Our story · The setting

A working lodge, reborn dark and warm.

Blackpine started as a tired old fishing lodge on a quiet highland lake. We saw what it could be — and rebuilt it the way it should have been all along.

The idea

We kept the bones and changed everything else.

The original lodge had been on the lake since the 1940s — good bones, a great hearth, and a lot of brown carpet. When we took it on, we stripped it back to the timber and rebuilt around two ideas: honest materials, and a fire that’s always going.

Charcoal and blackened steel replaced the knotty pine. Cognac leather and brass came in where vinyl had been. We dug out a cellar bar, put glass walls on the cabins, and pointed every room we could at the water. What we didn’t touch was the feeling — that you’ve arrived somewhere remote, warm, and entirely your own.

The name is the tree that rings the lake and the dark it turns at dusk. Blackpine.

The Maine highlands

Lake on one side, woods on every other.

We sit on a small, deep highland lake ringed by spruce and pine, up where Maine gets quiet and the towns get small. The water is cold and clear, the woods run for miles, and the night sky is dark enough to see the whole of it.

☲The lake — a private dock, canoes, a wood-fired sauna, and swimming off the rocks all summer.
▲The woods — trails from the back door for hiking, trail-running, and cross-country skiing.
☀The seasons — loons and lupine in summer, fire and leaf in fall, deep snow and a glowing hearth in winter.
☉Dark skies — no light for miles. On a clear night, the Milky Way over the lake.

Getting here

Worth the drive. That’s the point.

An hour past where the pavement gives up — but every minute of it makes the arrival better.

From Portland

About 3 hours · 150 mi

North on I-95, then west into the highlands. The last stretch is gravel, dark, and worth it.

From Boston

About 4.5 hours

An easy half-day. Stop in Portland for lunch, arrive in time for a fire.

By air

Portland (PWM) or Bangor (BGR)

Bangor is the closer field — about 90 minutes out. We can arrange a transfer.

The address

114 Spruce Point Road

Highland Lake, ME 04441. Download offline maps — cell service thins out near us.