We are Mary Ellen & Ron and will be available should you need us during your stay. We live at our Shop/Studio which is situated diagonally up the hill and across the street from Seanook and next door to Paradise Cottage. We will greet you on arrival, and try to answer any questions you may have about the house and the area. You will have our phone numbers, should you need anything while you are here, or you can come find us at our Studio. In summer we may use the float occasionally. Other than that, we will leave you to enjoy on your own, except that Ron will be down on the dock in the evening to take photos of the sunsets, his special passion.
Ron grew up in New Jersey. He spent time in the Marines in Japan and Korea and then worked in advertising in New York City building display models for big advertisers. Ron observed people older than himself who had been in advertising most of their lives and decided that was not where he wanted to be at their age; he brought his family camping to Maine and never left.
Ron was raised in a family of constant do-it-yourself construction projects. Every time they went to visit someone, there would be a house to build or a stone wall to complete. Also as an advertising model-maker, he worked in multiple mediums. He eventually built his own display advertising business in Maine.
Mary Ellen grew up in Massachusetts, spending 3 months every summer right here. After college, she lived in Fritwell near Upper Heyford, England for four years where she took oil painting lessons from Mr. E. J. Willey. Meanwhile, Mary Ellen’s parents moved to Greeley, Colorado and she followed and raised her family there.
Mary Ellen was always involved in some creative project, mostly sewing. By the time she was 10, she was making her own clothes. In Colorado she had her own sewing business so as to be at home with her young family. She handled all kinds of alterations, but also custom-designed many wedding dresses, etc.
After her father died in 1997, Mary Ellen bought her siblings shares of the East Boothbay property and commenced renovations to winterize the two cottages. In March of 1999, Mary Ellen arrived at Paradise Cottage for good to find Ron working for her contractor on Seanook.
Since then we have done all the renovations ourselves. Mary Ellen moved her sewing business to Boothbay initially, and Ron continued to do outside carpentry for several years.
By the summer of 2000, we were creating a scale model of our future shop/studio building on the dining room table at Paradise Cottage and had the roof on by snow-fly. For twenty years now we have been happy doing most of the work around the property ourselves out of our shop. A neighbor says of the two of us, “To you the whole world is just malleable!” since between us we can usually figure out how to accomplish about anything in a creative way.
Mary Ellen spends many hours tending the gardens and balances that in winter with projects on the properties, as there is always plenty to keep us both busy.
We pride ourselves on our business model being happy customers. Our passion is to always be making your vacation more comfortable and enjoyable.
