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HOW A SINGLE IDEA IN DECORATION AND ATMOSPHERE WAS 
SUCCESSFULLY CARRIED OUT IN BUILDING A HOUSE BY THE SEA 
by Isabel Gordon Curtis 
(Author of "The Congresswoman”) 
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Photographs by the Author 
440 HALL it be Maine or Mary- 
land ?” 
I glanced from the window of a 
Washington apartment house. The city, 
a languorous blotch of red, white, gray 
and green, lay in a dazzle of sunlight so 
intense that the air seemed to shimmer. 
Beyond stretched a blue outline of the 
Maryland hills. They looked as hot as 
the city. 
“Maine,” I answered instantly. 
So we came to Maine. Since the snow 
melted we had been studying summer 
resort literature. We are a nomadic 
family, and until we discovered the 
Penguin had never found a satisfactory 
place to cottage. 
With bated breath, travelers tell of 
the first glimpse of Venice. While we 
threaded our way out from Portland’s 
harbor I wondered why Americans do 
not speak almost reverentially of the first 
glimpse of Maine. It was early in the 
morning when we sailed away from 
Portland, and a fog which was pierced 
by the sun later in the day closed over 
the green shores like a thin, gray veil. 
Long before noon the sky cleared and 
the shores stood out sharply like a pano¬ 
ramic silhouette; a medley of splendid 
greens and lichen gray against a daz¬ 
zling blue sky. 
Perhaps nowhere in the world is there such a coast as Maine. 
Forests of pine and clumps of spruce creep close to the edge of 
the salt water. Its bouldered shores are 
stained tawny with seaweed or dyed dull 
red brown as far as the tide reaches. 
While we skirted the vast loneliness of 
mainland and a thousand islands, it 
seemed as if there was space enough here 
to summer the entire population of 
America. The world differs in its choice 
of a holiday resort; but who, after see¬ 
ing Maine, would cast in his lot with the 
fashionable, perspiring crowd on Atlan¬ 
tic City’s boardwalk, with Coney Island 
throngs or vacation in the congested 
shack cities of Jersey or Long Island 
shore? People who love Land’s End 
have nothing in common with these who 
delight in a rabbled bathing beach. They 
see no beauty in an untrodden wilderness 
and its miles of lonely shore front. For 
those who do love it, the grass is greener, 
the skies are bluer, the pines are more 
fragrant, and the ocean is more opales¬ 
cent than anywhere else in America; I 
had almost said—in the world. 
We sailed for half a day to reach 
Land’s End, the enchanted country 
where the Penguin awaited us. It was 
a journey never to be forgotten. The 
boat moved swiftly over a sea tranquil 
as an old, steely mirror, which gave back 
a blurred reflection. Gulls with their 
harsh, creaking voices, screamed above 
our heads, and all the way north we skirted the loom of the land. 
Occasionally the steamer with a warning whistle poked its way 
The Penguin himself greets you as you pass — a stately 
bird perched upon a jutting shelf in the lichened field- 
stone chimney 
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