We’re watching this connected farmhouse on Bay Road die a little bit each day. She seemingly is straining to maintain some of the dignity that she had when a large family and a cow, horse, and chickens called her home.
At one time, this house also acted as an important local Post Office. Now she’s a place visited mostly by seagulls that befoul her roof.
She’s a symbol of the times: small farms declining fast, Maine land values increasing exponentially, insurers refusing to insure old houses without extraordinarily expensive safety renovations, mortgage institutions refusing to fund houses that don’t have adequate insurance, and many older owners not having the heart or money to tear down their former homes.
There is a movement here in Maine to use land trusts to try to conserve some of these farmhouses by subsidizing organic and other small farmers to inhabit them, but it may be too little too late. The inhabitants of reconstructed connected barns now often are not milking cows; they’re fancy cars.
(Brooklin, Maine; images here taken March 1, 2020)