Where can you find the best beaches in New England? From best surfing to to most scenic, we break down the beaches that are the best in the region.
New England
pond
If we told you that in 1629 this place became the first town in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, would you be able to name it? How about if we said that it was the birthplace of Nathaniel Hawthorne and that he wrote his most famous novel, The Scarlet Letter, here? Still not sure? We could […]
New England
New England Retreats: Seeking the Silence
In the Absence of Words I arrived at Gonzaga: Eastern Point Retreat House in Gloucester, Massachusetts, at low tide and sunset. Behind the large house, a Jesuit-run spiritual center since 1958, kelp beds were aglow with the day’s last light. Inside, the ocean smells gave way to those of dinner: pork, potatoes, and corn on […]
L.L. Bean: 4:48 a.m. It’s nearly 5 a.m. and you’re standing at the gateway to Maine’s North Woods. Well, actually you’re wandering through the hunting and fishing annex of the vast L.L. Bean retail empire in Freeport, joined by bleary-eyed, coffee-fueled hunters who have been driving all night from Connecticut and New York and have […]
One of New England’s best-kept real estate secrets has always been the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont (i.e., the three counties in the state’s northeast corner). For most, the area was always too far, too remote from the world, and, of course, prices reflected that perception. Well, “remote from the world” has become attractive — particularly […]
New Hampshire
Is Squam Lake Still Golden?
Twenty-six years after the film, the image still lingers: Henry Fonda and Kate Hepburn, in the twilight of their lives, come for another glorious summer on Golden Pond. The movie and its 10 Oscar nominations created a valentine to a certain kind of timelessness, and a certain kind of lake. It was based on screenwriter […]
As dawn broke over the lake this morning, your daughter caught her first perch. A few hours later, your son paddled to Loon Island with a new friend while you read several chapters (in one sitting!) of a novel you’d been meaning to start for years. At dusk, after a gourmet lobster bake, you and […]
Gardens
Koi Pond: Home Projects
Project: Indoor-outdoor koi pond When John and Charlotte Pratt relocated to Bethlehem, Connecticut, they transported the koi from their outdoor pond in a horse trough. Charlotte dreamed of having a place in their new house where she could enjoy the fish year-round. She now has a pond in the breakfast nook where she and her […]
$71,000 amount generated by traffic tickets last year in Brighton, Vermont (pop. 1,200). Can you say “speed trap”? 4,180 cows now enrolled in Vermont’s “Cow Power” program, producing enough methane to power 1,229 Vermont homes 250 works of art in the permanent collection of the Museum of Bad Art (MOBA), located in Dedham, MA 216 […]
In this column last February, I recalled my old friend and barber, Bill Austin, telling me a joke I might use in a forthcoming speech I was to make at the local Women’s Club and assuring me that, no, I needn’t worry. It was clean. In fact, he said, it was so clean “you could […]