Do Duck, Don’t Crap – Primitive Private Island On Sale

Matthew Steeples

2 years ago

Do Duck Don't Crap Ducks Ledges Island Maine

Just as former BBC Radio 4 ‘Desert Islands Discs’ host Kirsty Young buys her own island, another on the coast of Maine goes on sale for just £250,000; Ducks Ledges Island comes with a tiny cottage (but lacks a proper Thomas Crapper)

When The Steeple Times featured the £79,000 ($106,000, €94,000 or درهم391,000) sale of a ruined castle on a tiny plot of just 0.54-acres on Lough Key in County Roscommon in Ireland in November 2018, the story went viral. It continues to attract huge amounts of interest to this day and now we can share something similar and equally bizarre currently for sale off the coast of Addison, Maine in the USA.

Offered for £252,000 ($339,000, €300,000 or درهم1.2 million) and slightly larger than its Irish sibling at 1.5-acres, treeless Ducks Ledges Island comes with a slightly less substantial – in terms of its wooden construction – 540-square-foot cottage.

Built in 2009 by William ‘Billy Milliken’ – a realtor who specialises in island properties on the Bold Coast of Maine and whose motto is “we’re LOCAL and AVAILABLE’ and whose firm is selling the property via the Maine Listings website also – for his own use, the fully-furnished cottage comprises of a ground floor room with a lofted bedroom (where you might need to duck to avoid banging your head) accessed by a ladder above.

The building is “fully equipped” with the Internet and electricity according to Globe.com, but though lacking in an indoor lavatory, has an outhouse for what might be called “the ablutions” in British army slang nearby.

Of that feature, in October last year, Mr Milliken told the paper’s Megan Johnson: “It’s a one holer. We’ll even throw in a half bag of lime… At some point, you got wash your ass. You can do that in the ocean, but it’s awfully cold in Maine.”

Going further, Milliken remarked of the compactness of the setting and added: “It makes you feel small when you’re on the island. The seals, the seabirds, the eagles, and the noises they make at night. And what’s interesting about an island with no trees, you really get that sense of how small you really are.”

Previously, in July 2021, Madeline Bilis for Apartment Therapy declared of the island:

“[I] have a crush on this property. There’s one place my mind drifts to when summer’s heat and humidity melts me down into a puddle: Maine. Vacationland’s cool, breezy coast seems like the perfect place to be right about now, and this private island for sale up north is my daydream realised.”

“This stunning hunk of land is up there. Way up there. Sandwiched between the shores of Acadia National Park and the Canadian border lies the 1.5-acre plot. There are two towns on the nearby mainland, Addison and Jonesport, with marinas for you to launch a boat to get to it.”

***The compact cottage on Ducks Ledges Island is tiny, but for lazy summers’ evenings, there is a barbeque and hammock even to enjoy sunsets on its deck.***

***The only outhouse for “the ablutions” on the island is certainly beyond basic.***

McDermott’s Island at the southeastern end of Lough Key, near Boyle in County Roscommon proved very popular with readers of ‘The Steeple Times’ in spite of the castle there being in a very “perilous state.” Associated with the Legend of Una Bhan – the tragic story of a girl who fell in love with the son of the clan chief owner of the island – McDermott’s Island also featured in the works of W. B. Yeats and was visited by Sir Bob Geldoff when he made a BBC film titled ‘A Fanatic Heart’ about the Irish poet in 2016. It was previously used for the Sky One sitcom ‘Moone Boy’ starring Steve Coogan and Johnny Vegas in 2014.

Kirsty Young waxed lyrical about living on desert islands whilst interviewing guests for the BBC Radio 4 show ‘Desert Island Discs’ between 2006 to 2018. Ironically, she now has her own and on it she plans to build a 3 bedroom lodge, a boathouse, a boat shelter and other outbuildings to replace the existing derelict lodge. Her and her husband Nick Jones have spoken of how they are “committed to immediate action and long-term environmental management” of currently “neglected” Inchconnachan Island.

Elsewhere in Scotland last week, The Scottish Sun reported that the former BBC Radio 4 Desert Island Discs host Kirsty Young has ironically turned fantasy on air into reality by paying £1.55 million ($2.09 million, €1.85 million or درهم7.66 million) for a 103-acre “neglected” private island on Loch Lomond in Scotland. Inchconnachan Island comes complete with a colony of 60 wallabies, but no human has lived there for two decades.