The Beech Nut Hut - Maine Boats, Homes & Harbors

TheBeech

This little hut on a hill, a landmark for generations of Penobscot Bay sailors, has been rehabilitated to its former glory.

BY CAROL DES LAURIERS CIERI PHOTOGRAPHS BY BRIAN VANDEN BRINK

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AILORS COMING INTO ROCKPORT HARBOR have seen changes over the years. Additions mostly, some improvements.

Usually bigger, sometimes better. Over on Beech Hill, however, the scene is the same. No churches or garages turned into houses, no cottages replaced by McMansions, only the sparse landmark silhouette of a low-slung hut nestled near spires of spruce. Just as it’s been for nearly a century. Quiet, peaceful, and still.

From the porch of the hut, the mood is even more striking. The rush and blare of Route 1 can’t be seen or heard. Rather, one hears the drone of insects, the buzz of bees among the blueberries, the warble of birds, maybe the jangle of a black dog’s leash, a baby’s gurgle.

Three Japanese women on an outing talk quietly. You might not understand their words, but you sense awe and

Nut Hut respect. Up here, visitors mostly just nod and smile as they pass each other. Even the children seem hushed.

It must be the vast expanse of land, sea, and sky that quiets us.

The summit of Beech Hill has a 360-degree unobstructed view, and the half-mile dirt road winding up to it is no

meandering cow path. It is a carefully plotted spiral, and as you walk, you feel as if someone is leading you by the hand. Look, there’s Dodge Mountain. Chickawaukee Lake. Penobscot Bay and the islands. The grand sweep from Islesboro to Monhegan. There’s Blue Hill and Cadillac Mountain, Isle au Haut, Bald and Ragged mountains, Camden Hills State Park. A panorama out of an Eric Hopkins painting. It’s a place that inspires awe and respect, yet it wasn’t always this way. There was a time when Beech Hill

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Through theEyes of a Birder Brian Wilson first walked Beech Hill more than twenty years ago. Since it became a preserve he’s there about 100 days a year. He starts walking the hill in April and continues through the hunting season in November.

“It’s like my church,” Wilson said. “I love it.”

A writer, web developer, and type designer, Wilson is a serious bird-watcher, and Beech Hill is an excellent habitat for birds. A slow day might bring the sight or song of 12 to 13 species; a good day, as many as 30.

“It’s got multiple habitats,” he said. “A wooded section, and the open fields and blueberry barrens. Birds, like most animals, like edges. It’s got some great edges between woods and fields. It also has streams running through.”

While there are occasional rare sightings, Wilson said you can always see savannah sparrows and eastern towhees. One of his favorites is the wood warbler. “They are remarkable little birds,” he said, “and easy to overlook. They are beautifully colored with a distinctive song.”

Look also for bald eagles, American kestrels, and northern harriers gliding over head.

Wilson has worked with Coastal Mountain Land Trust’s development director Kristen Lindquist on bird surveys, and over the years they have seen more southern species such as the field sparrow and the prairie warbler.

Lindquist keeps a list of species spotted on the preserve, and it currently numbers more than 100.

Maine is said to be one of the country’s top birding destinations, and Beech Hill is one of the stops listed on the Maine Office of Tourism’s “Maine Birding Trail.”

FOR MORE INFORMATION AND TO DOWNLOAD A GUIDE TO THE TRAIL: www.visitmaine.com/attractions/nature/bird_ watching_guided/

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During original construction, the building stones were wrapped in burlap and transported to the top of Beech Hill to be set in place by skilled masons.

inspired vandalism and worry. In the 1980s, the land was privately held.

Would it be sliced up into house lots and sold? That outcome was a distinct possibility. (Zoning laws at the time would have allowed 400 lots.)

The hut itself, stone walled and sod roofed, had begun a seemingly inexorable slide into ruin. The floor was rotted through, the roof was degrading, a chain link fence did little to keep out the vandals.

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T THE TURN of the twentieth century, Beech Hill was owned by the Gribbell family of Philadelphia. They were the ones who had the hut built. The property passed out of the family in the 1930s; in 1942 it came under the ownership of Edward and Grace Cutting.

According to a Maine Coast Heritage Trust (MCHT) newsletter, the Cuttings considered giving the land to a nonprofit organization for long-term protection but took no action. Fortunately the attorney handling their affairs was able to find a conservation-minded buyer in Jane Watson Stetson, an heir to the IBM fortune who had summered in the area as a child. She and husband Bill Stetson bought the property, added more restrictive easements to those already in place, established an organic blueberry operation in the fields, and tried to shore up and protect the hut. When they felt they were losing the battle, they posted the land.

“It broke our hearts to close off access,” Bill Stetson told MCHT, “but we had lost control over what we were trying to save.”

Concerned local residents, used to walking the land, decided to help.

In 1986, with the assistance of the MCHT, they formed a local land trust and established a conservation easement. Today, thanks to grants provided by Land for Maine’s Future and the MBNA Foundation, the summit and 295 acres around it, including the hut and the spruce trees, are owned by the Coastal Mountains Land Trust (CMLT) and are managed by it as a nature preserve.

You can imagine the relief and the delight around the town of Rockport. It had been a genteel battle to keep the land from being developed,

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Blueberries Anyone?

Plugs from the old sod roof were used in the restored hut’s new sod roof to maintain continuity.

but a battle nonetheless. The result amounted to a virtual fireworks-and-brassband sort of victory.

The land was safe, but what about the hut?

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OCKPORT RESIDENT Marylee Dodge knows the history of the Beech Hill hut better than most. She and her husband lived next door to the Gribbell family and heard about it first hand.

Back in 1913 the landscape architect Hans O. Heistad and his crew were working on the grounds of Weatherend, the Gribbells’ summer cottage on Deadman Point. Born in Norway, the son of a boatbuilder, Heistad had come to the United States in the early 1900s and worked with Fletcher Steele and Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., on the Pulitzer estate in Bar Harbor. That association eventually brought Heistad to the Camden-Rockport area, where he was involved in many notable landscaping projects. When he expressed concern about losing his crew over the winter, Mr. Gribbell suggested that they be kept occupied by building a tea-house at the top of Beech Hill.

This handsome little hut, dubbed “Beech Nut,” was essentially a make-work project, and much of that work was arduous, considering that all of the building materials had to be hauled to the top of the hill before they could be used.

Each of the rounded building stones was wrapped individually in burlap, transported to the top, and set in place by hand.

Once the hut was completed, the family used it for lunches during the summer months. “They had a huge baronial table in the middle of the room,” Marylee Dodge said, “and they would have Sunday lunch in their best Sunday clothes. They had a sort of kitchen and a primitive bathroom and a couple of sinks.” There was even a small bedroom for afternoon naps.

By the time the Coastal Mountains Land Trust acquired the hut, all that was far in the past. Something clearly had to be done, even though it would have been pushing the envelope for the CMLT, as they were not in the historic building preservation business. But after much input by interested parties, including Marylee Dodge—“I can get a little stubborn,” she said, “and I got obstinate and said this was a worthy cause”—CMLT decided to establish a fund-raising campaign and restore the hut.

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At one time some 50 acres on Beech Hill were in blueberry production, making it one of the largest organic blueberry operations in the state. Currently CMLT is cultivating approximately 20 acres as part of its stewardship, using mowing, trimming, and raking techniques to keep the blueberry barrens in production. CMLT hopes this will demonstrate that organic methods are feasible and sustainable.

Volunteers play a large part in the effort.

They hand trim areas where the mower can’t reach, and help move rocks from the fields that get in the way of the mower.

Keeping the soil acidic is essential to blueberry production. The traditional way is to burn the fields, but CMLT’s insurance policy won’t permit that, so sulphur is applied to foster the right soil conditions.

To offset the costs of work not done by volunteers, CMLT is developing a pre-order public sale of blueberries. It has bought a new winnower, is moving an old sugar shack to the property to house the machine, and will hire blueberry rakers to harvest the berries. In the rainy summer of 2009, it had orders for 7,000 pounds and hoped the weather would cooperate to fill them. It also sets days aside in August for visitors to hand-pick at no charge (for dates see www.coastalmountains.org).

“Those days are wonderful,” said CMLT development director Kristen Lindquist.

“People are so happy when they are out there picking. The kids are having a ball.

I’ve been there when it’s raining and totally fogged in and people are there picking.

They are still having a good time. It’s never really a bad day up there.”

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If You Go...

Beech Hill is a gorgeous, “Sound of Music” kind of place. Remember that opening scene, with Maria running around high in the Alps? That’s what you’ll want to do here. You might even want to do it with your dog or your child(ren).

But don’t, OK? Just don’t.

You’ll see signs asking you to keep to the path, and to keep your dog on its leash. That’s not CMLT being grouchy or anti-Sound-of-Music.

First, of course, there are the blueberries to consider. Best not to trample them. Less obvious are the grassland birds that love to nest in all those lovely open fields. You know how it is with babies. Same with baby birds—best not to step on them.

While the preserve is open for use during daylight hours, “Beech Nut” is open just a few days a month during the summer and fall. Check CMLT’s website for days and times.

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The hut has a 360-degree unobstructed view that includes inland hills and countryside, Penobscot Bay and the islands, and the Gulf of Maine.

All those lovely rounded stones that had been wrapped in burlap and set one by one in the walls are now back in place. Interior box beams have been fitted with steel cables to further strengthen the structure. There are a new outside terrace floor, a new inside floor, and a new sod roof constructed using modern techniques and plugs from the old sod to maintain continuity. The new windows and doors, patterned after the originals, are insulated and almost maintenance-free.

“Some things weren’t possible back then,” said Meg Barclay, whose archi-

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tectural firm, Sholz & Barclay, oversaw the work. “Hopefully it will be in better shape for a longer time.”

The decision to use current building methods and materials saved money, but it also meant that the work was not strictly speaking a restoration; rather, it was a rehabilitation. Call it what you will, the result won Maine Preservation’s 2008 Statewide Historic Preservation Honor Award. (For amazing old pictures visit www.mainepreservation.com and view the list of 2008 winners. ) Now, up on Beech Hill, Hans O. Heistad’s simple little stone hut—quiet, peaceful, and still—charms yet another generation.

How to Get There Beech Hill is a little over two miles by car from the Marine Park on Rockport Harbor. Coming out of the park, turn left on Pascal Ave. Travel .5 miles to U.S. Route 1 and turn right. Go .1 miles and turn left onto Beech Hill Road. After 1.5 miles turn left into the Beech Hill Preserve parking lot. (If you find yourself at South Street, you’ve gone too far.)

Beech Hill Preserve Parking Lot

Rockport Marine Park

Rockport Harbor

Carol des Lauriers Cieri is a freelance writer based in Lincolnville.

SHOLZ & BARCLAY ARCHITECTS P.O. Box 1057, Camden, ME 04843.

207-236-0777; www.scholzandbarclay.com.

COASTAL MOUNTAINS LAND TRUST 101 Mt. Battie Street, Camden, ME 04843.

207-236-7091; www.coastalmountains.org

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