Sebastian White :: The Changing Face of Maine's Midcoast

ESSAYS

Imported Trees and the Changing Face of Maine's Midcoast

Bangor Daily News | June 11, 2005
By Sebastian White

Far offshore in Penobscot Bay, on one of Maine’s more reclusive summer colonies, the weather gods delivered a perfect Memorial Day this year. The rain held off just long enough for those clustered around the village green in their fleece and Topsiders to pay homage to the fallen, catch up on a winter’s worth of missed gossip, and perhaps most importantly, to nose around and compare notes on the island rumor mill’s latest fixation: The Trees.

You see, it seems an uber-rich couple, recent arrivals to the traditionally understated summer scene, have caused a stir by importing what amounts to a small forest of fully grown trees – as well as ‘clean’ gravel from the mainland – for their new vacation home, notwithstanding that most of the island is thickly covered by stands of similarly regal trees.

Money increasingly flows freely in coastal Maine, and this Memorial Day, as I stood there on my hometown’s main drag and listened to rants not only about the notorious trees, but also the relentless whiz of private jet traffic and the clamor of car-choked streets, I found myself for the first time beginning to take to heart the cries of Mainers who worry about their region’s shifting demographics.

Each year, the indicators of a changing Midcoast region – and a changing Maine, really – become more pronounced as a new breed of wealth, often called the hyper-rich, discovers the undeniable charms of the Pine Tree State.

There is a genuine, uncontrived quality to life here that people feel is being eroded and even lost – the metaphor this year just happens to be the trees – and for the first time in my mere 22 years, I’m starting to believe them.

I see the changes and the clashes sharply, perhaps because I return so infrequently since moving away for college six years ago. The very character that has long made a stretch of craggy coastline so alluring to visitors is being compromised by soaring real estate prices, a changing ethos, and building trends more akin to Martha’s Vineyard than Matinicus.

These new-fashioned values of wealth and conspicuous consumption have come to be at odds with an entire region’s traditional way of life, and with the generations of summer visitors who have quietly been coming here for a century and who have always held a deep respect for the region and its people.

When I half-jokingly speculated to a longtime summer visitor that small-town Maine could one day find itself becoming like the showier Hamptons or Nantucket – something unimaginable a decade ago – she didn’t find it terribly funny. “I see it already,” she said, before drawing a long pause. “It’s happening now.”

I’ve heard the same complaints for years about “people from away.” Especially in places where the business of summering has supplanted the once-thriving fishery, there is understandably no shortage of hard feelings about the coast’s shift away from its proud but gritty past and towards its new role as tourist haven and upper-class enclave. Maine, the slogan goes, is on the move – and away from its understated roots. The fierce independence and protectionism Maine residents have always had of their territory, a trait I once believed to be a brand of provincialism, has never seemed more warranted.

Still, there’s no question that without summer visitors and their dollars, many small-town economies would founder. The infusion of cash and connections that seasonal residents provide is vital to schools, towns, and the livelihood of many. However there is a real question of just how far the new generation of arrivistes can go in their pursuit of perfection before they succeed in changing the places they originally thought perfect enough for them to move to.

Meanwhile, out in Penobscot Bay, the tree importation continues. The proud owners, a now locally infamous big-city couple building their dream home on a dramatic bluff overlooking the sea, have earned themselves snickers, sneers, and stern rebukes from locals angry that precious and limited space on the state-run ferry has been usurped for months to shuttle trees and rocks across the bay.

But the damage is done. They’ve guaranteed themselves the ultimate spot in the annals of the over-the-top, you-wouldn’t-believe-it tales that only those of us who have lived in a summer colony already saturated by over-the-top can fully appreciate.

I’ve met the Tree People a few times over the years. I hate to upset the horrified gawkers, but they really are lovely folks and their kids are terrific. Still, as one neighbor pointed out to me recently, after all the fuss of importing dirt and trees and spending years erecting a palatial multimillion-dollar home, “I just hope they like it here.”