ISLESBORO — The feeling of escape Mike Boucher enjoys when he retreats to his hunting camp near Moosehead Lake is not very different from what the owners of the island's many mansions feel when they arrive here in the summer.

They treasure the time they can step out of their busy, typically urban lives for the serenity and beauty of a Maine island, Boucher said. And they are willing to pay to ensure that their grand "cottages" are ready for their visit.

That's where Boucher, who operates a caretaking business on the island, comes in.

The mansions, both old and new, that have loomed large over the life and economy of this Penobscot Bay island since the late 19th century require year-round maintenance. That means coordinating tens of thousands of dollars of work by painters, landscapers and carpenters.

Tom Groening is editor of The Working Waterfront, published by the Island Institute.

And when the owners visit, often on short notice, they expect the kitchen and living room and bedroom to look just as they did when they last walked out of them months ago. They expect food and beverages in the refrigerator and pantry. They expect the island car to be inspected, registered and fueled. The same goes for the boat.

It's a demanding job, but one Boucher, 48, likes, in part because it lets him and his family live on Islesboro. Part of the price he pays is that he doesn't get to visit his own camp very often.

A native of Van Buren in Aroostook County, Boucher visited the island in summer with his family as a child. After graduating from the University of Maine, he worked for a time as director of Camp Roosevelt in Eddington, then purchased an acoustical ceiling tile business in Brewer. Selling that enterprise allowed him to move to the island in 1986.

He worked for the Rothchild family as a groundskeeper and his wife was the family's chef. The couple was able to live on the estate, and in fact, married there.

NO ROUTINE

"There is no 'day in the life,'" Boucher explained when meeting a reporter at the ferry in late April. "That's the good thing about it." He had come from a school committee meeting, community work he's been doing for almost 10 years.

Neighbors headed off-island stop and greet Boucher and ask if he's working today. "Yeah," he says.

Later, he explained, "Everybody thinks you work hard in the summer and have the winter off." In fact, Boucher stressed, staying on top of things during the winter months eliminates the panic and late nights that might be expected when owners come for their visits.

Boucher manages nine properties year-round. With some owners, he is an employee. With others, he is more like an independent contractor.

"I check houses twice a day every day," Boucher said, "or I have someone do it." He also uses web-based security tools to ensure furnaces are working and doors and windows are closed and locked.

He insists owners give him the authority "to fire the cleaning lady or plant a bush" without having to clear it first.

The word he uses to describe his role is coordinator. That means arranging for the various contractors—painters, plumbers, electricians, carpenters—to get into the house.

"I tell everyone I'm allergic to tools and paint brushes," Boucher joked, though it's clear he also will grab both tools and paint brushes—and rakes and shovels—when something needs doing.

OTHER ISLANDS

Caretakers on other islands, like Tom and Rose Hutchinson on Great Spruce Head Island, are Jacks and Jills of all trades. They replace window glass broken by falling branches, secure screen doors blown off their hinges in a winter gale, paint, tidy up lawns and gardens, cut firewood for cook stoves and haul in propane tanks.

The houses the Hutchinsons care for on Great Spruce Head Island have been owned by the Porter family for many decades. The painter Fairfield Porter and his brother, the photographer Eliot Porter, are among those who spent time on the island.

For Rose Hutchinson, working on the island sustains a family tradition.

"My great-grandfather was the first caretaker here," she said. Her father looked out for the houses there before her. "I think it's kind of neat that we can keep it going," she said.

Great Spruce is a 284-acre island between Islesboro and North Haven, part of the town of Deer Isle. Getting there is difficult in the winter, Hutchinson said.

"You kind of work around the weather," she said.

FAMILY PLANNER

For the Hutchinsons, the phrase "island travel problems" means a tree has fallen across a road. For Boucher, it often means that family members of the estate's owners are having a hard time getting to Islesboro. Part of his work is coordinating flights to local airports, and then private air or boat service to the island.

Stopping in his pickup at one of the houses he cares for, a 100-year-old cottage to which an equal-sized replica has been connected, Boucher watches a couple of landscapers putter around the bushes, and notes with some disapproval that rakes have been left lying in a walkway.

During a brief tour of the inside, he acknowledges a photo of the family's two adult daughters flanking a former U.S. president.

"He spends a lot of time here," Boucher said of the president, whom he does not want to identify here.

Passing pantries and storage rooms, he explained that stocking the house is also a part of the job.

"I've gone shopping for this house with a U-Haul and a dump truck. Everything is equally important. What good is a bar without ice cubes?" Boucher said.

"It's a little hotel," he said of the house, with its 16 bedroom suites that will see friends and family come and go all summer.

ISLAND TEAM

Before leaving the property, Boucher fields a call in his truck from a woman who hopes to return to the island to work on his cleaning crew. One quality he expects is flexibility.

"Everybody that works with me isn't above anything," Boucher said. "I've had carpenters cleaning houses, changing sheets." No one on site, in fact, should be above cleaning up after the family dog, he said.

At another house Boucher cares for, the economic impact of summer residents is apparent. A four-man crew from John Kelly Painting of Lincolnville is touching up trim. And about eight carpenters working for Andy Staples, also of Lincolnville, are building decks off the back of the house.

Boucher chats with both Kelly and Staples about their schedules. Even though there are scraps of wood lying around the site, and a veranda that is half enclosed, Boucher is confident that in about three weeks "this will be perfect."

He regularly emails photographs of the progress to owners.

"It's all about people having exactly the summer they want," he explained. "They're happier people when they're here."