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Guests may also arrange horseback riding lessons while
the nearby camp is in session, during the campers’ rest
period in the afternoon, or waterskiing lessons. They can
rent sea kayaks and paddle in Eggemoggin Reach, en-
countering osprey and eagles, and admire the Deer Isle
Bridge towering overhead. Or they can rent bicycles to
tour the hilly coastal roads and blueberry fields. They can
hike up the manicured Maine Heritage Trust trail to Look-
out Rock, and look out on Pumpkin Island.
A shore side lobster dinner is available by appointment to
visitors and guests. The lobsters are held in a pound in
the sea water at the wharf. The beauty of this setting and
the surrounding landscape holds any visitor’s gaze. Look
up from a freshly cooked lobster by the shore and admire
the shimmering ocean water, smell the sea air, and the
spruce woods. Experience the delight of the generations
of travelers before you, the sense of escape, and reprieve
that is the source of so much of Maine’s power to charm.
Oakland House was previously owned by Rick’s cousins Jim and Sally Littlefield from 1975 to 2010, and by Sally, on her own after
Jim’s death, until January 2019. They also provided elegant, traditional hospitality. Then, as now, the cabins are stocked with dry
wood to burn in the fireplace. Some families return year after year.
“We are trying to restore it to its former glory,” Robin said, proud of
landscapers and a gardener slowly replanting gardens. Herbs are
grown for the kitchen, but a vegetable and cutting garden is a project
still in the future. The season runs from Memorial Day weekend to
around Columbus Day, with Acorn House closing a week earlier –
since it isn’t as well insulated as the inn.
The dining room in the inn opened last summer after being closed
for 10 years. In the capable hands of chef Shawn McBride, a chef
from Philadelphia, who Robin calls a genius with fish, the dining
room serves breakfast, Sunday brunch, and dinner. “We opened the
doors and – we had no idea how successful we would be.”
The Littlefield’s four daughters are in “Chapter 1” of their lives. Rick and Robin Littlefield have tried not to interfere with those plans,
but consider it possible that one of them might consider Oakland House for Chapter 2, and keep this in the family for another genera-
tion, once again.
Photos:
Top: Lobster continues
to be a favorite dish of visitors
to Maine.
Inset: The Inn’s porch dining
room typically serves six days
a week.
Upper right: lobster cook-outs on
Eggemoggin Reach beach are a-
vailable upon request.
Right: The Barnacle, the inn’s
multi-service barn, hosts weddings
and special events.
Below: The dining room overlooks
the Oakland House gardens.
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