The late Manley Reed always maintained that the Andrews cottage was the oldest summer cottage on McKown Point. He also said that it had originally been built on the Back Cove (across the road and facing out toward what is now the Boothbay Harbor Yacht Club) and had been moved across the peninsula to its present location facing south toward Mouse Island. Although a trip to the Lincoln County Registry of Deeds did not confirm this tale, we did learn that in the 1860s Dennis McKown owned a large swath of land that had waterfront on both sides of McKown Point and included our property. From the 1880s to the 1920s the Big Cottage was known as the Metcalf Cottage. For the next twenty years it belonged to Captain E.E. Hahn, first superintendent of the Lobster Hatchery built at the end of McKown Point in 1903.

In 1944 our maternal grandparents bought the cottage. Dark and dreary, the front ‘yard’ was totally overrun by trees and bushes. Throughout the summers of 1945 and 1946, our father and grandfather toiled to open up the view.

The Big Cottage remains virtually unchanged since our grandparents converted a wrap-around porch into an expanded living room, a 5th bedroom and a 2nd bathroom, and also transformed a dormitory-style room on the 2nd floor into two bedrooms. Although we have recently replaced all of the old, sunken beds, and our mother Lib had previously added an enamel sink, a dishwasher, and cable TV (to watch her beloved Red Sox), the furnishings remain eclectic and simple. The pine-paneled living room has a fieldstone fireplace. The piece de resistance is the picture window views of five of the islands of Boothbay—from southeast to southwest: Squirrel, Mouse, The Cuckolds, Capitol, and Southport. Outside the cottage, a large lawn—which acts as a playing field for frisbee, whiffle ball, bocce ball, and croquet—slopes down to the beach. Because the cove faces south and is located four miles from the open ocean behind many sheltering islands, the cold Maine water heats up nicely over the summer and makes for good swimming.

Five generations of the Andrews family have been summering on Juniper and McKown Point since 1911. In that year, our father John with his family, including parents, maiden aunt, and two other siblings, traveled by steamer from Boston to a rented cottage on Juniper Point Road (two cottages past “Juniper Lodge” just down the road from us). John was 4 years old. In the summer of 1913, our Andrews grandparents were actively involved in forming the JPVIS (Juniper-McKown Point Village Improvement Society). As a young man, John kept in touch with Manley and Mildred Reed and visited for a week or two when he could. Then, from 1945 on, because he was a professor and with thanks again to our maternal grandparents who bought this property, our family spent the entire summer at this cottage. After John’s death in 1985, Lib began to spend summers in the Little Cottage while renting the Big Cottage to extended family, and several years prior to her death in 2000 we started to rent beyond the family.

To this day, the cottages continue to serve as a meaningful gathering place for all who are lucky enough to spend time here. It delights us when repeat renters come to consider the Big or Little Cottage their own for a time each summer.