TIMBER POINT, ME—After an absence of too many years, my Good Wife and I have returned here to the coast of Maine, overlooking Curtis Cove, not far south of Biddeford.
This trip is to attend a cousin’s wedding in an historic frame barn with cedar shingle siding, now having been moved to its third iteration next to an 18th-century farmhouse where the family has resided part of each year for almost a century. The Atlantic is pounding on the rocks, producing an iconic sound with each splash, the repetitions of which give forth their own musical composition.
Timber Point is a magnificent spread of land connected by a narrow isthmus to the mainland of Maine, to wax alliteratively, with its own 40-acre rocky island a short distance off the coast. The property was acquired by the renowned architect, Charles Parsons Ewing, in 1929, and shortly thereafter he built a spectacular home farther down the peninsula with a standard variety of service buildings in the yard.
The main house has 14 bedrooms, and all the rooms are paneled in white pine, with the entire complex topped by Vermont slate roofing. The Ewing descendants owned the property until transferring most of it in 2012 to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to become a part of the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge.
Today, the publicly accessible part of the refuge consists of a foot trail from the entrance parallel to the Little River, with an overlook across freshwater wetlands and natural marshes. As the trail winds along, the views become more expansive and ultimately it reaches the rocky shoreline. At that point the river becomes a small inlet, across which lies Goose Rocks Beach, a popular summer retreat. Visitors to the trail need to be mindful that deviating from the prescribed footpath can be deleterious, as the area is replete with voracious poison ivy.
The Maine tides are monumental in scope, but at low tide Timber Island can be reached across the land bridge that emerges. However, if a trailblazer dallies too long on the island and the tide returns, the visit might become more protracted than previously anticipated. The island is one of the few untouched-by-man sites along the Maine coastline. It is as the Atlantic Ocean, with its storms and waves, has left it, with massive rock formations and tenacious vegetation capable of withstanding whatever Mother Nature hurls its way.
After purchasing the property in 1929, Charles Ewing and his wife, Louise, made it their summer home. The house and outbuildings sustained severe damage during the Great Storm of ’87, which pounded the Maine coastline causing extensive flooding and land damage. Down the coast, Walker’s Point, the summer home of the Presidents Bush, also underwent substantial pounding.
All these years later, in the dining room of the Ewing house small shells and pebbles still remain lodged in the crevices of the paneled walls. The sea wall between the house and the Atlantic was breached, and was rebuilt, but this past March another severe storm overcame even the new wall, leaving large stones in the yard.
The house is unoccupied and empty now, however on weekends volunteer tour guides open it for visitors to see the grand style which Charles Ewing bequeathed to those who would come after him. The kitchen is the size of a small bungalow, the billiard room, the size of a large one. In 2016, the house was listed on the National Register of Historic Properties due to its exceptional architectural significance.
Whether one is a tree-hugger or not, an architectural historian or not, a master naturalist or not, Timber Point is memorable for all.
