Beech Nut house

When we first came to the midcoast and would take the girls to Chickawaukee Lake for a swim, we saw what looked like an abandoned house on the top of a bare hill a few miles to the north. It was immediately dubbed the "California house" as if that state doesn't have a tree to its name. Over the years we made one or two half-hearted attempts to find a road or a trail to the house and at last, just a couple of years ago, stumbled on the Beech Hill Preserve on one of our many drives through the lovely Camden Hills. California had been discovered.

Thanks to the Coastal Mountains Land Trust, nearly 300 acres of blueberry barrens (organically farmed), open fields, and woods are preserved, topped by a house and a view that defy description. Suffice it to say that the house has been beautifully restored since we first saw it, and the blueberries are delicious, and the vista incomparable.

http://www.coastalmountains.org/conserved_lands/preserves/beech_hill.html

The Camden Hills don't quite have the cachet and the spectacle of, say, Marin County. Last I looked we don't have any sea lions, 10-foot surf, or redwoods. The drama is reduced a notch or two, Camden is a pale imitation of Tiverton and Mill Valley (thank God), and the word lifestyle was not invented here. California is a great place to visit; midcoast Maine is a great place to live.