1. The Barncastle Hotel
City: Blue Hill, ME
Category: Accommodations
Telephone: (207) 374-2330
Address: 125 South St.
Description: The name of this fantastic hostelry is really right on—a castle, with all that implies, and a barn, with the history and rural nature that conjures. Huge and truly impressive. Guest chambers like the Turret Room 3—with its arcing windows and tin ceilings and are just not found here. Very very nice.
2. Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival
City: Blue Hill, ME
Category: Annual Events & Festivals
Telephone: (207) 374-2811
Address: P.O. Box 648
Description: World-class chamber music in Blue Hill, Maine? Sounds unlikely, but it’s true, thanks to a trip Austrian violinist Frank Kneisel made to the area in the late 19th century. Kneisel was the chair of the Department of Strings at what is now called the Juilliard School and in 1902 began bringing his most gifted students to his summer retreat in Blue Hill every year. The tradition has continued—the Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival is now the oldest chamber music fest in the United States—and each summer, a group of talented young chamber musicians ventures north to live and learn on the shores of Blue Hill Bay. On Friday evenings and Sunday afternoons the school offers performances to the public, and they are some of the finest classical music concerts anyone’s going to see anywhere in Maine.
3. Wescott Forge
City: Blue Hill, ME
Category: Restaurants
Telephone: (207) 374-9909
Address: 66 Main St.
Description: The new go-to place in Blue Hill, Wescott Forge is a big red clapboard on Main with a nice fireplace and it actually served as a forge back in the day. What you’ll find inside now is a menu of worldly flavors, heavy on the seafood, and a fine wine list. This is the first word out of anyone’s mouth locally when you ask for a dinner recommendation, and it’s full of inspired twists like the salads that come in bowls of cucumber and the goat cheese salad, with its fried rice wrapping. Weeknights they serve bistro style, and weekends they offer fine dining. Yummy.
4. Parker Ridge Retirement Community
City: Blue Hill, ME
Category: Retirement
Telephone: (207) 374-2306
Address: 63 Parker Ridge Lane
Description: One of the more gracious of Maine’s retirement centers, Parker Ridge is a large complex on 90 acres overlooking Blue Hill Bay. The cottages are shingle-sided affairs with gables and pillars, and the Parker Inn is a sprawling, cupola-topped structure that has the feel of an old Maine seaside manse about it. Obviously modern, it has a shingle-style air even though its apartments have blocky balconies tacked onto them. There are 34 independent apartments here, along with 24 freestanding cottages and 13 assisted-living units. The latter enjoy three gourmet meals daily, help with laundry and housekeeping, and transportation into town and to Ellsworth. Residents of the two-bedroom cottages have the options of buying 10 or 20 meals a month in the restaurant-style dining room, and they too get help with repairs and maintenance and access to the on-staff nurse. The facilities and services include a library and wellness program and regular exercise and art classes, movies, and billiards contests. The lawns give way to walking trails, and the bay vistas are beautiful. Purchase prices range from $183,000 for a one-bedroom apartment to $265,000 for a two-bedroom deluxe cottage.
5. Blue Hill Antiques
City: Blue Hill, ME
Category: Shopping
Telephone: (207) 374-8825
Address: 8 Water St.
Description: When that pretty old estate in Brooklin goes under this is who they call. Hutches, chairs, sideboards, art, lighting, you’ll find it all here, whether it dates back to 1790 or 1970. The owners spend time cruising the back roads of France looking for antiques and you’ll come across those as well.
6. Blue Hill Community Market And Cafe
City: Blue Hill, ME
Category: Shopping
Telephone: (207) 374-2165
Address: 4 Ellsworth Rd.
Description: The name of this old enterprise is about the best descriptor you’ll find. Like co-ops everywhere, it’s about the people and the place as much as the food. They have plenty of organic, locally produced, specialty, and bulk items (more than 500 of the latter), but you’ll also find a lot of bonhomie to go with your beets, and botanical herbs, blueberry teas, and backwoods beauty aids.
7. North Country Textiles
City: Blue Hill, ME
Category: Shopping
Telephone: (207) 374-2715
Address: Main St.
Description: This Main Street staple has all sorts of gifts—candles, wooden utensils, wind-bells—but it is the textiles that got the place started that are the real attraction. The throws, rugs, baby blankets, and shawls are extraordinary. The folks here have been at their looms since 1976, making most everything themselves but carrying some items made by other area talents. Open all year.
8. Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival
City: Blue Hill, ME
Category: Shopping
Telephone: (207) 374-2811
Address: Pleasant St.
Description: Austrian violinist Franz Kneisel emigrated to the United States in 1885, joining the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He went on to work at the school that would become Juilliard, and he started summering in Maine. In 1902 he began bringing students to Blue Hill to study with him, and thus this, one of the oldest chamber music festivals in the nation, was born. Students still come every summer to work on their chops, and they get to watch faculty and guests put on concerts from late June through mid-August—shows are on Fridays and Sunday afternoons—and present their own recitals on several occasions as well. You might not expect to find world-class string ensembles in Blue Hill, but here they are for everyone to enjoy. Tickets are $10 to $30.
9. Leighton Gallery
City: Blue Hill, ME
Category: Shopping
Telephone: (207) 374-5001
Address: 24 Parker Point Rd.
Description: One of the longest-lived and, frankly, best Maine galleries, this Blue Hill institution was built into an old Maine barn. When she opened up in 1986, proprietor Judith Leighton purposefully set out to make her gallery as comfortable as can be, as opposed to the stiff and stuffy art showrooms you might find in more urban areas, and she left a lot of “barniness” intact when she designed her space. A few years later she built a sculpture-filled garden that alone is worth the trip, showcasing the works of Cabot Lyford, Melita Westerlund, and Elizabeth Ostrander, among others. The lineup and presentation here is first rate.
10. Holt House
City: Blue Hill, ME
Category: Tours & Attractions
Telephone: (207) 326-8250
Address: 3 Water St.
Description: An 1815 Federal-style home, the Holt House was one of the early homes built at the head of Blue Hill Bay. Home of the Blue Hill Historical Society, it has become known for its period stenciling and is furnished with antiques reflecting the town’s history. Note the four chimneys, eight fireplaces, and wide plank flooring. Call for hours.
11. Jonathan Fisher House
City: Blue Hill, ME
Category: Tours & Attractions
Telephone: (207) 374-2459
Address: Route 15
Description: Jonathan Fisher was quite the renaissance man. His motto was “Let every hour be filled to the brim,” and he did his best to achieve it, working as a preacher, carpenter, artist, scientist, surveyor, teacher, and writer. The Calvinist parson was given 300 acres, a barn, $200 annually, and help in building his home when he moved here in the late 18th century, according to a local history. He built his house in 1796 and added to it in 1814, and the addition is what is left standing today. It’s an interesting testament to an interesting fellow, with its built-in Fisher-made grandfather clock in one corner and paintings here and there. It was renovated using the parson’s own detailed notes. Open Thursday through Saturday from 1 to 4 p.m. from July through mid-September.