During my one season as an innkeeper of the Chebeague Orchard Inn Bed and Breakfast, I never quite got used to the whole waking up at 6 a.m. thing.
I ran out of eggs more than I would like to admit, sending my partner J Holt to raid his parents’ henhouse, “the girls” squawking and pecking as he grabbed the warm eggs then rushed home crack bright yellow yolks into pesto mushroom omelets. This penchant for rising late and the occasional lack of inventory control is not why we closed our doors indefinitely November 1, because we loved our time running the inn.
A combination of factors that almost every island business has to contend with influenced our bittersweet decision, including the high cost of living, inflated real estate values, a short tourist season, and code regulations that may not be applicable or financially possible for businesses on an island with a small population to implement,
Snow covered the meadow across the road and the pitched roof of the Orchard Inn when J and I re-started the business last winter and settled into our new home. The wood stove devoured logs late into spring as we decorated the house with rhododendrons and the lawn took on a life of its own. June refused to let go of spring showers, but our guests who braved the bad weather stayed cozy and content by the fireplace. Reservations and the island population blossomed with the summer hydrangeas and a salty breeze ruffled every curtain during humid August afternoons. The house was teeming with guests relaying adventures of biking around the island, searches for sea glass and refreshing dips in the bay.
Music filled the house: a West-coast songstress weaved tunes into a wine-filled evening; a Dutch jazz star planted himself at the piano for hours on end producing heavenly reverberations; violinists from a visiting chamber group expertly drew bows over bridged strings, muffled by closed doors in an attempt “not to bother.” Love was also a theme: one young couple got engaged over pizza from Calder’s Clam Shack, another was married by J in a private waterside ceremony on a windy September afternoon followed by a locally-harvested steak, lobster, and vegetable dinner and blueberry cake for their first post-nuptial meal.
We had our share of startling moments, too. A steamy shower tripped the fire alarm, summoning the volunteer fire department in full regalia to our door in five minutes flat. Other than being impressed with the reaction time, we were barely able to contain our embarrassment as our friends and neighbors in fire retardant coats yawned and paced on our front lawn at 7 a.m. waiting for the complete inspection of the premises to finish.
Another time an unwelcome friend visited with guests. Settling into the couch, a guest was soon distracted by a clicking sound to her right. Much to her credit she didn’t scream when she turned to face the baby bat next to her head but came to alert me. We placed him on a table outside where he flitted off when no one was looking. Later we found out from one of the violinists that he had danced around the bedroom the night before, waving towels and pillows trying to encourage the bat out the window but finally gave up and chased it into the hallway, quickly shutting his door before going back to bed!
Forgotten eggs and baby bats aside, the most interesting part of a running our bed and breakfast was the people we met. We chatted with medical students and documentary filmmakers and international diplomats and brilliant two-year-olds with raspberry-stained hands. Three generations of descendents of a past owner relived family history as they roamed through the halls and slept in their old bedrooms. And finally, a few guests startled me with opinionated political views at early hours of the morning. A lack of caffeine and a need to concentrate on scrambled eggs (not to mention that whole hospitality thing) usually prevented me from responding in the snappy way in which I would have wished, but after my shock dissipated I was thankful for their opinions. I just wish the debates came later in the day.
Now the crows are on the back lawn picking through the orchard’s fallen apples nestled among a thick carpet of yellow and orange leaves. Smoke from our wood stove curls into the late autumn sky and I stare down past the meadow at the steely grey water of Casco Bay. I am packing soft white bed linens and delicate teacups and my sturdy mixer that swirled the molasses and oats into loafs of fresh bread.
During the past three centuries of recorded island history, hotels, stores, farms, a bowling alley, canneries, military installments, gift shops and restaurants have been built and dismantled. And now the Chebeague Orchard Inn has once again been added to the list of businesses come and gone. But island populations and economies are always shifting and changing.
Chebeague Island was home to about 600 people at its peak in the late 1800s, according to local historian Donna Damon. The general store was stocked with everything from burlap sacks full of seeds to fishing line to cotton fabric for clothing and had the largest diversity of items in any store north of Boston. As family land was divided and doled out over several generations, young folks in the early 20th century left to find their livelihoods elsewhere. The population leveled off around 350 during the Depression and has stayed fairly consistent through the present, the most dramatic dip in the 1980s when the numbers plummeted into the 200s. But the 1990s brought families to fill empty houses and children to fill the school. There is only one farm now and the dozens of boarding houses from the early 20th century are gone, but many businesses still thrive. The Island Market no longer carries calico or oat seed, but the Whoopie pies and hot coffee (along with a variety of groceries) help sustain an island population made up of lobstermen, electricians, plumbers, gift shop owners, housekeepers, mechanics, ferry crew, nurses, teachers, and dozens of other professionals working on-island or commuting,
If you want to live on an island, you don’t have all the freedom to choose a profession that you may have on the mainland. A job often chooses you. As we wait for the snow to cover the meadow and move our teacups and linens out of the inn, we wonder how we will next weave our talents and livelihoods into the ever changing and evolving fabric of Chebeague Island.