Housing
This section of the BDN aims to help readers understand Maine’s housing crisis, the volatile real estate market and the public policy behind them. Read more Housing coverage here.
One residential road on Mount Desert Island could hold the title as the most expensive stretch of the state.
Cooksey Drive in Mount Desert’s exclusive Seal Harbor neighborhood is home to 25 properties, the assessed value of which totals more than $128 million, according to the town’s property records.
“Our town just topped $3 billion in assessed value last year, so that’s a drop in the bucket,” said Kyle Avila, Mount Desert’s town assessor. “It’s just the nature of our town.”
At roughly 2 miles long, that means each foot of Cooksey Drive has an assessed value of more than $12,000. The avenue skirts a portion of the southern shore of Mount Desert Island, which offers sweeping cliffside views and passes Hunter’s Beach and the Seal Harbor Yacht Club.
“Mount Desert is a summer resident colony that dates way back and all the rich and famous have big oceanfront estates here,” Avila said. “Cooksey Drive is one of the premier roads. Every property is a big estate.”
Some of the road’s properties, however, don’t have numbers and appear to hold only land. Others belong to nonprofits aimed at land conservation, including the Maine Coast Heritage Trust and the Mount Desert Land and Garden Preserve, property records show.
With those excluded, the street holds 19 residential properties with a total assessed value of slightly more than $116 million. That means the estates have an average value of roughly $6.1 million. That’s more than seven times the value of an average home in Mount Desert, which Zillow placed at slightly more than $857,000 as of February.
Median home values in the town have been high for generations, as the region is known for holding luxurious seasonal getaways for celebrities and wealthy business executives. But, like the rest of the state, property values in Mount Desert saw a sharp uptick during the pandemic, putting homeownership even further out of reach for someone who doesn’t inherit property and isn’t lavishly wealthy.
At nearly $17 million, 39 Cooksey Drive takes first place as the most expensive estate on the road. Billionaire Mitchell Rales, a minority owner of the Washington Commanders, bought the nearly 15-acre oceanfront property in January 2018 for $19 million.
The site was previously the summer home of billionaire philanthropist David Rockefeller Sr., who died in 2017. Rales has since spent millions of dollars renovating it to include multiple smaller buildings rather than one hulking estate, leading the assessed value to balloon.
After that, 127 Cooksey Drive has the second highest assessed value at $12.6 million, according to local property records. Dick Wolf, the creator of the long-running “Law & Order” television show, has owned the 6-acre site since 2004 when he bought it for $10.5 million.
Another 10-bedroom, 11-bathroom cliffside estate at 93 Cooksey Drive has been on the market for years. With nearly 10,200 square feet of living space and 6 wooded acres, the mansion was first put on the market in August 2022 with an asking price of $25 million. That price has since been cut several times and now stands at $14.5 million.
While Cooksey Drive is well known for holding “massive, luxury construction,” a few other roads in the community appear to have higher property value totals, Avila said.
Peabody Drive appears to take the top spot, as properties there add up to $165 million, Avila said. But, with more than 60 properties stretching along the road, the per-property value average is brought down to roughly $2.6 million.
Sargent Drive and Manchester Road take the second and third place, with property totals of $160 million and $151 million, respectively, Avila said. But, town records show both streets have more than 40 locations, leading to per-property averages of around $3.5 million for both.
Other top contenders for the state’s most expensive streets, when commercial real estate, land and nonprofit properties are factored out, could be Ocean Avenue in Kennebunkport or Beach Avenue in Kennebunk.
If you have a suggestion for what you think is the most expensive street in Maine, drop it in the comments below or email Kathleen at [email protected].
