One of three summer cottages on a Maine island is for sale, and for the price of the home, you get shared access to a beach, tennis court, two docks and an old-fashioned bowling alley, too.
The property for sale is on Mouse Island, a mile south from Boothbay Harbor. It was listed Monday at $1.6 million, and has already attracted plenty of interest from out-of-state buyers, said listing agent Karen Roberts.
For decades, the 16-acre island was known as the home of The Samoset Hotel, which was built by a group of Skowhegan men in 1877 and could sleep 125 people, according to the Boothbay Register.
“People used to go by steamboat up from Boston to stay,” said Roberts, an agent with Tindal & Callahan Real Estate of Boothbay Harbor. “There’s some real history to the island itself.”
The hotel burned down in 1913. After that, the whole island was put up for sale and bought by private citizens including famous liberal Protestant minister Harry Emerson Fosdick, who used to write his sermons there, Roberts said.
“It is far enough from the mainland so that we can live an entirely unsophisticated life,” Fosdick once wrote of the island, according to the Wiscasset Newspaper. “That is to say; a man can put on a flannel shirt in the morning and go to bed in it at night if he feels like it.”
In 1924, three cottages were built on the island, according to the Register. A couple of the people who own those properties today are descended from those who built the cottages, but the owners of the one for sale were not, Roberts said.
The home for sale, which has not been winterized, presents a rare opportunity to own an island along with two other homeowners. All islanders share amenities including a rustic bowling alley built around the same time as the Samoset Hotel, Roberts said. A full-time caretaker lives on the island to maintain those amenities and ferry homeowners to Boothbay Harbor, she said.
Inside the home, there are five bedrooms, four bathrooms and features like a stone fireplace, warm wood interiors and a remodeled kitchen, according to its online listing. The island also includes walking trails, golf cart paths, and two solitary cabins which any of the owners can make use of.
Roberts’ phone has been ringing. She has been fielding questions from brokers representing out-of-state buyers charmed by the cottage’s history, location and amenities.
“It’s like going back in time. It’s just beautiful. But you’re a 15- to 20-minute boat ride from downtown Boothbay Harbor, so it’s very convenient and in a great location,” Roberts said. “You’re in your own little world out there.”
