It’s rare to see a driveway gate around here. It’s even rarer to see two driveway gates within about a mile of each other on the same road, as you’ll see posing here during a recent snow flurry. They’re certainly fun to see, but I wonder what their owners are trying to say with them.
The above metal tubular gate looks to me like a cow pasture dual swing gate and fence – except it’s powder blue and almost always open and the fence doesn’t fence in anything. The metal dual swing gate ibelow looks to me like an elegant Los Angelas estate gate.
The principal purpose of these driveway barriers doesn’t seem to be privacy. The respective properties are not fenced-in; they can be entered easily by walkers and, when the gates are opened, could be entered by an unimpeded Putin tank convoy. At least one of the properties also is accessible by water.
When closed and locked, of course, either gate would provide security against vehicular traffic for those who detest Amazon deliveries and the like. But two wooden posts and a locked chain would be all you’d need for that, and it wouldn’t be unusual here. Maybe the primary value of these is what real estate agents call “curb appeal.” But wait – there are no curbs in their neighborhood.
(Images taken in Blue Hill, Maine, on January 6, 2026.)