Locally, we have vibrant landmarks, such as this structure, and dying landmarks that we’ll call sadmarks.
Here you see the BarnCastle Inn and Restaurant in Blue Hill, a distinctive example of Shingle Style architecture that was built in the late 19th Century up and around an original 1830s Cape Cod house. I hear that its popular restaurant is going to transition from Alsatian to Italian Cuisine this winter.
As for sadmarks, below you’ll see a virtually abandoned New England Connected Farmstead in Brooklin. It reportedly was built by Erastus Candage for his wife Mattie, likely in the late 1800s or early 1900s. It eventually housed a post office and became a focal point for community life and a subject for E.B. White to write about when he lived nearby.
(Images taken in Blue Hill and Brooklin, Maine, on January 6 and 3, 2026, respectively.)