An island with a fabulous view of downtown Stonington and the town’s scenic harbor is for sale for less than $100,000.
But it might not be what you imagine. The island is little more than a rocky ledge — one of around a half dozen or so that lie in the harbor just yards away from shorefront homes — and comes with a dilapidated fisherman’s workshop that was battered in back-to-back storms in January.
The islet, called Honk’s Island, is less than a tenth of an acre and has a dock that was destroyed in the storm surge but can be rebuilt, according to its owner. It is accessible from the village by foot at low tide but the destroyed 360-square-foot fisherman’s shack now teeters toward the water and is structurally unsound.
There is no fresh water, sewer or electrical service to the island, and none is allowed, according to the real estate listing. But if you want a guaranteed spot above the high tide line to have a picnic, watch lobster boat races or Fourth of July fireworks, it can be yours for $95,000.
The price reflects the high demand for any kind of coastal property in Maine, including an Isle Au Haut cottage partially “reclaimed by nature” and a small island off Jonesport where the seller required potential buyers to spend the night.
“There has been a lot of interest over the years,” owner Kristie Billings said of the island, which is named after her fisherman father, Pearl E. “Honk” Billings Jr., who passed away in 2013. “If you have ever been to Stonington, you know the property.”
Billings is the fourth generation of her family to own the tiny island, which her great-grandfather Almon Billings purchased nearly 100 years ago.
Almon, a fisherman, built the original shack as a workshop to repair his lobster traps and paint buoys. Honk bought it from Almon, his grandfather, for $1 in 1968 and also used it as a workshop and later added a second story. Honk also had a generator and a woodstove in the shack, Billings said.
She decided to sell the tiny island, despite her family’s long ownership of it, in order to focus on other things.
Billings lives with and is taking care of her mother, Susan Billings, at her mother’s waterfront home in Brooklin, and has improvements to make on that property — including replacing the roof and installing erosion control measures along the shoreline, which also was damaged in last winter’s storms. She also inherited another Stonington working waterfront property from her father, at the corner of West Main and Allen streets, that needs repairs and that she wants to keep.
“I just can’t handle anything else,” Billings said.
She said she and her family would like to see the tiny island go to another fisherman and continue to be used as a working waterfront property.
“We would love that,” she said. “Honk would want that.”
