Still Pinching Ourselves

Ever since our first four week stay here in 2016 we have dreamed of having our own place. Over the past seven years we have probably looked at over five thousand candidates on Redfin and Zillow. We have taken tours of a dozen places during our yearly treks to Maine. Nothing ever had the requisite magic that we were looking for, or if it did it was either way out of our price range, two hours away from Camden, or on a tiny uninspired lake. Pam and I had gotten to the place where we figured that we would just rent for the rest of our lives, not an altogether unhappy option. But there was still a longing for ownership, a place of our own that we could shape into the perfect escape, not just for us but for our family, the living and the ones not yet with us.

Over a year ago Pam saw a place on Redfin that she was interested in but I was not. It was too expensive and brand new and very much not my idea of what a Maine lake house was supposed to look like. Then the price was lowered, a couple of times and Pam was intrigued enough to send Tif a text last week, “Why is this place still on the market while the place we walked through yesterday already has an offer despite the fact that it’s a hundred years old and on a puddle of a lake?” This inquiry led to us making the 22 minute drive to Lake Saint George to check out in person what we had been examining on our computers for months. Five days later we have a contract in place pending inspections, closing date sometime in the middle of September. We could not be happier but it feels very much like a dream.

Our last two weeks here will be filled with a thousand details. There will be the inspections, obtaining quotes for dock improvements, landscaping and deck additions. Pam’s brain is filled with ideas about everything from soup to nuts. The kids are all thrilled and have already floated ideas of month long work from home stays next summer. I can already tell that this adventure will be non-stop work for the next several years, exactly the type of thing I have been searching for—a new challenge. 

I will post no photographs of the house now. There is much to be done. But I will post the money shot that clinched the deal. All Pam and I have ever cared about in our lake house quest has been…the lake. You can repair and improve cabins. You can’t repair or improve a lake. This one is breathtaking. Lake Saint George has every single thing we have always looked for in a lake, and seeing as how we spend 80% of our time either in it, on it, or staring at it, this view sealed the deal.

So, now we begin this new adventure with a combination of excitement and gratitude with a bit of fear sprinkled in. A huge debt is owed to Tif Ford for her patience, toughness and wisdom, and to Keith and Caroline May for the inspiration of their beguiling Loon Landing, without which we would never have even entertained the idea of a place of our own. When we pull onto Brierley Lane to leave in two weeks it will be with a lump in our throats at the thought that we will never stay at Loon Landing again.

But, we will be just down the road, a short drive away secure in the knowledge that we already have two incredible neighbors.