Maine I Love — Brad Burns

I remember my grandmother telling me that in towns like Friendship, Maine—where I grew up—very few people had the money to paint a house before the war. Many homes wore nothing more than weathered clapboards for siding. If a family couldn’t afford paint, they certainly couldn’t afford landscaping. Most yards held only a few crocuses and daffodils to mark the arrival of spring, and perhaps a stand of lilacs tucked into a corner, left to tend themselves. Yet even without manicured gardens, many of those old houses had a quiet beauty. Their windows and rooflines were trimmed with decorative woodwork—small flourishes carved by carpenters who had learned their craft building boats. They brought a shipwright’s precision to ordinary homes, and time wasn’t quite the scarce commodity it is today. Across Friendship, and in neighboring fishing towns like Bremen and Round Pond, the dominant style was the old Maine farmhouse: steep roofs built to shed heavy snow, and large windows meant to pull in as much daylight as possible before electricity was common. These houses were practical, sturdy, and unpretentious—built for the lives lived inside them. Some midcoast towns still hold onto this architecture, and I still love it. When I see those familiar lines and weathered boards, I know I’m home. Every now and then someone builds a new house in that same traditional style, and I always take notice. There’s something special about carrying a Maine tradition forward.

Brad Burns and his wife, June, raised three children in Falmouth, Maine. He was born in Rockland and raised on Harbor Road in Friendship, Maine. Nearly all the men in his family were lobster fishermen, and the rural, seaside views of midcoast Maine have been dear to him his entire life.