After strong summer, Castine sees another shift in business operations

On a rainy fall day, as you enter Castine, it feels like you have walked onto the set of a Hallmark movie.

Castine, a coastal town in Hancock County, is picturesque, and its residents say it has remained so for centuries. The town is steeped in history that predates the American Revolution and is considered one of the oldest towns in New England, fought over by the French, the English and the Americans.

Even though I have written about Castine before, this was my first time visiting the town.

As I set out on my day trip around the town, I took in the old buildings, the small downtown, people walking around and a cafe and bookstore were open — welcoming visitors into the warm space to enjoy a good read while sipping coffee and a homemade pastry.

Matthew Powell and George Trinovitch, the owners of the Pentagöet Inn, were preparing for Maine Maritime Academy’s homecoming weekend and finishing out their third season.

However, despite local businesspeople telling Mainebiz this was the town's best summer season, there have been ups and downs.

Since I last spoke with the innkeepers and Castine store owners, the town has experienced significant changes, including the winter storms that brought devastating losses to the shore. Businesses are trading hands and new things are happening in the community.

Coming off a strong summer

The 128-year-old Pentagöet Inn & Wine Bar, at 26 Main St. is the coastal town’s oldest summer inn. The bed and breakfast was built in 1894. It has a prominent three-story turret, gables, an adjoining 18th-century house and a wraparound porch with a view of Castine’s harbor.

In 2022, inn owners Powell and Trinovitch bought the Pentagöet Inn from Julie Van de Graaf and Jack Burke, who owned the business for 22 years.

Since then, the inn owners and their dog, Mister, have been busy.

As with the 2023 season, which brought a redesigned lobby, piano parlor, central staircase, main dining room, and restored Perkins House annex, the Pentagöet celebrated several new restoration projects and improvements for the 2024 season.

The most significant project is completing the grand staircase restoration, which was made possible by the “Backing Historic Small Restaurants” grant from the National Trust for Historic Preservation and American Express.

The exterior corner staircase, part of the inn’s original designs from 1894 by founder Lizzie Moon, was removed circa 1926 (reasons unknown), said the inn owners.

But this project is only one of several improvements this 2024 season. In addition, Trinovitch completed his redesign of the inn’s back dining room, drawing inspiration from Victorian gardens and the traditional Castine sports of tennis, golf and sailing.

The inn started offering drag events for the first time in April, hosting Bangor’s Delicious Drag Divas. Powell and Trinovitch said they hesitated to bring this type of event to staid Castine, but the events have been welcomed with open arms since they were first announced.

Powell and Trinovitch said people remarked of the first event, “This is the most fun Castine has seen in decades.”

Across the street from the Pentagöet, Compass Rose Books owner Johanna Barrett, who acquired the downtown business in 2018, has been busy in her sixth year of business.

She has expanded her bookstore offerings, is trending to have her most profitable season to date, and has expanded to a second location, Compass Rose Cafe Orland, a 20-minute drive from Castine.

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File Photo / David Clough

Johanna Barrett, Compass Rose Bookstore, has opened a second location in Orland.

The new location in the Community Center in Orland is a small cafe with a limited selection of books. It is around 400 square feet and has a commercial kitchen space, which allows it to produce more food options.

Back at the Castine store, Barrett this past summer added Ebee’s Sweets, which is owned by pastry chef Erin Schmal. Barrett said she brought on the baker to help meet the town’s need for a bakery.

“We recovered nicely from the pandemic. Bookstores were uniquely positioned because everybody wanted to read or do that puzzle and we could deliver through things. Our bounce back was a little easier than for many other businesses.”

Barrett told Mainebiz that 2024 is shaping up to be the Compass Roses’ best year, measuring revenue and the number of people coming to the store.

“We have seen more Maine residents visiting and spending time here than in the past, but each month this summer was a record breaker,” says Barrett. “It got busy here right away. I think that was partly because people wanted to come to coastal communities and support them because people had heard how bad it was here from the storms.”

The aftermath of the winter storms

The powerful storms of Jan. 10 and 13 devastated a number of Maine waterfronts, including that of Castine. The town wharf at the foot of Main Street was destroyed in the storm; the January storms also damaged nearby docks at Eaton’s Boat Yard and Dennett’s Wharf, a waterfront restaurant.

The whole town came together, with dozens of people pitching in to get the businesses back up and running.

“The community came together very quickly to assess the destruction and realized that we needed to rebuild this and build it better. There was a huge amount of community financial outpouring, logistical support and FEMA. It came together by mid-June and we were back up and running,” Barrett says.

Derik Goodine, town manager of Castine, who started in August, said the community’s support for cleaning up and putting things back together was remarkable.

“Castine almost had its summer tourism season stolen from it due to the destruction left in the wake of the storms this past winter, but the locals rolled up their sleeves and didn’t allow that to happen and that makes me a very proud town manager,” says Goodine.

“It is a great show of community spirit, support, and fortitude,” he says. “Perhaps to someone that has never been to Castine and visiting for the first time, nothing seemed amiss this summer, but a lot of work has been done and continues to be done to put things back together stronger and more resilient.

"I tip my hat to the town leaders, the harbor committee, the harbor master, Scott Vogell and his crew.”

As for the town dock, Goodine says the town is rebuilding or has completed rebuilding town docks with composite decking that allows water to flow through the decking. The beams are now connected using steel plating bolted through the supporting pilings.

This will mean that docks are stronger, and instead of heavy storm surge waves pounding the docks apart from underneath, the Titan X decking has openings in the decking, allowing water to pass through it rather than hammering into it.

Once the town completes the paperwork and plans with FEMA, workers will replace a gazebo on the town dock that was destroyed this past winter.

The town is expected to issue a request for proposals for a feasibility and design study for the entire town dock area, parking lot and boat launch, funded through a Maine DOT Infrastructure Adaptation Fund grant.

This will allow the town to hire a consultant to undertake an assessment and feasibility analysis for the town waterfront, or town dock area. It will define short-term needs and identify long-term planning goals that address sea rise, flooding issues and critical infrastructure protection.

Maine Maritime Academy will build out a new $60 million pier for a new $320 million training vessel and improve its fixed-land dock area to address sea level rise. The project is expected to be completed in 2026.

“The town will be addressing and eventually expanding our floating docks in the near future to address the impacts of the expansion of the new Maine Maritime dock expansion/extension for its new ship expected to arrive in the summer of 2025,” says Goodine.

What is happening with an iconic restaurant

Dennett’s Wharf, a fixture on the waterfront for decades, has had a turbulent recent history.

The restaurant was closed between 2016 and 2022.

Kip Oberting bought the Dennett’s Wharf building in 2017. Since then, it has had several managers and was leased out for a few years.

In 2022, the restaurant opened under the stewardship of an award-winning chef, restaurateur and hospitality team: Max Katzenberg, Ingrid Paronich, and Chef Taylor Hester. The group operated the restaurant for two seasons, but departed in November 2023.

This past summer, the restaurant had yet another set of leaders. Owner Kip Oberting and his family, along with several community members, reopened Dennett’s after the double-whammy of losing the previous operator and losing its outdoor seating to the winter storms.

The January 2024 storms, which damaged the outdoor seating and tore off the deck, were a bit of a “get up or give up moment.” It was an all-hands-on-deck moment to replace the restaurant and its dock in time for the summer season.

“The community really stepped up,” says Oberting. “The town devoted resources to our project. We had around 25 people daily helping clean the restaurant and repairing the dock.”

When construction was complete, the restaurant reopened on June 30 and operated until Labor Day. Oberting’s son Miles Oberting, at 18, ran the kitchen and Apple Lieser, Kip Oberting’s niece, ran the bar.

“It was a whole family affair,” says Oberting. “We had around 16 family members working at the restaurant. Along with Miles, his friends and Apple. It turned out to be a great summer and we had a lot of regulars.”

As for Dennett’s Wharf’s future, Oberting plans to reopen it next summer. He hopes his son will return to run the kitchen and Apple will return to swinging the cocktails.

Oberting says he wants to do some work in the off-season to prepare for next summer. Right now, the plans for Dennett’s include lifting the restaurant to make it more resilient against future high storm surges and rebuilding the rest of the dock portion that was swept away.

What has been in the works

Although businesses have had great success this summer and the dock repair is well underway, the town still has a lot of things up in the air.

But there are still questions about Castine going into next year.

Castine still needs a coffee shop and lunch spot to replace the former Bah’s (and later Markel’s).

Bah’s Bakehouse had been a gathering spot in Castine for 30 years, beginning in 1991 with Bah’s Bakehouse and continuing as Markel’s Bakehouse after the business was sold. Since 2021, the bakery has been vacant.

Back at the Pentagöet Inn, Trinovitch and Powell have several plans for their next season. During winter break, the inn owners plan to work on finishing their “secret library” on the second floor.

The space is designed for guests who need to take Zoom calls, complete work, or even hang out and play a card game. It draws inspiration from Victorian smoking lounges and the film “Knives Out” and has a secret entrance. While the space isn’t entirely done, the inn owners said it should be completed for their next season.

Lastly, construction is well underway in the inn’s courtyard. The patio will bridge the space between the main inn and the Perkins House annex, extending possible restaurant space and creating a place for small events like tequila tastings, Drag Bingo, oyster tastings and more.

“For the Pentagöet, we want to continue to grow and expand our season a little bit more,” says Trinovich.

“As for the town, we would love to see the town continue to grow and be consistently invested in small businesses that need to be there to make their living,” Powell says.

“We would like to see more restaurants reopening. The town is still in that pandemic revamp phase. It would be amazing to get it back to the period right before the pandemic when there was a bakery and a jazz club in the basement of the bakery. There was more options in town and it would be great to have more variety, including more clothing stores.”