Working from Home Downeast Style
Deer Isle, a summer artists’ refuge and a tourist hotspot, sits in Penobscot Bay along the coast of Maine. Only ten miles long and less than three miles wide, it is astoundingly overflowing with home businesses.
Walk or drive just two miles down Dow Rd. and you’ll see no fewer than four home businesses:
Deepest Africa Imports - a small shop selling beautiful wood carvings, jewelry, and other crafts from Africa.
Pearl’s Homemade Pies - offering fresh pies daily in a small stand in the front yard of her home. Blueberry is her specialty. There is a self-service payment box and Pearl does take special orders.
Island Reflexology - make an appointment for a relaxing session of reflexology in this home along the shores of the harbor.
Dow Studio - a showroom in front of the artist’s house serves as a gallery and shop. Beautiful works of pottery and sculpture are displayed for sale.
And that is just along one short stretch of road on the island! Countless people work from home on Deer Isle. Wives of lobstermen often do “crab picking” to earn extra money. They delicately extract the meat from the crabs that accidentally wander into the lobster traps and then sell it directly from their homes or to the local market. Another home business on the island is Nervous Nellie’s Jams and Jellies. Nellie produces over a dozen different kinds of delicious jellies in her kitchen. She sells them from her home and through a few local tourist shops in town.
However, it is mostly artists who work from home on Deer Isle. There are no less than two dozen home studios from which artists sell everything from watercolors to photographs, pottery to weaving. Everywhere you turn there is an artist selling his or her crafts.
Wherever there are tourists, there are opportunities to sell things. Deer Isle is full of summer tourists and the locals readily cater to the tourists’ desire for a keepsake or beautiful piece of artwork for their home. There is a plethora of home businesses thriving on this little coastal outpost.