New Harbor Nostalgia
When Suzy O’Brien bought a cluster of seaside cottages and a wharf in need of repair in New Harbor, Maine, the project was initially envisioned as an investment and long-term retirement plan while she worked to sell her Boston-based small business. Two unforeseen developments changed that rather quickly. The first was COVID-19: the sparsely-populated village a few miles from Pemaquid Point had basically been socially distancing since time immemorial. What better place to wait out a global pandemic than a cottage, deck, and gardens wrapped in salt air? While they waited—they worked. Painting, repairing, landscaping, and updating decor. And that led directly to the second development: she and her partner Ernie fell completely in love with the life they’d carved out in this quiet little harbor.
They now live full-time in one of the cottages and rent out the others in the summer, taking their morning coffee on the wharf, eating their meals in the small greenhouse where she’s added a table and lights, and gathering with their guests at a firepit at the center of their property studded with wildflowers and garden beds. Everything here feels intentional though somehow completely uncurated: the cottage doors creak when closed, the floorboards gently moan with footfalls, and bouquets in old milk bottles materialize on picnic tables. A family across the harbor with a lobster boat occasionally drop off buckets of crab claws as a neighborly surprise and there’s an ice cream stand you can walk to next to the only proper grocery store within a half hour drive.
A few years back, they had seriously considered having the power lines that frame the view of the harbor moved to underground cables, thinking that the unobstructed view would enhance the experience even more. The cost wasn’t what stopped them, ultimately. Instead, it was the realization that the imperfections and rusticities they’ve kept intact evoked a sense of nostalgia core to their love for this new home. Like a cabin that someone-or-other’s uncle is perpetually fixing up, there’s a quantum of childhood memory—true or misremembered, it likely doesn’t matter—that makes Suzy and Ernie’s waterfront campus so remarkable. Though, the occasional bucket of crab claws certainly doesn’t hurt.
