To get a proper feel for the island, imagine The Great Gatsby minus the wild parties, the fabulous clothes, the beautiful people, and the shiny cars. And forget all that mooning over unrequited love. You'd more likely find Gatsby in a pair of well-worn chinos and tennies hosing down his Hinckley yacht or tooling around in his 1960 Ford Fairlane. Where Kennebunkport's most exclusive properties on Ocean Avenue are placed so as to rise majestically above plebian gawkers, it is nearly impossible on Mount Desert Island to get a look at the mansions behind half-mile driveways and dense woods. On MDI, it is clear that Maine's summer soul belongs to its aristocracy.
Newcomers do their best to assimilate, and are smart enough to avoid gaudy displays.
But native son Scott Redfield, chef and co-owner of Redfield's Wine Bar and Restaurant in Northeast Harbor, can still tell them apart. As owner of the most upscale eatery in this village, he's seen enough of them to know. And others are even less charitable in their reviews. Mount Desert Island is where the Rockefellers go to get away from it all. Where Martha Stewart's arrival doesn't exactly class up the joint.