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A tiny year-round cottage in the middle of a southern Maine lake is being sold completely furnished with two boats — and boasts one of the highest costs per square foot in the state.
Measuring only 487 square feet, the one-bedroom, one-bathroom home on Little Ossipee Lake in Waterboro isn’t very big, but it takes up most of the .09-acre island it sits on.
“There’s a side door where the kitchen is and, if you get a running start, you can jump from the side porch into the lake,” said Jan Kovarik of Legacy Properties Sotheby’s International Realty, the listing agent for the home. “It’s right there.”
The seller bought the island several years ago, which, at the time, had a small seasonal camp on it, built in 1950, that had “fallen into disrepair,” Kovarik said.
The seller and his son then slowly remodeled the home, which included both interior and exterior work, and outfitted the building with all the utilities needed to make it a comfortable, year-round home, including heat pumps, Kovarik said.
Aside from clean, modern finishes and stainless steel appliances, the property offers quartz countertops, hardwood floors and a washer and dryer. There’s also a small stone patio that circles the home.
“The property owner hasn’t spent a night there since they finished it because they wanted to keep it brand new for someone to come in and enjoy right away,” Kovarik said. “It’s like an antique car that was restored and nobody has driven it.”
With an asking price of $685,000, the small property is nearly double the median price of a home in Waterboro, which Zillow placed around $392,000 as of late February. In York County, however, the average home costs about $509,500.
The cottage’s square footage puts it just outside the parameters of a tiny home, which tend to be 400 square feet or less. But, the home’s price per square foot of $1,407 rivals the most expensive homes on the market across the state.
This includes a 10,200-square-foot cliffside mansion in Mount Desert for sale for $14.5 million. That 10-bedroom, 11-bathroom estate is $1,422 per square foot.
Other lavish homes, such as a 12,600-square-foot estate in Kennebunkport and a 10,000-square-foot property in Isleboro, which are both selling for nearly $10 million, are less than $1,000 per square foot.
The home is being sold furnished and includes two dock systems and two boats: a small boat to get to the island and a 12-by-16-foot barge the sellers used to transport building materials and furniture to the home, Kovarik said.
While both the home and the land it sits on are petite, Kovarik said the fact that it’s on a lake means the property offers more assurance than a property on a tidal body of water, Kovarik said. The water level rises slightly with the seasons, but the buyer won’t have to worry about high tides, sea level rise or beach erosion.
“Every time I go, it makes me pause and think about how something like this can exist,” Kovarik said. “It gives you a new appreciation for natural beauty.”
Kovarik has received “a moderate amount of interest,” since the private island hit the market in late February, but the right buyer hasn’t been found yet, he said.
The home can be lived in year-round, but Kovarik anticipates a buyer will use it as a vacation home or an investment property to rent.
“It’s just a matter of time until it sells,” Kovarik said. “It’s a really serene spot. Very few of these types of places exist anywhere.”