The area
Winslow is across the river from Waterville on the east side of the Kennebec, six miles from Colby. A short drive in any direction takes you somewhere worth going: downtown Waterville for restaurants and a college-town film center, Belgrade Lakes twenty minutes west, Augusta twenty-five minutes south, Bangor an hour north, and Portland an hour and a half south. Each gets a closer look below.
Colby is six miles west of us, an easy fifteen-minute drive. Downtown Waterville has been quietly rebuilding around the Paul J. Schupf Art Center, the Lockwood Hotel, and a growing restaurant scene on Main and Silver Streets. The Colby College Museum of Art on campus is free, closed Mondays, and one of the strongest collegiate collections in the Northeast. Worth at least one afternoon.
A short list of places we actually send guests to. Most are in downtown Waterville or just over the bridge into Winslow.
14 Common Street, Waterville
Pork-forward gastropub. Pulled-pork nachos, the Big Bad Wolf burger, a dozen Maine craft drafts on tap. Closed Mondays.
Downtown Waterville (Lockwood Hotel)
New American with a hyper-local sourcing focus. The closest thing the area has to a serious dinner spot, and a reliable weekday breakfast.
College Avenue, Waterville
Independent breakfast and lunch, 7am to 2pm Tuesday through Sunday. Diner-plus done well.
Main Street, Waterville
Greek and Mediterranean. Moussaka, gyros, spanakopita, calamari. Useful when you want something other than American comfort food.
2 Silver Street, Waterville
Pub-leaning American with daily specials, Sunday brunch, and live music several nights a week.
150 Main Street, Waterville
Tacos, craft beer, mezcal, and cocktails from the Cushnoc Brewing team, in the Colby-owned Bill & Joan Alfond Main Street Commons.
One Post Office Square, Waterville
Long-running brewpub with a tavern feel, a full menu, and live music. Doubles as a beer destination.
Downtown Waterville
Wood-fired brick-oven pizza with reliable gluten-free, vegetarian, and vegan options. Probably the best pizza in town for a sit-down meal.
53 Bay Street, Winslow
Family-run since 2000. Thai-leaning with Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese on the menu. Pad Thai and drunken noodles get the call most often. Quietly the top-rated table in Winslow.
82 Clinton Avenue, Winslow
New York style pizza in a casual pub. The closest sit-down option to the cottage.
Historic downtown Waterville
Locally owned cafe with organic coffee, loose-leaf tea, and a light lunch menu. Quiet enough to read in.
93 Main Street, Waterville (inside the Schupf Art Center)
Specialty espresso bar. Convenient if you're already going to the museum or a film.
Waterville
Long-running Maine chain known for hearty diner breakfasts and house-baked whoopie pies. A local institution.
A handful of places we like enough to keep going back to. None of them require an expedition.
Colby campus
Strong American holdings (Whistler, Homer, the Lunder Collection) and rotating contemporary shows. Closed Mondays. Open until 9pm Thursdays.
93 Main Street, downtown Waterville
Houses the Maine Film Center's three-screen independent cinema, two galleries, and a connection to the Waterville Opera House. Your main source of evenings out.
Waterville, two miles from downtown
About eight miles of trails for walking, running, and mountain biking. In winter, one of the better Nordic ski networks in central Maine.
Belgrade
Two short, rewarding hikes managed by the 7 Lakes Alliance. French Mountain is a 0.8-mile loop to a ledge over Long Pond. Mount Phillip is 1.6 miles with views of Great Pond. Either one is a half-morning outing.
Canaan, about 25 minutes north
Sandy beach, picnic areas, and easy hiking and biking trails. Open sunrise to sunset year-round.
Solon to the Quebec border
A 78-mile drive along the Kennebec. The second week of October is typically peak foliage. The stretch from Skowhegan through The Forks and along Wyman Lake is the highlight.
Four destinations within easy reach, each filling a different niche: a lake-and-village region to the west, the state capital due south, and the two main airport cities to the north and far south. None of them are far, and all four are worth knowing.
20 minutes west
The defining landscape of this part of Maine, seven connected lakes and ponds strung through quiet woods. Great Pond is the one E.B. White wrote about in 'Once More to the Lake.' Drive into the village for lunch at Day's Store, walk up French Mountain for the Long Pond overlook, or rent a kayak. In autumn the Kennebec Highlands turn deep red and orange.
25 minutes south on I-95
Maine's state capital. The Maine State Museum (free, closed Mondays) and the State House are worth an afternoon if you have one. Augusta also covers the city errands you might miss from a smaller town: Trader Joe's, REI, the chain restaurants. An easy half-day round trip.
55 minutes north on I-95
Bangor International Airport (BGR) is the practical reason most visitors come here. Direct flights to most northeast hubs, and usually the better one-leg choice over Portland. Beyond the airport, downtown has been quietly improving for years. Stephen King's iconic black wrought-iron-fence house is on West Broadway if you want to drive past.
90 minutes south on I-95
Maine's largest city, and the biggest food scene in the state. Old Port and Washington Avenue are where most of the James Beard-caliber restaurants cluster. Portland International Jetport (PWM) is the bigger airport with a wider flight selection. The Portland Museum of Art is the state's major art museum. Worth a weekend in itself.
Late September through mid-October is when the cottage is at its best. The pond's western exposure throws back orange and red on the calm evenings. Peak color in central Maine usually hits the second week of October. If you can swing it, plan to be here then.
A short history
The pond was carved by glaciers about twelve thousand years ago. It covers roughly 511 acres, holds a tea-brown color rather than the postcard-clear water of the bigger Maine lakes, and sits at the center of a watershed that draws on quiet farmland in four townships before draining out a single brook to the Sebasticook. The state lists it as Pattee Pond. Older residents and the booklet that taught us most of this still call it Pattee's.
Native communities lived along the Sebasticook and Kennebec for centuries before any European arrived. The pond's English name traces to Ezekiel Pattee, born in Gloucester, Massachusetts in 1732. Pattee arrived at Fort Halifax around 1760, married Margaret Harwood, and after the fort was dismantled in 1763 he floated the blockhouse down the Kennebec to a lot on what is now Route 201 and rebuilt it as his home. He was a tavern-keeper, a 2nd major in the Revolutionary War under Colonel Samuel McCobb, and a fixture of the new town of Winslow: moderator of the annual Town Meeting eleven times, Town Clerk for seventeen years, Town Treasurer for twenty-two. He died in 1813 at the age of eighty-two.
In the eighteenth century, nearly six hundred masts were cut on the eastern side of the pond and shipped to England for the British navy. The longest was a hundred and eighteen feet. By the early nineteen-hundreds the surrounding land was farmland, woodlots, and shingle mills. The first wave of cottages went up between the world wars, often jerry-built and too close to the water. By 1945 there were fifty-three of them.
The Pattee's Pond Association is still active today, run entirely by volunteers who live on the pond. Their work includes annual summer meetings, pond memberships, and a Camp Road Grant Reimbursement program that helps neighbors fund the road improvements that protect water quality. The passion its members bring to caring for the pond is the reason it remains as clean as it is.
Pattee Pond is one of the few large ponds in central Maine whose water level isn't controlled by a man-made dam. The beavers handle it.
Pattee is a private pond. There is no public boat launch. The road in is residents only.
A family of loons comes back every spring, calling to one another on the lake.
Most of the history above is drawn from Ezekiel Pattee's Pond, a self-published booklet by J. A. Pollard, who grew up in Winslow and bought property on the pond in 1984 with her husband, the hydrogeologist Peter Garrett. We're grateful for her research, and to the residents and Pattee's Pond Association volunteers who work hard to keep the water clean.
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