There is perhaps no idea more romanticized than a cottage by the sea in the summer. So in our June 2006 issue, just as the days grew longer and warmer, we published Marina Rust’s Maine home. Yet it wasn’t just because of its beauty–although, modeled after Mount Vernon and set on an idyllic waterfront expanse on Penobscot Bay, it’s the sort of setting that inspires best-selling romance novels—but because of the story behind it: Bird Cottage, as its called, has been presided over by Rust family women for five generations, starting with Marina’s great-great-grandmother. “My husband calls the island a matriarchy. It has known its share of strong women, many of whom still make their presences felt,” Rust writes. “I feel less its owner than its curator.” Indeed, on the wall are oil paintings of all the matrilineal stewards that came before her. She knows that her own will hang beside them one day, but until then, she’s replacing peeling wallpaper, cleaning gutters, and wondering if there’s a ghost in the attic.
Go inside Marina Rust’s historic Maine home—published for the first time online. |
