year from 2,300 applicants. While Medal Day allows visitors to wander through the studios and chat with the artists, that

OPPOSITE : Notable among MacDowell’s 32 cabins is the Veltin Studio, which has hosted nine Pulitzer winners. ABOVE : Poet Maya Janson’s desk in the Chapman Studio as it appeared during a recent Medal Day, the only time the public may visit the colony. RIGHT : Edward MacDowell with his wife, Marian, who ensured that their colony flourished after his death in 1908.

time is shared with hundreds of others; this was a chance to get a glimpse into what it’s like to live so intensely. As Macy says of the MacDowell experience, “The last time you were taken care of to this degree is when you were a child.”

Clair MacDougall craves quiet. It’s as foreign to her as a new language, though: The Australian freelance journalist has lived in Liberia for the past six years, writing about war, social upheaval, and Ebola for The New York Times, Newsweek, Time, and Smithsonian, among others

She immersed herself in one of the poorest places on Earth, a sprawling peninsula in the Liberian capital of Monrovia called West Point, where about 100,000 people live amid violence and desperation. She filled dozens of notebooks with stories of those displaced by civil war, some of whom were children forced to become soldiers or prostitutes. She is here at MacDowell to wrestle her words into a book.

On this cool morning, MacDougall has wrapped her neck in a turquoise scarf, her long brown hair pulled back in a bun. Light pours in through a window by the desk in her studio. A bed sits against a back wall. She arrived at MacDowell for a seven-week stay only a matter of days ago. Her goal, she says, is simply to complete a few chapters, get a sense of the narrative, and figure out how much more reporting she’ll need when she returns to Liberia.

I tell her it seems impossible to imagine a more dramatic culture shift from her journalist’s world to this rural studio.

“I needed a chance to think clearly,” she says. “In Monrovia it can be very difficult to get peace and quiet. Within the first few days, I noticed the difference.”

MacDougall is also seeking a chance to catch her breath. “Being an independent journalist, you’re thinking always of your next assignment. Just how to keep going and surviving. You don’t have peace of mind.

“I need to put what I’ve seen these last six years in context,” she continues. “I need time and space for that to happen. I’m adjusting to be out of survival mode and be more meditative and reflective.”

She looks around her studio and out the window to the trees beyond. “I value the silence,” she says. “I see this space as a sanctuary.”

James Anthony Tyler is relaxed and eager to talk. This is his final day at the colony, and soon he’ll be packing and saying good-byes before catching a ride to the airport. He’s a playwright from Brooklyn, and a successful one—his Artney Jackson premiered at the Williamstown Theatre Festival last summer—but he admits that his month here did test his confidence while working on a new, untitled play, which revolves around the parents of a mass shooter. “The commu-

nity needs someone to blame and the most obvious targets are the parents, who also blame themselves,” he says. “It’s been a struggle to figure out the right way to honor the truthfulness of this story.”

What helped, he says, was being around others who were also wrestling with their work. Just as important, he adds, “you hear what artists are working on in so many disciplines. You talk about process. And you realize how processes are different and also similar. It can be exciting and also scary. It’s a different world here at MacDowell.”

When Tyler first arrived, the quiet unnerved him. “You’re in the middle of nowhere. It’s so dark—that was terrifying.” It took about two weeks, but he did get comfortable, he says. “The other night I walked back in the dark, and I was relaxed. I realized that I knew nothing was going to happen.”

Back at home in Brooklyn, he says, “I have my phone at my desk. Texts are going off. I check email. But there’s no phone or Wi-Fi here in my studio. Usually you have to fit your everyday life to creating art. Here, art is your everyday life.

“Someone reminded me that writing is not always just writing. It’s talking. Taking a walk. Not just being at the desk. For me, it’s been about being with other artists and being forced to try and make the work happen.”

He smiles when talking about doubting himself. “Yesterday I went to an artist’s studio to look at her work, and we ended up talking about being open to the story when it wants to come and having faith that I’ve done it before and it will happen again. It’s just not as fast as I want it to happen. Hopefully I’ll get to the other side of it soon.”

Then Tyler asks if I have a Sharpie. He has known from his first day that Ta-Nehisi Coates, a National Book Award winner and one of the most influential African-American writers in the country, once sat where he now sits, rested on the bed where he rests. Leaning against one wall of the studio are a number of pine tablets—which everyone here calls “tombstones”—each filled with signatures of artists who lived and worked here before. One of the final creative acts that he will do on this day is take down a tombstone and carefully add “James Anthony Tyler.”

JOANNA ELDREDGE MORRISSEY (MACDOUGALL, TYLER); COREY HENDRICKSON (PARK, TEWKSBURY)

When Jiehae Park sits at her desk, her window opens onto a forest flush with fall color. This is the second time the New York playwright has been to MacDowell. “When I come here,” she says, “it’s a slow shedding of all the noise of everyday life that builds up and interferes with this magical thing of creativity. It’s mysterious and, at its best, just happens.”

After her first residency, she did what would be unthinkable to most urbanites. “Back in New York, I canceled my Internet,” she says. “If I had to use it, I would go to the library. It was great.” (She confides that eventually “the real world intruded” and she did sign up for new Internet service. “But I lasted four months. And I wouldn’t have known what it felt like otherwise.”)

Park is working on a new play, a very ambitious project that she calls “my passion.” It’s also the same play, it turns out, that she came here to write four years ago. “It was too big [back then],” she says. “I ended up writing a completely different play…. There was another artist here who saw that I was really stressed about my big project. He said, ‘Just stop and do nothing. Just be here.’ I took his advice. I put my laptop down for three days. And then I was walking around my studio one night and I thought, Oh, this could be a play.”

She smiles. “ And I wrote it in four days.”

I ask what she remembers most after she leaves. “The generosity,” she says. “This place takes care of artists in the most thoughtful and loving way. It allows those of us lucky enough to be here to only think about our work. We’re all trying to do this crazy thing of creating what didn’t exist before.”

Of all the traditions that have endured at the colony, none is more revered than the lunchtime picnic baskets that are delivered daily, each placed gently on the doorstep of a studio. And no person has been more revered than Blake Tewksbury, who since 1980 has looked after the artists and whose delivery of the lunch baskets embodies the care bestowed upon them.

My visit to MacDowell ends with this friendly, rumpled man, who sits down with me in Colony Hall, the gathering place where breakfast and dinner is served, and where

all receive free room and board, plus the peace and quiet of MacDowell’s 450-acre campus in the New Hampshire woods. “One of my favorite things is walking back to my studio at night and seeing my porch light in the darkness,” says Park, a playwright from New York. “It gives me such a feeling of comfort and safety.“

everyone lingers and chats. He tells me a story that seems to get at the heart of a place that few of us will ever know, but one that has touched millions.

“There was a colonist here and she was struggling, and when I took her the basket she’d open the door and I’d always encourage her,” he says. “I gave her a book, The Little Engine That Could, and each day I’d say to her quietly, ‘I think I can, I think I can.’ She eventually eased into the work.

“And one day we were all at the amphitheater, and the mountain was purple—it was almost a religious experience to see it, so simple and beautiful. And before she left she gave me a painting of that scene, and it’s one of my treasured possessions in my home.

“We get to see the victories and defeats,” he says, “and we are privileged to have these experiences with these people. It makes for a rich life for each of us. A very rich life.”

Editor’s note: To read a longer version of this story, go to newengland.com/macdowell-colony.

This year’s MacDowell Medal Day, on August 11, honors the conceptual artist Charles Gaines. To learn more, go to macdowellcolony.org. For a behind-the-scenes look at MacDowell, watch season three of Weekends with Yankee , which visits the colony in episode four, “The Arts.” For details, go to weekendswithyankee.com.

FROM FAR LEFT : MacDowell fellows Clair MacDougall, James Anthony Tyler, and Jiehae Park, and MacDowell employee Blake Tewksbury, shown making his daily lunch deliveries to the colony’s 32 cabin studios. The fellows

The Death of Brown Furniture

NEW ENGLAND HAS BEEN THE EPICENTER FOR THE ELEGANT, STURDY FURNISHINGS OF OUR ANCESTORS. WHAT HAPPENS WHEN NEW GENERATIONS NO LONGER VALUE OR WANT ANOTHER’S TREASURES?

By Howard Mansfield

ILLUSTRATION BY JACINTHE RIVARD PORTRAITS BY JARED

CHARNEY

On this fine, breezy August afternoon under the white tent behind Ron Bourgeault’s auction house in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Lot 577 has come home for the day.

Lot 577 is a tall secretary desk in mahogany and flame birch capped with three brass finials. Made sometime between 1800 and 1815, it belonged to Thomas G. Moses, a Portsmouth tailor. It’s as poised and taut as a thoroughbred.

Back in 2004, Moses’s elegant desk had found its way to Rockefeller Center in New York City, one lot in Christie’s auction of “important American furniture,” among other things. The prestigious auction house sold it for $59,750 plus a buyer’s premium of almost 20 percent, bringing the final price to more than $71,000.

Fourteen years later, Lot 577 is back home in Portsmouth as part of Bourgeault’s Summer Weekend Auction. A bidder on the phone will take it home for just $12,000 plus a buyer’s premium of $2,400. Moses was in debt when he died; his desk has followed his slide, its market value falling almost 80 percent. In the years between those two auctions in New York and Portsmouth, the antiques world has been turned on its head.

The headlines have been sounding the alarm for a few years now: “Memo to Parents: The Kids Don’t Want Your Furniture” (The Denver Post). “That Perfect Dining Table? No One Wants It, Even If It’s Free” (The Wall Street Journal ). “The Recline and Fall of Antique Furniture” (Financial Times). Brown furniture, it is solemnly announced, is dead.

An industry term, “brown furniture” takes in grandfather clocks and Federal-style desks that once belonged to Portsmouth tailors as well as slumped couches and coffee tables scratched like hockey rink ice. All of it is in the same police lineup: the bettermade department store furniture, the glued-together laminate office desk, and real pieces of craftsmanship, chairs and chests that have dignity, sure form, and proportion. If the furniture is brown, it’s guilty. It’s not wanted. “Dark brown furniture gives the younger generation the willies just to look at it,” says Julie Hall, aka “the Estate Lady,”

a North Carolina professional who has helped thousands of clients dissolve or downsize family estates.

Also not wanted: china, china cabinets, crystal goblets, silver tea sets, pianos, bureaus, sideboards, and collectible figurines, such as Hummels. Formal is out; “mid-20th-century casual” is in, such as colorful plates and kitchen tables from the 1950s.

Flea markets and secondhand stores are running from the word antique . A once-hot Manhattan antiques fair held each January has dropped “Antiques” from its title; now it’s just the Winter Show. (When it was founded in 1955, it wouldn’t accept pieces that were less than 100 years old. No longer.) Well-known New Jersey antiques dealer David Rago has created “Rago Remix” auctions dedicated to “timeless style” that mix the “contemporary + classic.” Rather than trying to sell pieces to collectors dedicated to one style, a Rago Remix sale might feature a Louis XVI–style gilded chair alongside a contemporary abstract painting, a folksy 19th-century sponge-painted pine blanket chest, and vintage Louis Vuitton luggage. Vintage is the key. One 25-year-old auction house worker ran a quick test, sending her friend photos of similar old tables, one labeled antique and the other vintage. Which would she buy? Vintage won.

Vintage wares are also crowding out antiques at the thrice-yearly

In terms of its looks, this 19th-century desk (aka “Lot 577”) seems untouched by time. Its market value, however, has taken a beating.

Brimfield Antique Show in Massachusetts, collectors say, but that change may be what draws 250,000 to America’s largest and most famous outdoor antiques show. At one small New Hampshire antiques show I visited, the 55 dealers easily outnumbered the shoppers. There was some activity in the morning but not enough to sustain an entire day. It was deserted. Dealers sat by their booths, either staring off into space or fighting off sleep.

The dealers still “love the stuff,” but the market has caved in. This is due, they say, to some wide-ranging factors: Americans are losing their sense of history, because it’s not being taught as much in schools. Many people are downsizing their overstuffed babyboomer households. House interiors have changed: Going, going, gone are dining rooms, the big cabinet/armoire with the TV, shelves for books—and books, as well.

The next generation of buyers—the millennials—is missing. They have big student loans and little money. Young people just starting out will grab some Ikea furniture and move on. (“Ikea” sounds ominous the way the dealers snarl it, as though it’s a malevolent force.) Ikea could be called “fast furniture,” which itself is modeled on fast food and fast fashion. We can buy cheap shirts and cheap chairs. Use it and put it out by the curb. Pay someone $20 to take it off our hands.

Millennials come in for scorn from the dealers I meet. Millennials don’t want things; they want “experiences,” according to opinion surveys. Many dealers are befuddled by this attitude as well as by millennials’ texting and tweeting. Antiques are not easily translated to the digital realm. They’re not part of the point-and-click universe. They’re not Instagrammable. Look at us on this brown couch! And look at this thumbtack Windsor chair from 1825 in faded yellow paint. It has such a rich “patina,” the touch of history. Nope. That’s just a worn-out old chair.

To the younger generation, antique furniture is just “grungy,” according to Hollie Davis and Andrew Richmond, Ohio antiques experts in their early

40s who write “The Young Collector” column for Maine Antique Digest “Remember those guys your kids listened to in high school, the ones with the scruffy beards, unwashed hair, and ratty flannel? They did not look clean. Neither, to your kids, does furniture with ‘surface,’” they wrote in one recent column. One generation’s “patina” is another’s beat-up chair. And antiques hunting takes time. You have to see these things in person, compare qualities that aren’t easily compared. You’re looking for soulful objects. Things with a presence—grace, wit, even a winning ungainliness. Antiquing is a domestic quest, a search to complete a jig-

saw puzzle that can never be finished. Fewer people have the leisure to spend days searching for one more Dedham Pottery plate to add to their collection. Only furniture from the 1940s to the 1960s has escaped, what is now called midcentury modern: spindly Scandinavian furniture and designs by modernist architects. There are waiting lists for things you may have grown up with in doctor’s waiting rooms, schools, and dorms. (Just as a previous generation grew up hating arts and

A frequent guest on Antiques Roadshow, Ron Bourgeault says society’s waning interest in history might be causing the “romance” of the antiques business to be lost.

crafts furniture—dorm furniture!— before Gustav Stickley was rediscovered in the 1970s.)

This generation of antiques dealers has been in the business 40 or 50 years, since they were in their teens, when some piece of the past caught their eye. They remember the joy of the chase, the great finds, the big sales, the noisy bazaar of crowded antiques fairs. But many have closed up their shops, winnowed down the shows they do, shifted to the Internet. Mostly it seems they are disbelieving. The world has changed—now what? They’ve never seen anything like this sudden lurching in the antiques market, in taste, in the world of things. “How Low Will Market for Antiques Actually Go?” asked a New York Times headline in 2018. Ron Bourgeault may know. He’s 72 years old. He’s been selling antiques since he was 8.

Bourgeault’s antiquing résumé reaches back to his earliest memories. When he was 7 he set up a toy antiques shop at home in his basement. An elderly woman, whom he used to talk to on his way to school, died and left him a small pile of her treasures. He brought it home in his little red wagon. The next year he entered the trade. An “oldtime antiques dealer” named Hyman Webber had a shop in Bourgeault’s hometown, Hampton, New Hampshire. “I walked into his shop and said I wanted a job,” Bourgeault says. And with that, the 8-year-old was hired for $1 a day. “I would get in the green pickup truck with him and just had the best time. And the wonderful thing was, he taught me. I just listened to everything he told me.”

This set the pattern for Bourgeault’s life. He’s had a series of apprenticeships, and he learned from each one. Like many good salesmen, he’s a skilled observer of people’s behavior. For a lifetime he’s stood in front of a room or his booth at an antiques show, courting desire, need, and acquisition. At age 10 he was selling at an auction. He was assisting Webber, holding up items for sale. “I was holding up a vase—I’ll never forget it—it sold for a $1.75. And he looked down at me—he

used to sit up on a sort of a pedestal on a stool—and he said, ‘Get up here and sell the rest of the auction.’”

After that, Bourgeault was the youngest dealer ever to have a booth at the annual New Hampshire Antiques Show. He was 14. By the time he was in his mid-20s he was the president of the New Hampshire Antique Dealers Association.

He had other teachers, among them colorful and revered auctioneers, who taught him that a successful auction is a good show. That’s how he ran his auctions. “People came from Beacon Hill with their thermoses of martinis and sandwiches with the crusts cut off,

2008, interest in antiques was already fading. “In 2008 a lot of people who had bought antiques for investment needed to sell, and they found that they weren’t that liquid an asset,” he says.

Prices fell, gradually at first. Today, antiques at the high end of the market—“except for the very, very top”—sell for 70 percent less than at the peak, and the low end is off 90 percent, Bourgeault says. “A desk that was $4,500, you can now buy for $450.” There are exceptions, like fine Chinese ceramics and good American folk art, he notes, and prices have risen a little lately for some items. It’s

and we would just entertain them. We would have every single piece of furniture or small [item] held up. We would have young football players holding up highboys. And when they were holding up the cast-iron Franklin stove, I would tell a joke to see how long they could hold it up. And it was pure entertainment.” He had their attention.

Those were good years for antiques, starting in the prosperous 1960s. The veterans, home from World War II, were established. They had their families and suburban houses. On weekends, they’d pile into the family station wagon to go antiquing. “And you know, Dad collected pewter and Mother collected Sandwich glass. Johnny would collect banks and Susie would collect dollhouse furniture, and they would go from one shop to the next,” says Bourgeault. “The whole family was out antiquing.”

With the Bicentennial in 1976, antiques prices began a steady ascent. For the next 30 years, antiques went “up and up and up in value,” says Bourgeault. Record prices for the rarest antiques pushed up the price of everything else.

Antiques had a long run, but by the time the stock market crashed in

a great time to buy, he says. “I’m tired of ‘brown wood is dead.’ It’s an opportunity. It’s affordable. It’s cheaper than Ikea.” At the same Summer Weekend Auction that sees that $60,000 desk sell for 20 percent of its former price, Lot 605, a Massachusetts Queen Anne mahogany drop-leaf dining table, four foot square when opened, sells for just $900.

Andrew Richmond of “The Young Collector” agrees. He and his wife also once bought “useful” furniture, but “now we are looking at what we like,” Richmond says. “The perception of antiques is that they are expensive. But one of the reasons we have brown furniture is it’s affordable. So it works out.” (They will admit, however, that “a lot of our friends don’t have things like we do in our house.”)

Richmond feels more optimistic than many in the antiques world do. “We have met a lot of younger folk, and they are getting excited because it’s a good time to buy,” he says. “It’s always a pendulum. Putting a timeline on it is impossible. I think we will see an uptick with the next generation. They will still need someplace to store their socks. And, after all, you can’t get any greener than antiques.”

Antiques hunting takes time. You’re looking for soulful objects. Things with grace, wit, even a winning ungainliness.

What changed? For Bourgeault it comes down to two words, romance and patriotism , and those two words are entwined. The old antiques collectors were romancing the past. They were conjuring the spirit of patriots like George Washington and Paul Revere. “According to the antiques dealers, George Washington slept in more beds than he had days in his life,” Bourgeault says. But that was a story their customers wanted to hear. Selling antiques is storytelling. When songwriter Henry C. Work called a tall case clock a “grandfather clock” in 1876, and sold a million copies of the sheet music, he paid the rent for generations of auctioneers.

And when Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote about Paul Revere’s midnight ride, he created a market. Paul Revere’s silver is still worth three times as much as his father’s because of that one poem, says Bourgeault. If you buy a Paul Revere bowl, you’re buying the American Revolution. “That was the romance of the antiques business, which has somehow been lost.”

People loved antiques because it spoke to them of a past they were proud of, a history they saw as exceptional. After World War II “there was great patriotism,” says Bourgeault, and that war “made us all Americans.” He remembers Memorial Day parades that went on for hours, with so many veterans marching. Once he read the Gettysburg Address at the cemetery; another time, “In Flanders Fields.” Everyone, whether a recently arrived immigrant or an old blue-blood family, had “fought like George Washington and Paul Revere.” They were patriots, all. “It’s been a lot of firstgeneration Americans who really appreciated antiques,” he says, noting collectors who have filled rooms in major museums, like the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

At his Summer Weekend Auction, Bourgeault is proud of Lot 566, a portrait of a soldier from the War of 1812, John Langdon Eastman. The portrait has come straight from Eastman’s descendants, along with two

military commissions, one signed by Thomas Jefferson and the other by James Madison and James Monroe. “That’s goose bumps,” Bourgeault says. At auction, all he says is that this “beautiful portrait” is “one of the nicest I’ve ever seen.” It sells quickly for $9,000, just under his preauction estimate.

To its buyer, this is a good portrait of a soldier, but it’s also part of a bigger story that’s now being lost. “The world goes so much faster, faster, faster,” says Bourgeault. Memorial Day, that shared story of sacrifice, has become

intimate contact with life on the Maine frontier. But it was in a later book, The Age of Homespun: Objects and Stories in the Creation of an American Myth, that Ulrich dived deep into the history of common household objects. She has a sure sense of the sometimes strange lives of the objects around us.

She, too, used to go antiquing. As a young mother, she visited small antiques shops to furnish her house with country pieces, including six golden oak chairs she bought for $5. “It was cool to us that it was really cheap. So we grew up with that kind of stuff.”

just another three-day holiday. When we have lost interest in the old stories, all we have is brown furniture.

What we’re talking about is the lives of things, this other, sometimes parallel universe of the furniture, cookware, and art in our homes and public buildings. “Objects preserve memories. But the converse is also true,” author Laurel Thatcher Ulrich once wrote. “Without memories, ordinary objects end up in flea markets or trash bins.” A retired Harvard professor and a past president of the American Historical Association, Ulrich won the Pulitzer Prize for A Midwife’s Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785–1812, which brought readers into

What’s hot now, she knows from some of her family: “They’re just totally fascinated with midcentury modern. Danish modern, for example, which was really cool in the ’60s. It’s now cool again. And I look at a lot of the midcentury modern and think, Oh, those were things I threw out , or Those were things I never could afford

“If you look at anything that’s survived, it’s almost always lost its luster and kind of gone underground for a while. And then sometimes it’s rediscovered as something really important,” she says. “We can change the past more than we can change the future.”

All these things that we handle sometimes daily, they’re everywhere one

Maine Antique Digest columnists Andrew Richmond and Hollie Davis see reasons to be optimistic about the future of the antiques market—including the fact that buying vintage furnishings instead of brand-new ones is environmentally friendly. ROB MANKO

IT’S ALL ABOUT SMALL DOSES

Kelly McGuill is one of New England’s best-known interior designers. She advises homeowners not to ignore brown furniture—especially now, in a buyer’s market— but instead to appreciate how it can enhance even the most modern interiors.

“In my home and my clients’ homes, I always strive for contrasts. The best spaces are ones that have a mix of old and new, shiny and dull, and always something that can’t be purchased in the big-box stores.

“I love adding [antiques] to homes in small doses. Your living room doesn’t need to have all the pieces that were bequeathed to you by Aunt Bessie; however, that roll-down desk would look amazing in a living room or bedroom with white walls and some other, very simple pieces.

“Some of my favorite designers have been doing this forever. Darryl Carter, for example, a designer in Washington, D.C., regularly adds these ‘brown furniture’ pieces to his home and the homes of clients. At times, he goes one step further with these finds by painting them. They become coveted by many.

“I believe that as with so many things, if you wait a bit, that brown mahogany grandfather clock that doesn’t really feel like your style today will grow on you tomorrow.”

day, and then the next, they vanish or survive only in museums and antiques shops. It’s a magician’s trick that happens in daylight, before us all, and we never figure it out.

When we look at old photos of men dressed in starched collars and women in long, tight-waisted dresses, we know that taste changes. But just when and why does it happen? Who was the last man to dress for work downtown in a straw boater? Who was the last family to hitch up the horse and wagon to go to the store, only to leave their horse alongside a row of black Model T’s? When exactly did this happen?

Taste is ever changing. Clothes and furniture (and ideas) have their fashion turns. We are living in such a moment now. In a blink, many people have lost interest in antiques. “There is no more remarkable psychological element in history than the way in which a period can suddenly become unintelligible,” G.K. Chesterton wrote in 1904. “To the early Victorian period we have in a moment lost the key…. The thing always happens sharply: a whisper runs through the salons … and a whole generation of great men and great achievement suddenly looks mildewed and unmeaning.” And a whole heap of brown furniture sits unsold.

We’re having a Chesterton moment. Aging baby boomers looking to downsize are facing their children’s rejection of their Royal Doulton china, Grandma’s silver, and even the family photo albums. To their children, all this stuff is “mildewed and unmeaning.”

Waking up to this rejection is like hitting air turbulence, the bad kind where the plane rises and drops, rises and drops. And you feel the disconcerting separation of yourself from your seat and the plane, feel the drop in your gut before you can think about it. Your generation’s treasures are treasured no more. Old things are being left behind; other old things are being rediscovered. Each generation honors its own antiques. What you think is ugly may one day be treasured. We choose what we want from the past— or we choose nothing at all.

Boston-area designer Kelly McGuill, whose clients have included Patriots offensive tackle Marcus Cannon.

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Shaun Hill

(continued from p. 109)

at 403 Hill Road and the collapsed shed across the road and the faded wooden Hill Farmstead sign and the scraggly kid in work boots trudging back and forth between the house and the garage were all of a piece with what you found on every back road in the Northeast Kingdom. There just happened to be fermentation tanks in the garage instead of cars or cows, and there was beer for sale instead of maple syrup.

But in 2015, as it became clear that the crowds were not going to stop, Hill opened this state-of-the-art brewery and taproom, right next to the old farmhouse. With separate lines for the bottle-conditioned ales and the growler refills, and lots of servers filling orders, epic crushes happen only on the craziest days of summer, and even then, the new taproom means everyone can bide their time drinking pints on the lawn while they wait for their growler number to be called.

It’s an unlikely scene, this shining brewery with the nonstop party beside the little white house, and it is wildly successful. Hill Farmstead is now a thriving business with 19 employees in a corner of Vermont where jobs are like truffles, and it has won Best Brewery in the World the past five years in a row.

That’s already way beyond anything Shaun Hill ever expected to achieve by age 40. As he climbed back up the spiral staircase and began adding hops to the batch of Edward, the room humid with pine and grapefruit aromas, he told me that when he conceived of the idea of a brewery 20 years ago, it was just a means for him to be able to stay at 403 Hill Road and live a life of the mind, reading and writing. He thought he could count on selling one growler a week. Then things got crazy. “Most of my identity has been wrapped up with beer since I was 18 years old,” he said, his brown eyes searching the roiling surface of the Edward. “Twenty years!”

Once the Edward finished brewing, Hill ducked out the side door of the brewery and crossed the yard to

his house for a quick escape, picking his way through the crowd. Ambivalence followed him like a cloud, and I thought again of Daniel Day-Lewis, who took years off from acting to be a woodworker and shoemaker before returning for Lincoln and Phantom Thread . Hill stole a glance at the cars, the unlikely taco truck framed by rolling hayfields, and said, “You have caught me at the most remarkable crossroads.”

He has always been here, of course, as have his people, eight generations of Hills going back to 1780 in Greensboro, a town that should have been named Hillsboro, since the Greens were just land prospectors who never lived here, while old Peleg Hill was one of the original three settlers. There are still Hills everywhere. The spent grain from the beer goes to his relatives’ farms for their cows. His brother does the woodworking at the brewery. His parents live across the road. Lewis Hill, the celebrated gardening writer, was a cousin, and the curvy glass on the Hill Farmstead logo came straight off the wooden sign that hangs in Lewis Hill’s house for A HILL ENTERTAINMENT an 1800s tavern run by Shaun’s greatgreat-great-grandfather.

And then there are the beers, named for his ancestors. The first beer Hill brewed in his brewery, on March 30, 2010, was Edward, named for the beloved grandfather Hill grew up with in the white farmhouse, and it set the tone for all that followed. An intense, dry-hopped, extraordinarily floral American pale ale, it had a buttery mouthfeel and a sake-like fruitiness, and it made Hill a star. He has brewed 5,000 liters of it every Wednesday since expanding the brewery in 2015.

After Edward came Abner. “Abner is our great-grandfather,” reads the label, following a tradition that has now been used for dozens of beers. “Hill Farmstead Brewery rests upon the land that was once home to him and his 14 children. ... [T]his is the ale that I dream to have shared with Abner.” Over the past eight years he has crafted the specific beers that

he’d like to have shared with Anna, Arthur, Clara, Dorothy, Earl, Edith, Ephraim, Everett, Florence, Foster, George, Harlan, James, Jim, Marie, Mary, Norma, Peleg, Shirley Mae, Sumner, Susan, and Vera Mae.

History weighed heavily on Hill as he grew up in the farmhouse, which by then was no longer a working farm. But he kept the romance of the farm alive through his youth, a classic Vermont childhood spent largely outside, haying, building tree forts, swimming, riding bicycles, playing with his brother on the remnants of the foundation of Edward’s barn. And as a 15-year-old who was starting to home-brew, he was already fantasizing about reviving the memory of Hill Farmstead by building a brewery on the spot.

Hill was always a soul-searcher. In high school his friends called him “Zen Master,” and by the time he went away to college at Haverford on a full scholarship he was deeply interested in Buddhism. But Haverford was a culture shock to a poor-asdirt kid from rural Vermont. “I felt like an alien. I was very homesick. I remember this conversation with my freshman roommates. The son of the lawyer said he felt like if he could make $400,000, he could be comfortable. The son of the doctor said he’d be OK with $200,000. The son of the public works director came in at $100,000. And little ol’ Shaun said $30K. I felt like if I could make that, I could live a good life.”

Sure enough, a few years later he landed his first job as a brewer at the Shed, a popular Stowe brewpub. “I got paid $33,000 and had everything I needed or wanted. I had creative freedom; I just had to keep the beer going.”

That was the beginning of what Hill calls Chapter 2 of his life. Chapter 1 runs from birth to age 24, after Edward had died and Hill embarked on a round-the-world trip to find himself. He did an intensive yoga meditation retreat in the mountains overlooking Kathmandu. He hiked the Annapurna Circuit in Nepal. He did most of it in Birkenstocks and a T-shirt, the other travelers gawking

at him. “It was so rewarding to get to the summit on Annapurna,” he said. “There was hardly anyone there. It was so peaceful. The snow and the wind. I just wanted to stay up there, but my guides were like, no, you have to go back down.”

Chapter 2: He wrestled with the morality of becoming a brewer. In the Eightfold Path to enlightenment, Buddha discouraged slavery, prostitution, and the manufacturing of alcohol or weapons as occupations that did not qualify as Right Livelihood. But maybe there’s a difference between Bud Light and a beer meant to be savored in small amounts by friends in a convivial circle? What if beer could actually encourage presence and mindfulness?

He got his big break working for a Danish brewery. Unlike Germany and England, which were wedded to their traditional styles, the Danes were up for anything. Hill was hired because he was young and American and not afraid of big, bold experiments. He put together the prototype for Edward. He made a barrel-aged, high-alcohol imperial stout with “lots of complexity and fudginess from the malts and sugars and the way the bourbon and wood interplay,” and he won lots of medals at the World Beer Cup. That gave him the confidence to come home to Greensboro and launch Hill Farmstead in 2010.

Success was instant. Hill’s beers were intense, delicious, creative, and impossible to get—the perfect formula for the beer craziness of the time. You had to haul your own empty bottles to a dirt road in the middle of nowhere, and people did. “Mules” would drive in from Chicago, fill 80 growlers, and resell them in the city for absurd prices. Hill banned for life anyone caught reselling his beer. His perfectionist quirks only stoked the frenzy. I personally have been turned away more than once for bringing bottles that were not clean enough (mea culpa ) or too transparent (seriously? ), which can create skunky flavors when light interacts with the beer.

And then there were the names. Hill’s Ancestral Series covers his rela-

tively normal beers—pilsners and pale ales and porters—but his wickedly experimental beers go into his Philosophy Series, heavy on the Emerson and Nietzsche. Suffice it to say, no other brewery had offerings named Society & Solitude, Self-Reliance, Beyond Good & Evil, or Madness & Civilization. He staked out a place as the Philosopher King of beer.

Success brought its own problems. Unbearable lines. Unhappy customers. Fried employees. People told him to take the pressure off by contracting with other breweries to brew his beers for him, a suggestion that still irritates him. “I don’t think you understand. This is Hill Farmstead. This is our farmhouse beer. How does that work if you don’t have a farmhouse?”

Instead, he borrowed a ton of cash and built the big brewery, which dwarfs the farmhouse despite his best efforts to nestle it unobtrusively into the hillside. With the brewery came more employees and more responsibility for people’s livelihoods, so Hill devoted himself to becoming a better leader. He hired an executive coach, read business books like Small Giants and Zingerman’s Guide to Good Leading, taught himself to delegate and to empower others, and built a model small business Financially, he’s at Year 150 of his original business plan.

Yet it may have gone a little too well. The systems and people Hill has put in place are about to put him out of a day job. “From a company standpoint, the best thing for our team is for me to shift from the role of leader to the role of supporter. The entire process has been the shedding of layers of burden and weight and knowledge, to the point where I’m naked.”

After all the years of striving to build a stable business and make the best beer, he’s got time to take stock, and he doesn’t much like what he sees. “Brewing allowed me to be obsessive and to have a deep, intense focus, and I thought those things would make me feel good. But all of the qualities that make me a great brewer—the ability to control an environment, to utilize the scientific method, to constantly engage in dialectic and experi-

mentation—are the opposite of the things you need to be happy and to accept what is.”

Success, he believes, actually stagnated his growth. “It pretty much just led to ego. You forge this identity as a writer or a brewer or whatever, and so much of your identity is wrapped up in that. You form these habitual patterns and you keep going through the motions, but you’re empty inside. That’s me.”

And so begins Chapter 3.

I’d timed my visit to Hill Farmstead to coincide with the release of Poetica, a pilsner that Hill believes is one of the four beers he has nailed in his career. The others are Edward, an American pale ale; Damon, the imperial stout; and Art, a tangy farmhouse ale aged in wine barrels for two years and bottleconditioned for another two. Each of the four is exemplary of a traditional style, but while the first three are all in the flavor-bomb style that made Hill famous, Poetica is the opposite. Pilsner is the light, crisp style of beer that most Americans drank until craft beer came along and made pilsner seriously uncool, and it was inspired by Hill’s recent visit to the Pilsner Urquell brewery in the Czech Republic, where pilsner began. It’s made using an archaic and labor-intensive process called decoction that involves separating part of the mash, boiling it, then returning it to the kettle, which results in a softer, rounder beer with a formidable head.

Indeed, the glass of golden lager I was handed at the bar was topped by an extraordinary white cumulonimbus. I carried it out of the taproom and eased into an Adirondack chair in the sunshine. All around me was boisterous conversation, as if people couldn’t quite believe their luck to be lolling on a Vermont hillside in high summer with a mug of the world’s best beer in their hands.

I tilted the glass, pushed my nose through the foam, and took a sip. There’s nowhere to hide when you make pilsner. The malt, hops, and water have to be in perfect balance,

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and this was. It was clean and bitter and refreshing. But the more I sipped, the better it got. It captured the spice of the August hayfields and snapped to a finish, leaving me wanting another sip. I felt a little fluttering in my chest of what might have been love; this was the beer-next-door I’d been waiting for my whole life.

When he describes his beers, Hill talks more about mouthfeel than flavor. “Soft” is the highest praise he can bestow. “Succinct” and “elegant” are two more of his favorites. The beers he hates are chalky and edgy and the bitterness is all out of whack. And while he is loath to criticize his competitors, I will come out and say that there is a lot of undrinkable swill in New England masquerading as craft beer. In the arms race to build bigger and bolder brews—more malt, more alcohol, more hops—brewers have created a generation of beers with all the softness and elegance of a Marvel superhero blockbuster. They taste like pine resin spiked with cat pee, and they have no heart. Such unbalanced beers have become painfully common in the hophead culture that Hill helped create, and he partly blames himself. As with the Buddha, many of his followers miss the point.

When I asked Hill the secret, he was evasive. He’s sick of other brewers copying his beers. He allowed that he puts some oats in every beer he makes (“I like oatmeal”), which gives a creamy mouthfeel, and he mentioned that most brewers don’t think enough about water chemistry. (I’d noticed lots of interesting notes about times and temperatures and pH scrawled in marker on the white walls of the brewery, but when I took out my phone to snap some photos, everybody freaked out.) But the real secret was just rigorous self-analysis. “They aren’t seeing their product as a continual evolution toward perfection,” he said, then sighed darkly. “Which eventually you have to give up on. It’s frustrating.”

A Hill Farmstead beer is both subtly better and a lot better than a bad craft beer, the way a bespoke dress outclasses the off-the-rack knockoff.

As I drained my glass of Poetica and watched dozens of smiling people mill around the lawn with pints in every earth tone, it occurred to me that what actually set the beer apart was joy. Drinking one was like hanging out with someone who is generous and optimistic and makes you feel good about the world. The beer had a sunny soul. And it didn’t have anything to do with water chemistry.

I saw Hill emerge from the brewery and scuttle toward his house, a dark figure hoping not to be waylaid, and the irony of my thoughts became clear. It was as if, in creating Hill Farmstead, Shaun Hill had mined his subconscious for all the childhood joy he’d always associated with the place and the people who’d lived there. And he’d taken those feelings and fantasies and poured them into something physical that people could touch and taste and share. It was a stunning artistic achievement. But he hadn’t saved anything for himself.

When I last visited Hill Farmstead, in late August, nobody had seen Hill. Despite a line of cars that crested the hill and disappeared down the other side, the place was running so smoothly that it hadn’t even occurred to anyone that he was missing.

I finally found him next door, painting his house. His clothes and hair were flecked with white paint, which made him look even more like Shaun Hill than usual, if such a thing were possible. When I asked him why he was painting it himself, he quoted a Zen saying: “Stare at the wall until your face falls off.” Obliteration of self. But he admitted that he loved painting houses. The meditative nature of it, the instant gratification of making something better. Plus, the quote he’d received was $12,000. Ridiculous.

The subtext, of course, was that Hill can suddenly afford to spend 80 hours painting his house. He’d put great people and great systems in place and it was all working. The brewery that he’d raised from birth was mature and successful and didn’t need him so

much any more. He could just do special projects like Poetica.

I asked him if he had a title for Chapter 3 yet. “The thing I want most in my life right now is companionship,” he said, applying thick white paint in long, practiced strokes. “Starting my own family. But who would ever want to date me in this chaos?” There are these patterns and grooves in our lives, he said, preconditions that set the rails down which our existence runs, and from birth the Shaun/Family/Greensboro groove was so solidified in his brain that he’d never questioned it, “never thinking that if I meet someone and fall in love, they’re going to have to live right next door to a brewery.” He finished off a clapboard and stared at the wall. “Foolish.”

Maybe Chapter 3 would start with another round-the-world trip. Maybe it would begin with a drive to Maine to try to patch things up with his girlfriend. He’d been writing her a lot of letters in his 19th-century Emersonian sermon style, long and lofty, and word had come back through an intermediary that they were a little bit overwhelming. “That’s better than being underwhelming,” he mused as he started on the final clapboard. “Right?”

The front of the house was now a gleaming tabula rasa, and it came as a bit of a shock. It had been so weathered for so many years that I’d never imagined it new and fresh. It looked reborn. It looked like a great place to live.

Hill said that after years of making company-focused lists of daily goals, he wanted to try something different. “What if I had a checklist in my pocket that was my three goals for the day: Make eye contact with every person I speak to, stand up straight with my heart exposed and vulnerable, and be patient and loving? And then I checked back with myself at the end of the day? That’s the stuff I’m most interested in right now.”

And with that, he squeezed the extra paint from his paintbrush, picked up his can, glanced one last time at the happy hordes carousing on the site of Edward’s old barn, and disappeared behind the front door of 403 Hill Road.

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Shades of Greatness

Ninety years ago on the Atlantic City Boardwalk, someone bought the first pair of a new brand of Massachusetts-made sunglasses. The rest is history.

Peter Sellers wore them. So did Louis Jourdan and Anita Ekberg and Anthony Quinn and Mia Farrow. So did the Lone Ranger, Clayton Moore (who knew a little something about mysterious eyewear). Like the famous people hidden behind sunglasses in the indelible “Who’s that behind those Foster Grants?” ad campaign, plastics pioneer Foster Grant has kept a low profile in the pantheon of New England business success stories. But as it turns 100 this year, it has surely earned its place in the sun.

In 1919, a 28-year-old Austrian immigrant named Sam Foster left his job at the Viscoloid comb factory in Leominster, Massachusetts, a city that in the early days of the plastics industry produced two-thirds of all the combs sold in the country. Striking out on his own, he set up shop in an abandoned laundry building in town, and the Foster Manufacturing Company was born.

The addition of “Grant” came from salesman William Grant, with whom Foster partnered up early on. When the two parted ways after just three months, the settlement left Foster too cash-strapped to afford another corporate name change. So Foster Grant it stayed.

The company’s initial products were combs, along with hair accessories and costume jewelry. But when Hollywood popularized shorter hairstyles in the 1920s, the market for combs collapsed, and Foster Grant’s focus turned to sunglasses. At the time, the few American companies that were making sunglasses touted them solely as eye protection. Foster Grant pioneered them as a fashion item, selling its first pair in 1929 at a Woolworth’s on the Atlantic City Boardwalk.

While the initial models were made by hand, with their frames jigsawed from sheets of plastic, everything changed after Foster Grant adopted the European concept of injection molding in the 1930s. Its first-in-the-country machines produced more frames in an hour than a six-man production team could create in a day.

By midcentury, Foster Grant had become the largest sunglasses manufacturer in the world—not to mention the top producer of injection-molded plastic items of all sorts. Soon the company started producing its own plastic, too, which turned up in everything from milk containers and cassette tapes to picnic coolers and stadium seats.

For all that business success, it wasn’t until the aforementioned celebrity-driven ad campaign began in the 1960s that Foster Grant became a household name. Today the Foster Grant brand is owned by Rhode Island–based FGX International, which in turn is owned by the French company Essilor. Yet all these years later, actress Brooke Shields still carries on the legacy of looking into the camera from behind a pair of Foster Grants and asking, “Why would I wear anything else?” —Joe Bills

Foster Grant was a titan of the plastics industry by the 1960s, an era during which it rolled out all manner of mod shades, including these vintage square frames from the Leominster Historical Society.