Maine offers low-key retreat for Obama
Source: Agencies |
July 16, 2010, Friday
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Print Edition
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SERVING as a summer retreat for Rockefellers, Vanderbilts and Morgans, this town and the surrounding area have long been known as a place where well-heeled and well-known visitors could beat the heat - and have their privacy respected.
President Barack Obama is the latest influential visitor to flee to Maine in search of a cool ocean breeze. When he arrives today for a three-day visit, he'll be the first sitting president to visit Mount Desert Island since William Howard Taft a century ago.
People in Bar Harbor, a town of 5,000 residents that bustles with tourists in the summer, say they are excited about Obama's visit.
But with the area's history of business barons, political power brokers and famous actors among them for generations, they're used to having the rich and famous in their midst.
People in Maine, they say, aren't likely to get too flustered by the presidential visit.
"There are still famous and wealthy people all over the island, and their privacy is very much respected," said Craig Neff, owner of The Naturalist's Notebook, a shop in Seal Harbor village not far from where lifestyle maven Martha Stewart owns an estate originally built for automobile tycoon Edsel Ford.
"If I were a billionaire, I would certainly appreciate it. It's always been that way."
Beginning in the late 1800s, well-heeled families from New York and elsewhere came to Mount Desert Island, where they built summer homes to escape the city heat.
The 108-280-square-kilometer island, located 3 1/2 hours northeast of Portland, is connected to the mainland by a causeway.
There are four towns on the island - Bar Harbor is the largest - and much of the land is owned by Acadia National Park, established in 1916.
Obama will be the fourth sitting president to visit the island, said Debbie Dyer, curator of the Bar Harbor Historical Society.
President Barack Obama is the latest influential visitor to flee to Maine in search of a cool ocean breeze. When he arrives today for a three-day visit, he'll be the first sitting president to visit Mount Desert Island since William Howard Taft a century ago.
People in Bar Harbor, a town of 5,000 residents that bustles with tourists in the summer, say they are excited about Obama's visit.
But with the area's history of business barons, political power brokers and famous actors among them for generations, they're used to having the rich and famous in their midst.
People in Maine, they say, aren't likely to get too flustered by the presidential visit.
"There are still famous and wealthy people all over the island, and their privacy is very much respected," said Craig Neff, owner of The Naturalist's Notebook, a shop in Seal Harbor village not far from where lifestyle maven Martha Stewart owns an estate originally built for automobile tycoon Edsel Ford.
"If I were a billionaire, I would certainly appreciate it. It's always been that way."
Beginning in the late 1800s, well-heeled families from New York and elsewhere came to Mount Desert Island, where they built summer homes to escape the city heat.
The 108-280-square-kilometer island, located 3 1/2 hours northeast of Portland, is connected to the mainland by a causeway.
There are four towns on the island - Bar Harbor is the largest - and much of the land is owned by Acadia National Park, established in 1916.
Obama will be the fourth sitting president to visit the island, said Debbie Dyer, curator of the Bar Harbor Historical Society.
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