The new-Ingland Galaxy Summer 1972 "Baymeath and the Bar Harbor That Was by C. William Chilman Today's summer visitor to Bar tered bay-and to the east and Harbor (there were 2,500,000 in south, the endless, faceless enormity 1971) sees a small Maine coastal of the Atlantic. town, its narrow streets glutted with Fleetingly, on his way into town traffic, its approaches lined with and perhaps again in the course of motels and overnight cabins, its his visit, he may spy remnants of Bar shops bulging with all manner of Harbor's past-forlorn gateposts tourist lures. The typical visitor and weed-grown driveways leading likely beds down at the Holiday to the scarred ruins of once-great Motel near the center of the village, estates. Or, from a distance, he may dines at Fisherman's Wharf on lob- glimpse a generous, many-veran- ster he himself has selected, and dahed mansion that has been spared explores the 32,000-plus acres of from the wreckers and survived the Acadia National Park through the great fire of 1947. He may even see windows of a two-and-a-half-hour a turreted granite fortress at close narrated bus tour. From the barren hand, alive and flourishing beyond pink granite summit of Cadillac, he its sweep of lawn, blue bay-water not only takes in the seventeen other glinting through the downdroop of heavily glaciated, lesser peaks of its Norway spruces. Mt. Desert Island, but surveys-in But how is the modern visitor to 360-degree panorama-this whole know this other, older Bar Harbor? coastal region. If the day is fine and How can he visualize that golden blue, the Island emerges as a giant period, fifty or more years ago, that among a vast sprinkling of other era of leisured affluence, when this rockbound, spruce-clad islands, and was the northern Newport, a water- assumes its proper context in a maze ing place for the wealthy few and of dark headlands, lonely outreaches internationally illustrious? How can of land, deeply indented fingerings he imagine what it looked like with- of bay and cove, and far blue hills. out automobiles (they weren't To the north and northwest is shel- allowed until 1913), without high- 10 Baymeath from the west side. ways (modern roads to the outside it was for forty-five years the summer world were put through only in the home of the late Mrs. Joseph T. mid-twenties), or for that matter Bowen, Chicago philanthropist, so- without a national park (Acadia's cial welfare pioneer, civic leader, original predecessor, the Sieur de and author. Certainly there were Monts National Monument, was other Bar Harbor estates that could established by President Wilson in have eclipsed Baymeath's thirty-one 1916, before there was a National rooms and ten baths, and its thirty Park Service)? And how can he grasp acres of lawns, gardens both formal the configurations of the scenery, the and naturalized, paths and wood- forests that clothed these glaciated lands. Others may have had ball- hills and valleys, and the man-made rooms, more ornate gateposts, finer landmarks of the town as they were greenhouses, and grander stables before 1947, when a disastrous fire -but not many. Baymeath had a swept a third of Mt. Desert Island? scope of development, a variety of He cannot. For the transformation splendors-especially its gardens of Bar Harbor from the time of the that made it unique. tycoon to the age of the tourist repre- Like most Bar Harbor great sents a revolution in a whole houses, Baymeath was a reflection of national style of life. A gilded era its times-generous, free-wheeling, has passed into limbo, an era whose and good. For this was the age of the latter vestiges literally vanished in empire-builders, when the amassing smoke and ashesremembered only of great fortunes was unhindered by by those old enough to have lived income or excess profits taxes. The through it. times were pre-World War I and "Baymeath," up Frenchman's Bay assuredly pre-Depression. They were from town, was typical of Bar pre-auto and strictly pre-plane. Harbor in the bright noontime of Things moved slowly in this horse- this golden period. Built in 1894-95, drawn era. Time was more plentiful; 11 The Terrace. quality and thoroughness were rev- board melted agreeably into this ered. Whole households, including rough-hewn landscape. All but a fleets of servants, were transported very few (like E. T. Stotesbury's laboriously from Boston, New York, "Wingwood," a palatial, flesh- and Philadelphia; the expectation colored Mount Vernon) had an was that they would stay put for the indigenous, low-keyed dignity, as if entire season, and they did. Wealth they knew they were meant for com- and privilege for the few were taken fort and unwinding. for granted. And those who possessed Such was Baymeath. The ap- them were confident of their class proach from the highway was down and status, safely insulated from the a long avenue of maples, through troubles of the larger, extra-conti- -as the name implies-a gently- nental world, and sure of their own sloping meadow to the shore of enduring permanence. Frenchman's Bay. Beyond granite The "cottages" they built (and all gateposts, past clipped lawns and were called "cottages," whether of dense evergreens, a wide-curving four rooms or forty) were cast in this driveway bore one directly to the mold-confident and free-flowing, portico of this great, white, French with high ceilings, wide porches, colonial house. Seven white col- broad windows and French doors, umns, each the shaft of a massive fir massive mantels and towering chim- or oak, rose here a full two floors. neys. But though they were writ Above them a filigree balustrade, large, they managed to be sump- then a third floor topped by five tall, tuous without being extravagant, black-capped chimneys. It was these spacious without being overdone. one saw first from the other, or bay, Their shingles, granite, and clap- side. Aboard the Rangeley or 12 Norumbega, bearing down the Bay of good housekeeping-overhung from the railroad terminus at Mt. everything. Everything, that is, but Desert Ferry, there far ahead loomed the servants' quarters, which were the chimneys of Baymeath like five barracks-bare and spartan. The lilt upthrust, muscular fingers, strik- of Swedish merriment reverberated ingly white above the bluffs of the along the back hallways and wafted shore, brilliant against the green- out the rear windows. In the kitchen, dark spruces. teakettles keened continually on the Its site above the bay shore was great French range. There was a con- one of the charms of Baymeath. The stant aroma of strong, fresh coffee Bay is not wide here-three or four and of things being cooked with im- miles, perhaps-and from its van- mense quantities of butter. tage atop the ledges of the shoreline, But the gardens of Baymeath the house overlooked Schoodic made it the splendid showplace it Mountain and the Gouldsboro hills was. There were four of these, two to the north, then to the east Bar formal gardens on the bay side, then Island and some of the Porcupines a triangular "splash-of-color" garden -all riding the waves like low green made entirely of yellows, then finally pincushions-then to the southeast a three-acre "cutting" garden where the town and the nearer mountains. prodigious quantities of cut flowers The moods of the Bay were always were raised as well as vegetables, ber- a part of this place. They ranged ries, and fruits. There were also two from beatific, limpid calm to sullen, greenhouses for potted plants, tub- wind-whipped white-caps. Always grown shrubs, vine-ripened toma- there is a murmur of surf-sound toes, and English cucumbers. Then here: a gentle wish-wash in summer numerous cold-frames for vegeta- and sharp, angry cuffings in winter. bles (like parsley) too sensitive for The air, razor-clean, is heavy with outside exposure. salt. Successful gardening here calls for Inside, Baymeath ran to elegant far more than wide knowledge, tech- but restrained comfort-rich mahog- nical skill, and planful forethought. anies, regal wallpapers, heavy dark The outdoor growing season is frames, deep carpets, handsomely excruciatingly brief-three months carved woodwork, and wide fire- at the most. On the one hand it suf- places with gleaming brasses. Each fers from late killing frosts (even room had its own particular feast of measurable snow as late as June water, woodland, and lawn. Always 10th has been recorded). At the the pervasive fragrance of flowers other extreme, late summer hurri- -mixed with floor wax, furniture canes lash their way up the coast and polish, and the sun-fresh cleanness equinoctial gales pound in from the 13 Arthur E. Chilman (r) showing rambler roses he developed to Clarence Dow of the Mt. Desert Nurseries, C. 1924. northeast, flattening many a wan- that kind of theater for him through- ing-though still lovely-garden. out most of the Bowen regime and a Then the soil-stony, thin, and un- portion of those that followed it. He derlain by living rock-requires end- was a perfectionist, a driver, a hard less watering and fertilizing. Add man to work for-the sort who was to this the normal mischief of cut- physically pained when his men worms, red squirrels, moles, crows, showed up for work promptly at 7:30 mold, rabbits, aphids, and flash a.m.; they should arrive at 7:20, he thunderstorms. And finally add the insisted, to get their orders, pick up ten-, twenty-, and thirty-below cold their tools from the tool-house, and of the winters, a cold SO intense that begin at 7:30. none but the hardiest shrubs and One of Chilman's major triumphs perennials can endure it. Even a (everyone called him "Chilman" modest gardening triumph demands except his men, to whom he was the saintly patience, uncommon genius, "boss," or behind his back, "the old and dogged persistence, and has to be man") was a walled garden whose wrenched-not coaxed-into being. planting was pre-planned to provide My father, the late Arthur E. Chil- successive waves of bloom and color man, had all these qualities and from mid June to mid September. In more. An old-time English gardener, a bed that ran around the entire his was the creative expertise that for inside perimeter of this squarish forty-eight years made this an garden, the first wave was of course enclave of surpassing beauty. Every early-season flowers-tulips, jon- genius needs a base of operations quils, hyacinths, forget-me-nots, pan- from which his skill can be brought sies, anemones, and Iceland poppies. to flower, and Baymeath provided As each individual plant ran its 14 The "New" or "Lower" Gar- den at Baymeath, once a grass tennis court; Frenchman's Bay beyond. course or became spent, it was all focusing geometrically on a mar- plucked out and replaced with a sec- ble dolphin fountain in the mid- ond-wave specimen-lavender and dle-were filled wholly with roses. royal purple Canterbury bells, gyp- There were teas, hybrids, and perpet- sophila, mixed peony poppies, lav- uals, again with all the colors coor- ender phlox, heliotrope, pink ver- dinated and times of blooming pre- bena, and tall snapdragons in yel- determined. lows and white. These in turn gave But the real glory of this garden way to shirley poppies, larkspur, was on three of its outer walls, or cornflower, foxglove, snapdragons in actually trellising. For here in mid- reds and pinks, pink phlox, and August the rambler roses formed an swainsona. Finally, in late August, almost total blanket of bloom-a the fourth and last wave was uniform, delicate strawberry sherbet installed-asters, gladiolus, daisies, pink. Overlooking the Bay and dahlias, and still more phlox. Each bathed all year in salt spray and fog, individual plant was selected for its it was as if they took nourishment fullness and vigor of bloom as well as directly from the sea, drank it in by for the compatibility of its color with the barrel, and thrived. For in the those of its neighbors. The overall mists and drizzles of late summer life of the garden thus went on unin- they blossomed exultantly, outdoing terrupted, vibrant and harmonious themselves year by year in new -aided and abetted, of course, by explosions of loveliness. There was a twenty other beds in the center. price for this, of course. Every raw These-some square, some round, November, each flowering spur had separated from one another by to be cut back about six eyes, and the manicured interstices of lawn, and vines separated SO as to take full 15 The Tea House; Frenchman's Bay beyond. advantage of the waning sunlight. into its dust-sheeted winter silence, Then each vine was taken down came the grubby labor of another individually, stripped of its leaves fall-the endless digging, fertilizing, against rot, wrapped in burlap, laid pruning, dismantling, and covering. along the ground, then covered over Bulbs like dahlia, gladiolus, and with soil. The thorns, wicked, pene- begonia, their strength exhausted, trated the toughest gloves. It was a were exhumed and stored in dark chore that meant days of work in bins. Perishable shrubs like boxwood biting wind and one that had to be were carted back to the greenhouses repeated, in reverse, every spring. for hibernation. Leaves were stored My father and his men hated it. But wet to provide leaf-mold for next in the gentle sun-slant of an August spring's seedlings. The twenty beds afternoon, against the emeralds of of roses were emptied and rich, the lawn, the Pullman-green of the rotted manure dug in to a depth of spruces, the total azure of the Bay, two or three feet. The prized Cuth- and in the piercing brilliance of this bert raspberries had all their old northern air, this mean task seemed canes excised and their pliant new eons away, relegated to the sub- ones encased in straw wrappings. basement of conscious recall. For All during the dark, locked-in now the ramblers were absolute per- months of winter the countdown fection, disassociated from winter, proceeded-and on through the above and beyond toil. ice-sheets and downpours of spring. Chilman's preplanning for a Seeds for annuals and vegetables three-month Baymeath season went arrived in a continual freshet from forward like the countdown of a Sutton's of Reading, England. As space mission. The countdown be- they did so, and according to their gan with Mrs. Bowen's departure for place on next summer's timetable Chicago, in mid September. Now, and planting plan, they were sown the great house shuttered and settled in pots and labelled. Then as the 16 Pool designed by Arthur E. Chilman in the "New" or "Lower" garden. seedlings matured-with the help scended, if an early September hur- of controlled heat, sunlight, and ricane knocked the gardens flat, humidity-to the correct degree of no matter. Chilman had better have height and vigor, each tiny plantlet more of his gorgeous monkshood was lifted out individually and trans- and long-stemmed sweet peas some- ferred to its own little hole in the where in reserve. And he'd best be fine, enriched soil of a flat. There it quick about it. The same applied to would burgeon until summoned to vegetables. There had to be a contin- its pre-appointed place outside in uous, season-long outpouring of another summer's color scheme. those for this lively household of The quantities had to be prodi- forty-odd people: Mrs. Bowen, her gious. Mrs. Bowen, a quite knowl- guests of the moment, her adult edgeable amateur gardener herself, "children," sons- and daughters- loved outdoor displays and masses of in-law, grandchildren, governesses color-especially certain ice-blues, and servantsnot to mention visi- particular lavenders, and deep pur- tors, seekers after money, and gar- ples. Moreover, she and her guests den-less acquaintances. made a ritual out of cut flower The end of the countdown-the arrangement, as many as forty-five absolute zero-came when Mrs. creations twice a week during the Bowen, having alighted from her fourteen-week season. Always, one or drawing room on the Bar Harbor another of them did the "master- Express at Ellsworth, drew up before piece" arrangement for the entrance the front portico in the venerable hall. This was a striking creation, Pierce-Arrow. There was a great and usually towering blue delphinium portentous stateliness in this, the liv- at the back and contrasting heights eried chauffeur opening the door, and shades in the foreground. The taking the lap robe, folding it over variety and volume of flowers had his arm, then helping her disembark. to be never-failing. If cutworms de- This was the end-moment of all the 17 weeks and months of planning and delighting her this way. On the wide making ready. For this one point in terrace on the water side of the time, the last leaf and twig had been house, he placed his marvelous picked up, the ultimate blade of cobalt-blue hydrangeas, because he grass put in place. There was a fairy knew she enjoyed showing them off quality to it, like Cinderella's coach there. He never failed to have a pair wheeling up on the stroke of mid- of his chimney campanulas-each night. For Mrs. Bowen was the per- an eight-foot pyramid of lavender sonification of summer. Her arrival blossoms-in the entrance hall when was the magic summons for leaf and she arrived. Perhaps the greatest blossom to burst forth. For as long as pleasure he gave her was the "wild she remained the spell held, smiling garden," a magnificent bed of and flourishing. Only as she pre- annuals roughly forty feet long by pared to leave in September did it twenty wide, in a remote part of the begin to fade and decline; hers was estate beside an abandoned green- the charmed presence, the vital house. This was no ordinary bed. As nutrient. many as eighty varieties of seed were Sometimes Chilman would have a mixed and thickly sown here in late surprise for her, and when he did, May, then allowed to grow as they she-visibly pleased-would go willed. The resulting oriental carpet directly to see it before entering the of bloom was not only total but ran house. Greeting her but never telling the gamut of color from stark white her what it actually was, he merely to deep purple. And each bloom was hinted and let her discover for her- miniaturized-a carnation, for exam- self. One year it was a handsome, ple, would be perfect in every re- stone-rimmed pool he had designed spect, but only a third normal size. as the centerpiece of a garden that Mrs. Bowen probably never realized had once been a grass tennis court. that this bed had to be weeded twice Another year it was an entirely new every summer, by a man lying for garden made wholly of yellows, from hours on a ladder, face down, pull- snapdragons of the palest lemon to ing the weeds one by one. marigolds of the deepest orange, all In a hundred other corners of Bay- of it with a great silver birch as the meath were testaments to Chilman's backdrop and with a tiny brook clat- craftsmanship-amber raspberries tering through its midst. Still like out-size thimbles, rustic bridges, another year it was a woodland path sedate groupings of flowering shrubs, among birches and larch, hugging lawns rolled and trimmed to cut- the very rim of the bluff above the velvet elegance, walls and flights of Bay. Though he would have vehe- steps planted with native flora and mently denied it, Chilman loved fauna, vistas of bay through birches, 18 graceful clumpings of ferns, and writes, "I said 'very well, I will buy spring bulbs sown wild. Woods Lake and start a water com- It was all at its best on what Mrs. pany of my own." She gave the man- Bowen called a "Bar Harbor day": ager twenty-four hours to think it cornflower-blue sky; brilliant sun over. "In less than half a day," she but with a slight cool edge-just goes on, "he sent word [they] would enough for a sweater in the shadow supply us with water." of the spruces; absolutely pellucid Chilman, on the other hand, was air; minimum humidity; puffings the employee, the servitor-craftsman, and heapings of cumulus cloud over bound to the class rigidities of his the far side of the Bay, the water English origins, and therefore defer- limpid and slick as salad oil; the ential to her whims and wants. But kind of a day when whiffs of balsam he too was strong-willed, supremely and the acrid-sweet browning of old sure of his knowledge and skill, inti- ferns assail the nostrils in the heat of mately familiar with the harsh reali- noon, when the only sounds are the ties of this climate, and confident of far-off "putt-putt-a-putt" of a lobster his ability to wrench a response from smack, the sudden irritated scold of a it. In her heart, Mrs. Bowen con- red squirrel, the distant giggle of a ceded all this and greatly admired loon. him. And he knew she did. Respect- They were such a contrast, Mrs. ful of her authority, he was not Bowen and my father. She was the cowed by it. "I told the Madam for tall, patrician executive of this the hundredth time today that we matriarchal household who held simply could not and would not court, made policy, and adminis- grow hollies here-English, Chinese, tered all with a hand whose firmness or American," he would say. "She did not falter and a mind that did turned on her heel and stamped off, not vacillate. Toward all hired help, just furious." Neither ever quite she was generous but scornful. She gave in to the other. could be willful and rather vain-in Together, across the barricade of her memoirs, for instance, she tells of class and social distance, these two the earliest days of Baymeath when, contrived a partnership of accommo- after endless well-drilling, only salt dation that made Baymeath the water came up. The Bar Harbor beautiful place it was-she provid- Water Company had pronounced ing the site, the ongoing where- the estate too far from town to lay withal, and the motivating force, he pipes. She promptly took an option the practical expertise, the driving to buy a small lake a mile or SO away, energy, and that old-time, time- then went back to the Water Com- taking love for work that made even pany. "In my grandest manner," she the lowliest task an exercise in learn- 19 ing and greater proficiency. It was good conversation amid the rattle of the sort of partnership that was pos- teacups on wide, bay-front porches, sible only in a simpler and more of simple pleasures like a morning ordered world, a class-bound world walk up through the mists of New- where the privileged few could live port Mountain, of fineness and qual- in handsome, extravagant ease. ity, of slow-paced, summer-long Their coalition was typical of the enjoyment for the few and unremit- old-the other-Bar Harbor. Their ting hand-toil for the many. Like time was one of carriage horses wisps of bay-fog dissolving before a clip-clopping along leafy lanes, of heightening sun, it has vanished for- steam yachts and flower shows, of ever. C. WILLIAM CHILMAN was born and reared in Bar Harbor, Maine. He was for many years director of the Council of Social Agencies in Syracuse, New York. Now, retired, he lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan. His articles have been published in many national magazines. "Formerly, children learned to play various amusing games, such as "Hot buttered beans," "Blind-man's buff," &c. Now their play is chiefly running and squeeling, and chasing each other about, without any definite object, except that of making a noise. Then, at a juvenile party, the amusement was chiefly in the varieties of these enter- taining games. Now it is dancing-for as many as can find places to dance-and nothing at all for those who cannot, but to grow tired and sleepy. In former times, children's parties commenced at two o'clock in the afternoon in winter, and at four in summer. They played till they were summoned to a large and well-supplied tea-table, and were sent for to come home by eight o'clock, being then quite tired enough to go to bed and sleep soundly, and waken with pleasant recollections of yesterday. If the party was very large, the elder children sat round the room, and tea, &c. was handed to them, while the little ones were accommodated at a table where the hostess presided. The children of that time really enjoyed these parties, and SO would those of the present time, if they could have such. The juvenile-party dress was then but a simple white muslin frock with a ribbon sash. We have since seen little girls at a summer party stedfastly refuse strawberries and cream, in obedience to the interdiction of their mothers; who had enjoined them to do so, lest they should stain or otherwise injure their elegant silk dresses." Eliza Leslie, The Behaviour Book: A Manual for Ladies (Philadelphia, 1854), pp. 289-90. 20