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Down East Magazine
April, 2002
By Virginia Wright
| The real reason people head for Bridgton is the assortment of lakes that dot the
countryside surrounding it. Canoes are favored widely over Jet Skis in this part of Maine, and the tranquility
that pervades lakes such as Kezar Lake (above) has been drawing families to the area every summer for more than
a hundred years. |
For many of us, Bridgton is a place we pass through on the way to someplace else. Southern Mainers looking to lose
themselves in the White Mountains know it as the little town where they turn a corner and suddenly slip free of
Greater Portland's sprawling fingers. To travelers rolling in from the west, Bridgton is "almost there,"
when "there" is Sebago Lake or Portland.
Truth be told, Bridgton (and just about everything else west of Route 1) doesn't even exist for the vast majority
of summer visitors whose Maine is rocky coasts, snug harbors, and lighthouses. The town gets only the slightest
nod in travel guides, even those that purport to take travelers off the beaten path.
It may come as a surprise then to learn that thousands of people define their perfect Maine summer as one spent
in the lake-laden country in and around Bridgton. "I've visited eighteen foreign countries and thirty-six
states, and Bridgton is my favorite place," says Shelley Hall, a Dedham, Massachusetts resident with a summer
place on tranquil Wood Pond. "It's a different era, a different world. Things move slower. Bridgton also has
everything: gold, music, arts, antiques - my husband and I have nicknamed it Antique Hill. But the best part of
Bridgton is being on the lakes, hearing the loons and watching the moon rise."
"Bridgton is special," agrees Richard Schubert, who travels from Bethesda, Maryland, with wife Geane
every summer to spend a week and the Noble House, a Queen Anne bed and breakfast not far off Bridgton's Main Street.
"It is certainly not the fanciest town, not chic- George Bush, the father, never stayed there - there are
no fancy restaurants, no sunset cruises on elegant boats replete with gourmet meals, no boutiques with branches
in Palm Springs and London. Nope, none of those things… Why Bridgton? In the waning days of July, sitting on a
rocking chair on the porch at Noble House, looking down at Highland Lake, a pine siskin flitting in and out of
the huge old white pine at the edge of the property - could I be anywhere else? Is there any other place in the
world?"
Identifying a "Bridgton area" can be a challenge. It all depends on who is drawing the boundaries. Bridgton's
gentle scenery is eclipsed by the reputations of bigger and more dramatic natural attractions in the state-defined
"lakes and mountains region," which encompasses everything west of Augusta and between Sebago Lake and
Rangeley. By contrast, the local chamber of commerce carves out a Greater Bridgton region, whose 50,000 acres of
lakes and ponds are framed by Naples and Sebago in the south, Fryeburg and Lovell in the west, and Waterford and
Harrison to the north-east. Meantime, the geology-minded look to the Sebago Lake watershed, lying a smidgen more
south and east.
Regular folks, however, apply a different standard: Their Bridgton is an atmosphere, a feeling, a state of mind.
It is not festive Naples, with its fudge shops and seaplane concessions. It is not Fryeburg, a refuge for North
Conway outlet-shoppers, nor is it Lovell, which leans toward Fryeburg. Their Bridgton area - including Harrison,
Waterford, Otisfield, Denmard, and Sweden - is for those who prefer canoes to Jet Skis, distinctive shops to national
chains, and no honky tonk to distract from having little to do but soak up the quiet and soothing views.
Bridgton village straddles Route 302, a wide, busy corridor of shopping plazas, motels, and mini-golf for most
of its first thirty miles out of Portland. Summer traffic slows to a crawl at the Naples causeway between Sebago
and Long lakes, dominated by the old Bay of Naples Casino and the Songo River Queen II, a Mississippi River-style
paddle wheeler whose daily tours include a trip through the 170-year-old Songo Lock. As the road curves through
Naples, the turreted public library and white clapboard churches suggest that perhaps this byway has not forsaken
New England after all. Then a sign announces "Bridgton," and for the next mile or so, there are pines
and spruce and little else until the Bridgton drive-in theater, a fitting introduction to town with a quirky, retro
charm.
The minimall phenomenon of recent decades missed Bridgton, and towns-people are just waking up to the positive
side of the doldrums that helped preserve a local economy (there's Bridgton Books but no Borders; Reny's but no
Walmart) and a half-mile of fine, if well-worn, nineteenth-century storefronts. Between "the" traffic
light at Pondicherry Square, where Route 302 turns west and becomes Main Street, these aging beauties house at
least ten antique shops. Among them are an impeccably restored Victorian mansion that once served as Bridgton Hospital,
the former town pharmacy replete with built-in oak shelves, and an 1860s general store, whose second story in a
Masonic Hall-turned-blues club with original paintings on the plaster walls.
Within this same stretch, you might laze away your afternoon on the town beach at Highland Lake or amble along
Stevens Brook to Long Lake, about a mile east. You can catch a movie at the Magic Lantern, a 1929 movie house decorated
with antiques, which includes a sitting parlor with player piano. Through the first-floor picture window, pedestrians
spy the "real" business behind the theater: Down East, Inc. designs innovative equipment like quick-release
backpack buckles for the armed services. "It's fun and funky," observes Frank Howell of his curious combination
of trades. "Kind of like Bridgton itself."
Bridgton is attractive but not prettified, authentic but not pretentious. "It's like going back in time,"
says Sherri Matte, who two years ago with husband Steve purchased and renovated the Noble House, where guests play
croquet on the shady lawn or sip wine and dine on heavenly Ken's Kove lobster rolls by Highland Lake. "It's
a walking town. We moved here because we can take our bike to the post office. Our car gets cobwebs on it. It's
a quaint, small town, and you get a good feeling from the people here."
Refugees from over-crowded Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire, the Mattes looked at more than fifty inns on the
coast before turning their search inland. Instead of the usual competitiveness, they found a warm, welcoming community,
and they knew they were home.
Their experience is shared by John and Julie Davis who recently restored the nearby Landmark Inn, and Italianate
mansion eclectically furnished with antiques. "I don't think I'll ever leave this area," says Julie,
a native Australian who was overwhelmed when the neighbors greeted her and John with a block party when they arrived
from California. What attracted them, she finds, are the same things that bring vacationers: antiquing, hiking,
boating, and excellent fishing (John and son Michael catch and release a dozen fish a night at Moose Pond at the
foot of Pleasant Mountain just down the street).
Barbara Clifford, executive director of the Greater Bridgton Lakes Region Chamber of Commerce, counts the Mattes
and Davises among the "new blood," who, through their energy and enthusiasm, are inspiring renewed appreciation
and stewardship of the area's natural and architectural gems. "We're at an exciting time in the town's history,"
Clifford believes.
Traditionally, Bridgton vacationers have been summer people who stay the season rather than breezers. Rusticators
started coming in the 1870s, when the construction of the two-footer Bridgton and Saco River Railroad coincided
with the new steamboat service departing from the Portland & Ogdensburg rail station in Sebago. The chain of
waterways long used to transport lumber and farm produce now offered vacation adventure. Steamers made their way
north from Sebago Lake, passing through the Songo Lock to Brandy Pond, then up eleven-mile-long Long Lake, with
stops at Naples, Bridgton, and Harrison. Those going on to Waterford and other resort villages hired a stagecoach.
Bridgton, with nine ponds completely or partially within its borders, proved especially attractive. In counter
point to the mansions built by local industrialists atop Highland Lake's southern banks, wealthy summer fold hired
notable architects like John Calvin Stevens to design fine cottages on The Ridge, a pastoral crest that parallels
the lake's eastern shore. Here one finds a particularly splendid display of Queen Anne eclecticism, the recently
restored Walker Memorial Hall, John Walker Jr.'s gift to the town in 1892.
In the meantime, hotels that once took in tradesmen and salesmen began serving vacationers yearning for restorative
country air. One entrepreneur briefly operated a hotel atop 2,009-foot Pleasant Mountain, the crown in a region
characterized by rugged hills (it is better known to contemporary skiers as Shawnee Peak). Guests, ferried to the
mountain base by coach, had the choice of hiking up or joining their luggage on a lurching, bumping wagon ride
to the summit. Most walked.
By the turn of the century, the character of a summer stay was changing as rental cabins sprang up on the lakes
in Bridgton, Harrison, and Waterford. Lakeside camps, offering children of the well-to-do a healthful summer of
swimming and canoeing, began to make their appearance. Long since converted into individual residences, the cabins
today number well into the thousands; many have been in the same families for generations. As for the children's
camps, they are thriving, and their session changes and parents' weekends fill inns and motels all season long.
Camp alumni frequently follow memories of swimming, archery, and rope climbing back to the region years later.
"Campers hold the area dear," says Sheila Baxter, the owner of the homey Harrison House bed and breakfast
in Harrison, a pristine hamlet sandwiched between Long and Crystal lakes. She has seen guests trade camp stories
in her breakfast room, which has wide, unobstructed views of Long Lake, then suddenly discover that they are former
bunkmates.
Innkeepers like Baxter reveal more about the area's idiosyncratic attractions than any guidebook. She sends guests
up to Waterford - a town so sweetly blessed with lakes and historic buildings that you fear it will vanish, Brigadoon-like,
never to be found again - where Lee Bradley makes custom Shaker-style furniture in a to-die-for woodworking shop
in his barn on Mill Hill Road. Antique-lovers find plenty of shops to keep them happy, not to mention regular auctions
at Rivard's in Bridgton. Families love Waterford's bison ranch at a classic eighteenth-century farm atop Beech
Hill. Paul and Marcia Hersey take visitors on hayrides to picnic among their wild, majestic creatures, whose bloodlines
make them the finest bison herd in New England. Folks seeking a different alternative to a lakeside picnic are
likely to be directed to the daylily fields at Deerwood Gardens on Harrison's Weston Farm Road.
Mike Rosenbauer and Patty Douthett, themselves avid hikers, often host an active crowd at Greenwood Manor, a rambling
1870 inn with formal gardens on 108 acres of fields and woods near Harrison village. When guests' personalities
suit, Mike and Patty serve breakfast atop Hawk Mountain in Waterford, a short hike with long views of Long and
Crystal lakes, Bear Pond, and the White Mountains. (Usually though, Patty serves up peaches-and-cream French toast,
seafood quiche, and scrambled eggs with sausages on the back deck, where guests watch the wild turkeys, deer, foxes,
and bluebirds that frequent the garden.) They point bicyclists down Route 35, which hugs the quiet east shore of
Long Lake and ends up in Naples.
Walking and hiking are by far the best ways to experience the Bridgton area outside of a canoe. "You can come
here again and again and still discover things," says Peter Lowell, executive director of the Lakes Environmental
Association (LEA), which advocates protection of the region's waterways. "I'm still doing this, and I've been
here all my life. Every year I find things I never knew about - streams, cliffs, caves, and wetlands." In
addition to the countless footpaths over hills and along brooks, some 500 miles of snowmobile trails, as well as
the old narrow gauge railway line, crisscross the wooded region.
Thanks to the Loon Echo Trust, more than 1,000 acres of forest, meadows, and wetlands have been protected in various
parcels, many with hiking trails. Bald Pate Mountain Preserve in South Bridgton was spared a 1,500-foot television
tower in 1996 when the trust mobilized the community and purchased the 450-acre property. Hikers frequently report
seeing deer and moose when they climb Bald Pate, whose "pate" is an overlook below the summit offering
stunning views of Peabody Pond and excellent hawk watching in fall. "You feel as if you're about to take off
like an eagle," says Susan Telfian, the trust's executive director.
At the foot of Bald Pate is 143-acre Hold Pond Preserve, under joint protection of Loon Echo and LEA. The groups
offer frequent guided walks on the trails and boardwalks that traverse a quaking bog. "A lot of times of the
year you can go down there and find complete silence, which is pretty hard to find in southern Maine," Peter
Lowell says. "It has a northern getaway feel to it." A schedule of walks, as well as guided kayak trips
on area rivers and other activities, is always posted at LEA's headquarters on Main Street in Bridgton, the same
building that houses Loon Echo's offices.
All that activity is likely to work up an appetite, and there is no shortage of good, reliable restaurants, though
not much that's fancy. That suits visitors like the Schuberts just fine. "Richard never brings a sports jacket,"
Geane says. "We don't do brunch, we don't make reservations, and we rarely need to dress fancier than jeans."
They favor, among other places, Ken's Kove, a three picnic-table affair operating out of a former gas station on
Main Hill. You'd be hard-pressed to find better lobster rolls and clam chowder (petite Phoebe Stewart, Ken's wife,
stands atop a milk crate to stir the brew) anywhere in Maine. Steve and Sherri Matte also recommend Venezia at
the junction of Routes 302 and 93; their guests tell them the mouth-watering pastas are as good as any found in
Boston's North End or New York's Little Italy.
Evening entertainment choices include two movie theaters, the Big Kahuna, which is the blues club in the Masonic
Hall, and the Deerstrees Theatre, a historic summer theater in Harrison, and, well, not much else, but that's sort
of the point. "We sit on the dock at Highland Lake and admire the mountains most days," Geane Schubert
says. "We never tire of the lake. It is so peaceful and scenic… Bridgton is the best-kept secret in Maine.
I hope it never changes."
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