This is Seal Harbor… part of Mount Desert Island, the same island with perhaps the better known town of Bar Harbor. This famous island on the northern coast of Maine is also the summer home of Martha Stewart. We went in search of a chance meeting with Martha and a peek at her famous house. Here’s what we found:
Isn’t this shingle house so pretty?
Well, it’s not Martha’s.
Take a look at this one:
I love the looks of this huge brown shingle style home.
Sorry, it’s not Martha’s house in Seal Harbor either… Both of those houses were in Bar Harbor.
Since we’re talking about Bar Harbor, here are a couple quick pics of the downtown area.
It looked really fun and cute, even on a super cloudy day, (usually the type of weather we go on day trips with, sunny days are for beach days)
Here’s another street in Bar Harbor:
Moving around the island to Seal Harbor, we happened upon this charming church:
Or it could have been Northeast Harbor, there are a lot of ‘harbors’ there and nothing is clearly marked, not even on the map, so I’m not positive which neighborhood it is in.
This is Seal Harbor: (I think)
It was actually much smaller than I expected.
I read in Architectural Digest on a spread they did about Martha’s house, ‘Skylands’, originally built by Edsel Ford, that it sits up above with a view down to Seal Harbor.
So looking across Seal Harbor, (again assuming it is Seal Harbor) back up the hill, one of those houses should be Martha’s!
As we headed up that hill in search of ‘Skylands’ it was a beautiful drive.
The heavy woods lend the land to a beautiful landscape of ferns:
and moss:
In fact this whole forest above Seal Harbor was stunning in it’s natural mossy landscape. It felt like a huge fairy garden. I can see why Martha loves her faux bois… it totally fits in this setting!
So, we’re finally there…
Ok, I really don’t know for sure…
I think this may or may not be the entrance for Skylands.
It was tastefully done, in an understated way, with the plantings and rocks beautifully blending in with the landscape. The pair of lights flanking the driveway were in a 1920’s era style, so that could certainly fit with Skylands, the summer home of Martha Stewart, which was built in the mid 20’s.
It seemed like it really could have been the entrance to her house. The map was a little confusing, and her address, which was pretty hard to find, is a bit cryptic, which you can certainly understand.
The whole time we were looking for her house, (which was actually more about seeing the Bar Harbor and Seal Harbor area, than searching for her house… we just did that for a fun little drive up the hill.) but the whole time, I didn’t for a second feel envious of her millions, (billions?) in fact, quite the opposite… I felt sorry for her having to guard herself from people… that threat and concern that would never let one rest peacefully. No thanks! I would never want to be famous like that…
Click here if you’d like to read a little from Martha about her doing some decorating at Skylands.
Once we were done in the Bar Harbor and Seal Harbor area, and headed back out of town, we were getting hungry for dinner.
We found this charming restaurant on the water. It had a fun. old style ‘supper club’ feeling to it.
That smaller building on the left is the ‘lobster kitchen’. That’s where a wood fire keeps the water boiling and they cook up the lobsters for the restaurant orders.
The restaurant has tons of windows as you can see that look out on the water.
This cute vintage sign was on the outside of the restaurant wall as we walked in.
Even though lobster are now regulated for size and sex etc. there are these amazing trophies we see every now and then:
Can you imagine the size of the lobster that belonged to these claws?!!
Though we didn’t hike around much, most people come to Mount Desert Island, not to search for Martha Stewart’s driveway, but for this:
Yup… to go to Acadia National Park.
The landscape in Bar Harbor and all the other neighborhood ‘harbors’ was beautiful and pretty different than the landscape in Southern Maine where we usually are. It was a fun day trip…
Maybe next time we’ll stay longer, and maybe we’ll even happen to run into Martha! 🙂
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I appreciate you stopping by.
Click here to read more about our Maine coastal cottage.
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