Mansions and Mobile Homes: the Fate of Our Communities?

The Pell, or Newport, Bridge under construction
in 1968 with aircraft carrier U.S.S. Wasp
passing beneath.

The Claiborne Pell Bridge, named for the Senator who founded Pell grants to make college affordable for more students and rising above the mouth of might Narragansett Bay, opened in 1969.

It is by far the tallest bridge in southern New England and by the time I got my driver's license a mere 44 miles away in 1977 the bridge represented a big temptation for thrilling teenage escape.

In the summer twilight of late evenings, we'd cruise Route 1 in our rattletrap pickups and motorcycles and Beetles through the gathering fog past the broad ocean beaches we loved: Misquamicut, Quonnie, Matunuk. Poetic remnants of the indigenous past slaughtered and chased from ancestral fishing grounds, about which we learned nothing in our local schools.

Up into the sky we would soar across the bridge, having saved our pennies to pay the toll.

On the other side, we imagined ourselves to be in a Planet of the Apes where we wandered freely what is now the Cliff Walk and across the grounds of the famed but then-abandoned and deteriorating Newport mansions, "summer cottages"of the robber barons. Many of the mansions were demolished in the 1960's and 1970's due to the combination of declining fortunes and high maintenance costs.

The 70-room Breakers mansion of Cornelius Vanderbilt.

Our personal favorite was The Breakers, built by a grandson of railroad magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt in the late 19th century. I have ghostly memories of peering in the windows at the black and white checked entry floors, smoking weed on an embattled veranda.

Newport is a grander version of Maine's Bar Harbor, also a site of gigantic "summer cottages" built by and for wealthy summer residents. Unlike Bar Harbor, Newport, founded in 1639, was at one time one of the most important port cities in North America through the 1700's, trading in whale oil, rum, and yes -- enslaved persons. With the decline of this commerce during the Revolutionary War, Newport -- also a site for religious freedom, home to one of the first synagogues in North America -- became a fashionable summer resort.

The transitions of communities to summer resorts when commerce fades -- from money-making machines to playgrounds for the wealthy, with the majority of United States' workers in service to one or the other -- has been or is becoming the fate of many U.S. communities. It is painful to observe and even more so to experience.

So many have so much, and so many more have so little.

The U.S. has been great at the creation of wealth but far less than great in the equity of its distribution, a trend continuing all-too-obviously today.

From the very beginning, during which southern planters enslaved and traded in human beings to create wealth from the land they stole from the continent's indigenous peoples, North American colonists have been on a quest for wealth. The "Christian nationalism" we are again experiencing is built into the foundation of this nation, on Calvinist doctrines in which wealth accumulation is seen as both a spiritual duty and sign of god's favor, i.e., a "prosperity gospel."

Meanwhile, nearly 8% of all housing units in Maine are mobile homes -- many of them representing "substandard" housing in terms of warmth, utilities, etc. Many times, these units are the only housing full-time workers can afford. For instance, my brother, who holds a commercial drivers license (CDL) and drives full time, lives in a trailer circa 1980's in a 150-unit "land lease" mobile home park developed in 1960. The unit is extremely difficult and expensive to heat -- and a stable, wonderful neighborhood. We were lucky to get him in there.

We can witness and understand this nation's patterns of inequity in the histories and lives all around us.

We only have to want to understand, and then to act.

What is Rural Resilience, and How Do We Strengthen It?

We’re hearing the word “resilience” tossed around a lot these days, especially since the storms of December 2023 - January 2024. These unprecedented storms brought unexpected southeasterly gales, ocean surges, flooding and heavy damages to Maine’s coastal and inland communities from which many are still recovering.

“Resilience” is the ability of individuals and communities to withstand and/or to recover from challenges both expected and unexpected.

Resilience is a kind of combination of toughness and flexibility. Like nylon fabric or line (or Play-Doh!): can we be stretched, return to our original shape, and last a long time?! Like a rubber ball, do we have the ability to “bounce back” after a natural disaster or economic downturn, or to continue to thrive in the face of ongoing economic pressures?

We know Stonington is tough. A community such as ours, the fabric of which is based on an island isolated from mainland resources and on the difficult manual labor of granite quarrying, construction trades, fishing, and shellfish harvesting, one that has survived as long as the nation itself, is resilient by definition.

An important tool for sustaining this resilience is our shared ability to look to the future, envision the challenges that are coming at us, and plan for how we will address these.

Emergency planning for public safety is a great example of building resilience. What is our plan if a storm cuts us off from the mainland not for a few hours, but for a few weeks? You may have a plan for yourself or your family, but what is the plan for the community, and especially for those most vulnerable amongst us?

As demonstrated by the recent Governor’s Commission on Infrastructure Rebuilding and Resilience which I was honored to co-chair, we can plan for the resilience of our essential infrastructure as well. How do we rebuild our working waterfront to withstand sea level rise and southeastern storms? What improvements do we make to expand and/or to protect our drinking water and waste water treatment systems?

The Gulf of Maine is one of the fastest warming bodies of water in the world. This is already causing changes to what we catch and harvest here. How do we as a community, with generations of deeply invested fishing families, plan and  prepare for these changes? How do we hold onto our access to the rich ocean resource? Stonington’s working waterfront, across three harbors, is larger than any other north of Portland. We’ve built and maintained this access through long time policies and continued investments.

What about the two pillars of social resilience: education and housing? Are we actively coming together to identify, FUND, and take action on the changes we need to reverse the demographic trends making Stonington one of the oldest towns in the state of Maine? To make our schools more competitive, and retain and to attract working age families for our schools and businesses? What plans do we need to address the development pressures that have us at a tipping point of being a year-round vs. seasonal community? 

The Town of Stonington has a lot in the works in the struggle to sustain our year-round fishing community. We urge you to join us on August 11 at our Resilience Roundtable to learn and offer thoughts and solutions to strengthen our island’s historic resilience to face new challenges. The future is in your hands. Watch for details.

Contact the Town of Stonington at any time, via email at econdev@stoningtonmaine.org; by stopping by the Town office; or by calling 207-367-2351.