Harborside on Main is a lovingly restored, traditional coastal New Englander cottage located on the hillside above beautiful Southwest Harbor. Just steps outside the maritime village of SW Harbor with Acadia National Park’s Quietside trail system as your backyard, a short walk to all village amenities: the town dock, local bars, restaurants with live outdoor music overlooking the marina, a private charter on a wooden Friendship sloop, and the beautiful hiking trails of Acadia. DOG FRIENDLY!!! New for 2023: WATERFRONT ACCESS just across the street, including the gazebo, fire pit, and Adirondack chairs, dock, and beachfront! It’s a fantastic place to walk the dog, sit by the fire, and have a waterfront dinner under shelter. You can also arrange a private water taxi to pick you up on the dock, and head out to Isleford Dock Restaurant on Little Cranberry Island. To access, you’ll walk across just across the street to the right and look for the Gazebo Trail on your shoreside left. It’s a beautiful spot and I’m super excited to offer it to my guests! Enjoy! 😊 ******************************************* About our vintage home: At Harborside on Main, we have retained the original antique character of this amazing space—complete with hundred-year-old wide board pine floors, original wooden double-hung windows, and a massive deck with Adirondack chairs and picnic tables overlooking Southwest Harbor across Main Street. Our efforts to preserve the historic character of this part of Mount Desert Island means you are staying in a vintage structure that has been lived and loved by generations before you—and we have endeavored to retain all of the antique charm that comes with that history while making all possible upgrades for comfort and convenience. Our home is newly furnished as to all upholstery and bedding and decorated with original family heirlooms and antiques throughout. We have installed brand-new stainless and vintage-retro appliances throughout in keeping with the antique aesthetic. ********************************************* Your host Kristen has been successfully hosting and guiding vacationers in unique Maine experiences since she began her professional life as a Registered Maine Guide leading overnight sea kayak trips to offshore islands. Before restoring houses, she restored antique wooden Maine Friendship sloops for charter tours on the island. We have since refocused those efforts toward saving these historic Mount Desert Island cottages (that would otherwise be torn down and/or gutted, stripping them of their historic charm). We have preserved this home’s original character so that we can be part of the preservation effort, but also because we truly enjoy offering our guests the unique experience of staying in an original, antique Maine island cottage. Our restored cottages are the types of homes we seek out ourselves in our own travels around the world. We hope you enjoy her as much as we enjoyed restoring her. MUST READ ANTIQUE HOME DETAILS BEFORE BOOKING: This is an antique home on the coast of Maine. It is an antique on purpose, not by accident. So while we jus put her through a four month renovation, this is a full custom restoration effort—not a Home Depot special. We retained this vintage character, again, on purpose—because many people come to Maine seeking an experience that melds the beautiful coastal outdoors with our unique maritime history, New England architecture, and authentic vintage appeal. We restored this home with these guests in mind. Over a century ago, this house wasn’t built to look like any other house on the street, it was proudly custom-built by Maine craftsmen. Architecturally, the home is considered a classic New Englander construction—similar to the one next door, and others along the Maine coast. It was, however, built slightly differently than the one next door in the sense that it started its life as a sturdily-built sea-captain's house, built with a granite foundation and dressed up with decorative cornice brackets under the eves that resemble waves in color and shape…while the neighbors house was built with more of a pointed gingerbread trim. These subtle differences show off the hand-made character of this antique home even before you step inside. Once inside you’ll notice that the walls of this house are original restored plaster and lathe, so they are NOT perfectly square. They are not perfectly square, because they are not modern drywall. The walls were laid by hand over a hundred years ago. We restored the original plaster finish and gave everything 3-5 coats of fresh paint in neutral, historic, fresh Benjamin Moore color. To that end, we didn’t rip out the eight-inch baseboard with crown molding—we sanded and repainted it because it adds to the home’s unique character. Same with the decorative window trim that graces the beautiful original antique windows. The windows are original leaded glass, five feet tall by three feet wide. They seem to stretch from the floor to the ceiling, and they let in incredible amounts of light. We had custom-built screens made for them so you can open them to let in the sea breeze. All of the windows work—but they are all original. They are original on purpose because they just don’t make them like this anymore. Harborside’s floors are original hand-milled pine, locally known as wide-board pine and sometimes King Pine, or Pumpkin Pine. These floors are a treasured characteristic of antique Maine homes. When restoring them, we stripped them down of several layers of vinyl and carpet and paint to bring them back to that original condition, and then, in keeping with Maine tradition, we refinished the floors in traditional Tung oil. These are not glossy pre-fab plastic or vinyl floors. They are 100% Maine pine and thus imperfect after being in use for over a century. The gaps that you may see between the boards are due to the fact that when these floors were built, they were meant to expand and contract with extremes of coastal Maine weather, and they still do—125 years later. We hope you enjoy our home for the coastal Maine antique it is meant to be. If you are looking for a dog-friendly, traditionally restored, vintage coastal cottage on the coast of beautiful Acadia National Park, within walking distance to everything, please don’t hesitate to book! If you are looking for an off-the-shelf cookie-cutter style accommodation, our home may not be the right fit. If in doubt or you have questions, please ask before booking. Thank you. As remote-career WFH collaborators ourselves, we have set up Harborside on Main with everything you need to work when you need to. We have the fastest (450+mbps download) Ultra WiFi available available to allow our guests to experience Acadia while staying connected. Our proprietor works remotely and has tested this connection on a daily basis with clients all over the country on every type of collaboration software available from Slack white boarding, Zoom, Teams, GoTo Meeting and the like. We also provide a dedicated workspace with iMac for our guests in the event you don’t feel like unpacking your own device. Always available by text or call. We live in the neighborhood. Waterfront bars and restaurants, locally-caught (from the dock in front of the restaurant!) lobster, in-town wood fired pizza oven with outdoor patio, ferry to the Cranberry Islands, town dock and marina with boat trips and traditional Friendship sloop sailing charters, Acadia National Park hiking trails. At Harborside on Main, you can truly leave the car behind. Walk just a few steps to one of the harbor’s most popular overlooks and just around the corner to the town ferry heading to the famous Isleford Dock restaurant and gallery and the Cranberry Islands. Walk to all Southwest Harbor village amenities including waterfront restaurants, local coffee shops, kayak tours, bike rentals, and boat charters, village drugstore, gift shops, post office, and our local hardware store. From your car or bike, head out the front door and take Route 102A past Peter Trout’s outdoor restaurant, Hinckley Yacht Services, Charlotte’s Legendary Lobsterpound, world-renowned Seawall, and beautiful Quietside Acadia Wonderland & Ship’s Harbor hiking trails. If you’re venturing over to Bar Harbor, you can take the Island Explorer to the town of Bar Harbor, all harbor attractions, and all Acadia trailheads and carriage roads--just steps away and right outside our door on Main Street! Check the schedule out at exploreacadia dot com Local taxis are available on the Quietside, and you can rent a car right at the Bar Harbor and Bangor airports if you are flying in. Please note, at Harborside on Main, we have retained the original antique character of this amazing space—complete with hundred-year-old wide board pine floors, original wooden double hung windows, and a massive deck with Adirondack chairs and picnic table overlooking SW Harbor across Main Street. Our efforts to preserve the historic character of this part of Mount Desert Island means you are staying in a vintage structure that has been lived and loved by generations before you—and we have endeavored to retain all of the antique charm that comes with that history while making all possible upgrades for comfort and convenience.. Harborside on Main is the perfect blend of traditional and modern complete with local family antiques and heirlooms, village amenities, and access to the Southwest Harbor and Manset waterfronts with Acadia National Park in your backyard.