Down East 2013 ©
Asking price: between two and three million dollars. That’s what this fine southern Maine Federal — and its three hundred acres of meadow, forest, and frontage on the open Atlantic — was going for thirty years ago. Neighbors and residents in this community of 9,400 people were anxious. Surely condominiums and artless nouveau mansions would sprout like dandelions all over this antique saltwater farm. On this occasion, however, a group of concerned citizens banded together and rescued the place — a feel-good story along a part of the coast that needed one. This picturesque structure was built around the time Maine became a state. A single family owned “Elms Farm” for generations, and it was a genuine working saltwater farm until the sixties, when the owner talked to lawmakers in Augusta about selling the parcel so it might become a state park. Instead, the legislature decided to buy two hundred acres to allow for public access to the beach, leaving the rest of the acreage seemingly doomed to development. You can read what happened next in Joyce Butler’s fine The History of a Celebrated Maine Saltwater Farm. And thanks to a visionary land trust you can still visit and walk the trails yourself.
