Over the years I’ve sold iron beds to people that have had every imaginable style home, apartment, estate, farmhouse, beach house,adobe, penthouse , etc. that you can imagine.
But I’ve never sold a bed to anyone with a more unique home than a couple in upstate Maine who happen to live in a “lighthouse”. From what I’m told ….it’s not that uncommon along the coast line of Maine. The lovely older couple I sold the bed to also had friends that lived in a lighthouse 15 minutes down the coastal road.
When they originally contacted me I noticed that the abbreviation behind his name denoted he was a retired naval officer and his wife had been in the Red Cross. They told me a great story about meeting during the Vietnam War. He had been injured and his wife was a Red Cross worker in the military hospital he was being taken care of.
They got to know each other and found out they both had been raised in Maine as children and had moved away with their families, one of them to Pennsylvania and the other to Maryland. But the memories they had of Maine had left such an impression on them, they both admitted to wanting someday to move back to Maine to rekindle the same feelings they had as a child.
They exchanged stateside family phone #’s and swore to stay in contact.
She was transferred to another hospital in Vietnam and he was redeployed after being released from the hospital. They lost contact with each other after the war. Each returned to the states, got married and raised a family. Years went by and she lost her husband to an illness and so did he. Ironically he also lost his wife.
When they had met during the war, they’d talked about an Autumn Festival they remembered as children with their families on the coast in up state Maine. A small town called Ogunquit. It had really been a strong highlight in both of their childhood memories.
Some 30 years after the war and having met eachother in Vietnam, the accidentally reconnected in a restaurant, while visiting that same Autumn Festival in Maine with their children and grandchildren.
What seemed like fate, blossomed into marriage. Because the town had brought them back together. The decided to live there. The lighthouse had also been a childhood fantasy of wanting to live in one, for both of them. So after searching the coast, they found a small lighthouse that was no longer in use and bought it.
They both had a love for antiques they’d inherited from their parents when they were young. So furnishing the lighthouse with period appropriate furnishing seemed to be right up their alley…….. and what more appropriate for the period of an 1800’s lighthouse, than an antique iron bed from the 1800’s.
