When the doorbell camera on a couple’s Newport home rang one day, they never expected to see basketball phenom Cooper Flagg standing on the front porch.
Yet there he was, asking for permission to take pictures outside his childhood home.
Mindy Hitchcock and Von Parent bought the four-bedroom, two-bathroom home on Shaw Street in 2023. But they had never even heard of Cooper Flagg when they were considering buying the house.
It wasn’t until Hitchcock’s son, who’s the same age as Flagg and a sports fan, explained the connection that they realized the magnitude of the purchase.
Since moving in, the family has noticed people stopping to take photos of the unassuming single-family house, given a few forgotten belongings back to the Flagg family and even fielded Cooper Flagg’s mail — including his Gatorade National Boys Basketball Player of the Year trophy.
In buying the home, the couple unintentionally forged a connection with one of the country’s biggest sports stars, and those who have followed his meteoric rise that began in a small Maine community.
Cooper Flagg was drafted by the Dallas Mavericks in June, making history as the first person from Maine to be the No. 1 overall pick in the NBA draft. The event, which was celebrated by residents of his hometown and beyond, came after he played at Duke University for a single season.
Shortly after moving in, the couple noticed people stopping to take pictures outside the home. Hitchcock estimated she has seen at least a dozen people stop outside the home to take pictures, and others have knocked on the door when the family wasn’t home.
“It’s interesting — we never imagined that would happen when we moved here,” Hitchcock said.
The family’s most interesting visitors to date include an ESPN film crew that wanted to get footage of the home before the NBA draft, and Flagg himself.
“Cooper showed up a few weeks ago with the Mavericks team and they did some shots from around the house,” Hitchcock said. “The [doorbell] camera went off at the front door and it was Cooper standing there asking permission to take photos outside.”
Hitchcock even discovered her home is marked on Google as “Cooper Flagg’s Childhood Home” and designated a “cultural landmark.” The property has racked up three reviews, all of which gave the home five stars.
“They’re nice reviews, so I appreciate that,” Hitchcock said.
Since moving in, Hitchcock said she has returned two sentimental items to the Flagg family that were left behind. One was a metal fire pit stamped with the family’s last name that was left in the backyard.
The other was part of a doorframe in the laundry room where the family tracked the growth of Cooper, his twin brother Ace and their older brother Hunter with pen ticks.
“When we closed on the house, we came right here and saw it, so we called the family and said, ‘You probably want this,’” Hitchcock said. “As a mom, I’d want it for myself.”
The family also received mail for Cooper Flagg for the first year after moving in, including his Gatorade National Boys Basketball Player of the Year trophy that was delivered to the house, Hitchcock said.
“I brought it back to the post office and they know his aunt who lives in town, so they gave it to her to give back to them,” Hitchcock said.
The couple bought the house for the asking price of $325,000, which Hitchcock said had been reduced because it sat on the market for more than a year. The sale was finalized in November 2023, according to documents in the Penobscot County Registry of Deeds.
The Flagg family had already moved to Florida at that time so Cooper and Ace could play at national basketball powerhouse Montverde Academy.
Hitchcock and Parent moved from Caribou to be closer to Bangor, where Parent is based for the Army National Guard.
There was no mention of who previously lived in the home in the listing, Hitchcock said. But the online listing did include a picture of the state championship trophy the Nokomis Regional High School boys basketball team won in 2022. The names of all three Flagg boys are engraved on the plaque affixed to the award.
The couple have since removed nearly all traces of the basketball star, but some still remain on the property. For example, the metal post that held the family’s basketball hoop next to the driveway is still there, but Hitchcock removed the backboard and net to prevent someone from stealing it, she said.
The dilapidated remnants of a wooden treehouse the Flagg children built can also still be found in a cluster of trees to the right of the home. Cooper himself pointed it out to Parent when he stopped by for a visit several weeks ago, Hitchcock said.
While Hitchcock didn’t know the magnitude of the Flagg name in Maine upon buying the property, she now finds herself thinking about the home’s previous occupants.
“The ceilings upstairs are quite low and I wonder sometimes how the Flagg boys lived up there,” Hitchcock said. “They would’ve had to duck to go through the doorframes.”
The family also doesn’t mind when people stop to gawk at the house, but Hitchcock said her fiance “feels a lot of pressure to keep up the yard so that people can take nice pictures,” she said.
Despite the unexpected attention, Hitchcock said she enjoys living there and would buy it again, even if she understood how famous Cooper Flagg has become in Maine and beyond.
“We love the house,” Hitchcock said. “It was in great condition — they took good care of it. We get passers-by but to us, it’s just home.”
