A four-bedroom, three-bathroom home perched on the coast in Down East Maine comes with its own working lobster pound.
The $1.3 million Cape-style home on a peninsula in Beals offers 2,400 square feet of living space on a nearly 4-acre property.
The sellers, one of whom is a fisherman, built the house in 2004 and used it as a year-round home and working lobster pound, or an area where live lobsters are kept in water after they’re caught before being sold.
Lobster pounds generally use tides or pumps to circulate new ocean water though the pound to keep the lobsters alive and healthy.
The owners put the waterfront home on the market because they’re looking to downsize after becoming empty-nesters, said William Milliken with Bold Coast Properties, the listing agent for the home.
The single-family home is one of only four for sale in Beals as of Tuesday, with prices ranging from $198,000 to $1.3 million. The average cost of a home in Washington County now rests at slightly less than $200,000, far below the statewide median home price of $412,000, according to Zillow.
Aside from the lobster pound, the southwest-facing home’s picturesque location coupled with its “fine finishes” are perhaps the property’s most desirable features, Milliken said. The house also offers a large covered front porch and an expansive kitchen.
The property’s detached three-car garage also has a one-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment above it with an additional loft space that can be used as another bedroom. The sellers use the unit as a short-term rental, Milliken said, which the buyers could continue to provide a source of passive income.
While lobster pounds have become less popular and profitable in the last decade “the concept is still there,” Milliken said, giving the future buyer an opportunity to enter Maine’s working waterfront and renowned fishing industry.
“Having that component to a property could be intimidating, or it could be intriguing and an opportunity,” Milliken said. “These lobsters are pretty resilient and the lobstering landscape is changing along the coast. I’m not ruling out the possibility that this could be used as a lobster pound.”
For those who aren’t interested in the lobster industry, Milliken said he’s also heard of people using lobster pounds to grow oysters or mussels instead.
The listing has already generated interest, though mostly from out-of-state buyers who “have no idea what a lobster pound is,” Milliken said.
Milliken believes the ideal buyer for the house is someone with “an adventurous spirit and a love for the Maine coast,” who’s interested in learning how to use the lobster pound, either for its intended purpose or for a new venture.
“As beautiful as this area is, our way of life here is even more beautiful than the scenery,” Milliken said.
