|
|
|
TOWNSHIP 2, RANGE 4 - After a career dealing with people engaged in criminal activity, Jen Mills is looking forward to serving a more law-abiding clientele as the new owner of the four-season Pittston Farm. Mills, 53, who retired from the State Fire Marshal's Office after a 34-year stint, and her husband, Bob Mills, 59, who was property manager of a mobile home park the couple owned in Windsor, purchased the historic Pittston Farm on Nov. 2. The couple paid in excess of $1 million for the 44-acre parcel and seven buildings. "We're real happy with the sale," Jen Mills said Friday. "We can't wait to welcome our new guests and our new visitors, and we just want to give exceptional hospitality and good foods. "We're going to have a nice big Thanksgiving dinner - it's kind of a welcoming for everybody," she said. Located in the wilderness at the confluence of the north and south branches of the Penobscot River, about 50 miles northwest of Greenville, Pittston Farm was constructed in the early 1900s by Great Northern Paper Co. to house its workers in the North Maine Woods. The lodge is listed on the National Register of Historical Places. "We feel very humbled and excited," Mills said about purchasing the property, which they first saw while on a snowmobile trip in February 2004. When they returned home to Windsor after a two-day stay at Pittston, the couple continued to think about the property. When the property went up for sale three months later, they jumped. Mills said she and her husband met with the former owners, Ken and Mary Twitchell, in August 2004 and signed a purchase and sales agreement in November 2004. "We had hoped to take over the reins in May, and we just couldn't get all of the work completed in time for that," The couple went through the Small Business Administration to help with the purchase, she said. "They [the Twitchells] wanted it [to] be a family-run operation and we did, too," Mills said. In fact, the couple's son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren have moved to the property and will help in the day-to-day operation. Some of the former employees also are staying behind to help the Millses. Ken Twitchell, who purchased the property in 1992 after serving as its caretaker, spent a lifetime renovating and adding to the property, which today includes a boarding house, an office building, a barn, a blacksmith shop, a restaurant, sporting camps, and a campground. Until her death in 1995, his wife, Sonja, worked side by side her husband. When Twitchell remarried in 1998, he and his wife, Mary, focused their efforts on improving the facility and serving the public their renowned, all-you-can-eat lumberjack meals. Those meals will continue, and more additions and improvements will be made to the facility, according to Mills, who retired in May as a state arson investigator. In recent weeks, the couple have installed fire alarms and smoke detectors in the lodge. A sprinkler system will be added soon. In addition, the inn will have a new roof, a septic system will be installed so all cabins have their own bathrooms, and a fireplace will be built in the lodge, she said. The family, which will groom 82 miles of snowmobile trails, plans to roll out the red carpet for snowmobilers this winter. In the spring, they plan to work cooperatively with the state and Wagner Paper Co., both of which own property adjacent to Pittston Farm, to establish horse-riding trails through the wilderness. "The whole property up here has such potential to do all kinds of outdoor recreation," Mills said. "We truly are a base of operation for all kinds of recreation in the North Maine Woods; we are a unique gym."
|