As we approach the end of the year, we’re looking back at the stories from 2024 that you read the most.
We had celebrity sightings — and locals not caring about them. We had a controversy involving a TV weatherman and social media. We back-to-landers and hidden gem restaurants. And we had Donald Trump Jr. becoming a Maine property owner.
Around half our most-read stories were related to real estate in some way, from a former spy’s island mansion hitting the market to a homebuilder accused of shoddy and undone work to a coastal community looking to mobile homes as a solution to its housing crisis.
These were the stories you cared about this most this year.
Maine TV weatherman says he was fired after social media posts on food
In July, Jason Nappi, a meteorologist for News Center Maine, wrote on his popular Facebook page that he could no longer tag businesses in his frequent posts about his favorite local pizza, lobster rolls and ice cream because it was a “conflict of interest” for his employer. Four days later, he posted again, saying News Center Maine terminated him because of his post explaining why he could no longer tag businesses. Since then, Nappi launched a paid-subscription blog on Patreon and has continued to post weather forecasts and food-related content to his Facebook page.
Lady Gaga spotted in Maine over the weekend
Last year, Taylor Swift and her private jet touched down at Bangor International Airport on her way from London to Kansas City. This year, another pop superstar visited Maine (well, York County). Lady Gaga was in York at the beginning of June to attend her sister’s wedding at the ViewPoint Hotel. She reportedly stopped for ice cream at Dunne’s Ice Cream, whose owner told the Portsmouth Herald that Gaga appreciated she could be a “normal person” there.
A Maine island town looks to mobile homes to solve its ‘death spiral’
Stonington isn’t unique in facing a housing crisis that has made it unaffordable for most Mainers to live there. But town officials are looking at a unique solution. They’re considering putting a mobile home park on town-owned land to provide an attainable homeownership option. Linda Nelson, Stonington’s economic development director, said a large chunk of the town’s housing inventory is used for seasonal, second homes. “It can be a death spiral for a lot of communities,” she said.
6 hidden gem restaurants in Maine to add to your summer dining list
Everyone knows about the tourist-hot spots (even Lady Gaga). This list of dining recommendations is for folks looking for something that’s off the beaten path. It was written for summer travelers, but most places are open year-round.
Former spy’s $1.9M Maine island home for sale
This “marvel of engineering” perched on the Down East coast was designed and built by a decorated wartime spy and businessman. Listed in May, the four-bedroom house on Beals Island has a unique polygonal structure. The original owner, Franklin Lindsay, served in a predecessor agency to the CIA and carried out missions in central Europe during World War II. He later became a college professor, and he and his students built the home in the late 1960s. It’s now under contract, according to Zillow, after the price was dropped down to $1.1 million.
Maine contractor accused of poor and undone work is arrested
In October, police arrested a contractor from Palermo on felony charges a day after the Bangor Daily News reported that he had been ordered to repay clients for poor and unfinished work. Jake Brown’s company, JBRH Excavation and Welding Fabrication, was already facing $400,000 in judgments after former customers filed civil lawsuits across the state. Complaints to the Maine attorney general’s office dated back more than a year before Brown was arrested.
Maine is preparing for a future without its iconic pines
To help Maine’s forest adapt to climate change, researchers have begun planting tree species from mid-Atlantic states to replace ones here less resistant to rising temperatures, pests and more extreme weather. But because Maine land is largely privately owned, whether individual landowners adopt these new species will make a big difference for the future of the country’s most forested state.
They went off the grid and back to the land in 1977. They’re still there.
Nearly 50 decades ago, Linda Tatelbaum and Kal Winer built a small off-the-grid house in Appleton. The former academics were among the pioneers of Maine’s back-to-land movement, and unlike most of their peers, they’re still living mostly off the grid and mostly self-sufficiently. “I think we’re just stubborn,” Tatelbaum said. “We like where we are, we like our home, we like the work and so we keep doing it. My commitment to it was just because I love it. I love the land, I love Maine.”
Celebrities love southern Maine but locals there don’t care
Every summer brings a mass arrival of tourists to our state, many to southern Maine and some of them celebrities. Along with Lady Gaga’s June visit to York, Maine’s southernmost county saw actor Matt Damon at a Kittery juice bar and former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson at an Eliot cannabis dispensary. “There’s nothing special about them,” said one woman interviewed at a Kennebunk bar about the recent celebrity sightings. “They just have more money than us.”
Donald Trump Jr. buys Maine hunting land from Austin Theriault’s family
A company led by Donald Trump Jr. purchased hundreds of acres in Aroostook County in November. Trump Jr., the son of the former president and now president-elect, has hunted in the region before and shot moose in Stacyville in 2022. The company bought the land from the family of Austin Theriault, a Republican who narrowly lost this year to U.S. Rep. Jared Golden in the 2nd Congressional District race.
