Several home owners have sued the Town of Kennebunkport to prevent public access to the vast majority of Goose Rocks Beach.
Our organization, Save Our Beaches, needs your help, but first–come visit and see for yourself the dramatic sunrise, the many hues of yellow, red and orange at sunset, or watch the full moon rise over the outlying islands, while you still can. Bring your children, your dog, your loved ones…while you still can. For if this lawsuit filed late in October wins, the homeowners, who claim to the waterline, can stop you from using all but about 6% of the beach that they can’t stop you from using. No sand castles, or walking from one end to the other, or enjoying a book in the sun next summer.
Save Our Beaches wants to continue what has made Goose Rocks Beach such a unique place, year round—the sense of shared community where the beach has long been part of the fabric of multiple generations. We want visitors and residents alike to respect homeowners along the oceanfront, and keep the beach clean, obey the laws, and protect the environment, in short, what they have done for the last 100 years. But a few homeowners who have “gotten theirs” now want to deny you the freedom to enjoy Goose Rocks Beach next year, and years ahead. Help keep Goose Rocks Beach available for your grandchildren, and help us fight this lawsuit.
We are now set up for donations , and will have news and pictures, and much more in the next few weeks. But for now, the best thing you can do for yourself, and for the beach, is to come visit, and walk the beach, while you still can.
My family history goes back to 1926 when my Grandfather purchased the home at 15 New Biddeford Road from a close friend. The family had been coming here for five years before that and fell in love with Goose Rocks Beach. The original home burned in that awful fire in the 40′s and my Mother built a new smaller cottage to replace the one we lost – there was no other place we would go other than GRB!
In 1997 we had the cottage removed and we built a year round home.
Again, there was never any thought of any place to build other than GRB.
So now 84 years of family history is trying to be destroyed by a group who feels so privileged that they will keep my grandchildren from the beach and creating there own history and love of GRB.
How very sad !!! However, as someone else stated, we will walk the beach and sit, and sun, and life at GRB will go on despite the elite attitude of a SMALL group who have no history is comparison to my family!!!!
From 1949 to the present my family have always enjoyed vacationing at Goose Rocks Beach in August of every year. I view it as a great tragedy that the selfish intentions of a few would close this treasure down for the rest of us. I don’t know what I can do to stop this event from happening, but for now I will send my donations to help fight this injustice from happening. Also as a practicing accountant perhaps my services may be of help to your organization in finding ways through federal and state tax law that may stop this issue from becoming a reality.
My family history goes back to 1926 when my Grandfather purchased the home at 15 New Biddeford Road from a close friend. The family had been coming here for five years before that and fell in love with Goose Rocks Beach. The original home burned in that awful fire in the 40′s and my Mother built a new smaller cottage to replace the one we lost – there was no other place we would go other than GRB!In 1997 we had the cottage removed and we built a year round home.Again, there was never any thought of any place to build other than GRB.So now 84 years of family history is trying to be destroyed by a group who feels so privileged that they will keep my grandchildren from the beach and creating there own history and love of GRB.How very sad !!! However, as someone else stated, we will walk the beach and sit, and sun, and life at GRB will go on despite the elite attitude of a SMALL group who have no history is comparison to my family!!!!
+1
My grandparents also purchased land in the 1930s, built a beautiful home that survived the great fire, and owned several cottages that they later sold (unfortunately for all of us – if he’d only known how values would go up!). I was raised largely on Goose Rocks Beach, and it was a considerable family tragedy when taxes and ill fortune forced my parents to sell that classic home (our homestead), and a further tragedy when the new owners tore it down (with difficulty, I heard, because it was so beautifully built).
As to the privacy of Goose Rocks, it is my understanding (by hearsay) that the reason the property owners are pressing this suit is that people have MIS-used the beach. We, too, living at the beach for so long, were saddened by the behavior of so many on the beach. As if it weren’t enough that the rampant (including non-native) beach grass has taken over the sand, pulling it up into the roots so that no longer are our ankles buried in white softness when we walk (and reducing the width of the beach of course), one-time or short-term visitors (one can only assume) with no stake in maintaining the quality of the beach build their fires above the high-tide mark, leaving behind blackened sand and charred remains where only soft sand should be. This is not to mention loud partying and left-behind trash.
The idea of tearing the beach apart into tiny strips of Private Property is, obviously, ludicrous… But when I consider some of the behavior I’ve witnessed on Goose Rocks, and imagine it being in what is in effect my own front yard, it becomes easy to see why the property owners might be upset.
If our society were a little less litigious and more reasonable, perhaps we could come to a quieter solution, involving the rights of people who (absurd as it may seem) do in fact own the beach to enforcement of a certain standard of behavior from those who use it. It is my understanding, for example, that bonfires were only ever allowed at the central, public portion of the beach. In the old days, we also all knew enough to build them where the returning tide would cleanse the beach of their remains. And, for heaven’s sake, it can’t be too much to ask that police enforce a certain degree of quiet in the evenings, etc.
Perhaps this is far too optimistic in a society that includes both those who do not choose to behave in a respectful and respectable manner, too few of us who feel that they should be required to do so, and a few who are truly grasping and ungenerous enough to limit access to a treasure that, surely, belongs to us all.