Book now for August 2018!!! Come Relax on the Coast of Maine!!! ***Free WIFI***

My three children and I stayed at this property for a week in August. We had such a wonderful time. The house is beautiful and so well equipped. Everything you could possibly need is there. The kitchen is fitted for actual cooking, linens and towels are provided. The house is also spotlessly clean which I appreciate above everything else. My two boys are teenagers and used the downstairs bedrooms with the bathroom down there. My daughter and I used the upstairs rooms. Everyone loved having their own space while still being together. The house is well stocked with DVD's, games, and books. Two of my kids spent hours in the evenings playing chess and I loved seeing them so focused on something non electronic.

The outside shower is an absolute dream, there is nothing like showering outside on a beautiful summer morning. The house location is very private and incredibly quiet and peaceful.

We found the location of the property to be excellent for exploring many areas of Maine. We went all over the Blue Hill Peninsula and we drove up to Mount Desert Island quite a few times. It is an easy drive away of just about one hour. Acadia National Park is absolutely breathtaking.

The owners clearly take a great deal of pride in their property. Sally is extremely pleasant and helpful. She is very responsive and sent us a detailed email with ideas of places to go and restaurants to eat at. I have rented many places and she was by far the most friendly and helpful owner I have ever dealt with.

I would not hesitate to return here and often think longingly of our peaceful week in Maine!

Thank you, Sally, for your the kind words in your e-mail about Jeanie and me as guests in your wonderful Orchard House. We return them to you and Sean manyfold. We totally agree with you that trust and open communication between owners and renters are essential to arrangements such as the ones that VRBO facilitates. And having lived in Orchard House for a whole month, we feel “well met” by you and Sean, even though we haven’t actually met you.

I don’t know that Jeanie and I have anything to add to the reviews of Orchard House on the VRBO website, which are all strongly positive, or to the House Book that you have put together, which is a great resource for your guests. Like your other guests we found our own favorite places on the Blue Hill peninsula, as did all of our own family visitors. 

For Jeanie and me, the Good Life Center, a/k/a Forest Farm, was of special interest. I’m old enough to have known the Scott and Helen Nearing story from the 1960s on. We got to meet and have conversation with the interns in residence there and even a couple of members of the board that oversees the Forest Farm operation. The Wooden Boat and Haystack Schools were of special interest too, and we made more than one visit to both of them.

As for restaurants, we liked your favorites, the Bagduce Cafe for lunch and the Whale’s Rib for dinner, but the Cockatoo Portuguese Restaurant at Goose Cove turned out to be a favorite too, with the walk through the woods and across the sandbar to Barred Island as a kind of bonus to our meal.

Everywhere we travel Jeanie has an unerring instinct for finding the most amazing hiking trails, and the Blue Hill peninsula, as you know, because of the Island Trust, proved to have a seemingly endless supply of such trails, a new discovery every day we went out.

You may recall my having told you that Jeanie paid her way through college, back in the 1970s, by working six summers at a restaurant in Bar Harbor. So nostalgia called us to Mount Desert Island while we were staying in Orchard House. We took all of our family visitors to Mount Desert too… for hikes and climbs in Acadia and, of course, tea and popovers at the Jordan Pond House. 

Our month in Orchard House, escaping at least some of the (almost) unbearable heat of the Florida summer, was, in a favorite phrase of Jeanie’s and mine, “all good.” Here’s wishing you and Sean and your children the same, only and “all good” things.

This was our third stay at Orchard House, but we've been coming to the neighborhood for 15 years. My kids are college students now, and they still dream about coming to Brooksville each summer. This is a gloriously beautiful region, with plenty of low-key activities, including hiking, kayaking, blueberry picking, swimming, beachcombing, bird watching and just taking in a spectacular view around each corner. There are also hundreds of artists and writers who live and work here, wonderful restaurants and small food businesses, and abundant peace and quiet.

Orchard House is comfortable sunny and spacious, with a beautifully equipped kitchen. Sally and Sean are wonderful hosts. We love it here and we will certainly be back!

Orchard House is a wonderful place that will draw you back year after year. I know it firsthand because for much of a decade it was my home away from home for an annual fall getaway to Maine. And I was ever so grateful for the warmth and friendship that Sally and Sean offered over time. They are first-rate hosts.

I'll always think of their house as a place that held so many good stories for me. At moments, it was a den of solitude. I'd pack a pile of books and old New Yorkers to read (or maybe drop into the Blue Hill Library). And I'd walk many miles in the woods and happen upon a gaggle of wild turkeys or a porcupine on his way. Or sit on the shore of the lake with a cup of coffee and have a good think. It would be a fine place to write.

Other times, the house was full of joyful conviviality. I invited friends who'd stop in for a few days and we'd explore the peninsula (guided by the house binder full of good suggestions for adventures) and then come home (often with lobsters fresh off the dock in Stonington) and cook and feast and drink good wine (see Max at the Blue Hill wine shop) and tell tall tales late into the night. It was such fun.

And always, at the end of the day, no matter how brisk the late October air, there was a hot shower under a bazillion stars. Pure magic.

I'm in a new phase of life now with a sweet pup and a partner who desires to explore more pockets of Maine and beyond. One day we hope to have our own place up north -- and I'll always be grateful to Orchard House and Sally and Sean for making my annual treks to Maine a much-loved respite and ritual -- the very best weeks of the year.

Wonderful time in Blue Hill area. Orchard House was a perfect home base especially if you like to take advantage of all the area farmer's markets and off the boat seafood...come back to a wonderful gourmet kitchen to prepare your finds. Tons of room, nice layout, very helpful owners. I would definitely recommend.