CAMDEN -- It is rare for Camden's planning and codes office to deposit a building permit check made out for more than $10,000; mostly, such revenue ranges from $10 to occasional highs of $1,200 to $3,500. The last time collected building permit fees exceeded $10,000 was in 2010 and 2011, when the planning office issued a $16,100 permit for the Mountain Arrow building residential renovation and a $10,000 permit to Hannaford for its grocery store renovations. The first of July, however, planning office coffers increased by $12,118, the result of the Lake Megunticook Woodside Retreat, a compound of three one-family residential buildings that will be under construction later this summer.

The retreat, owned by 139 Beaucaire LLC,  incorporates a 9,600 square-foot "Barn" that houses four bedrooms, a theater and a bar; a 650 square-foot seasonal cabin, referred to as a Writer's Retreat; and a 3,900 square-foot studio/garage, called the Shed. The latter building also houses a studio and a sound studio.

The three buildings will be constructed on a seven-acre corner lot bordering Start Road and Beaucaire Avenue.  The building permit was issued to 139 Beaucaire LLC, a limited liability company organized in 2011. The 139 Beaucaire LLC also owns two properties across the road at 139 and 140 Beaucaire Ave., approximately eight acres on Megunticook Lake, and where another home is located.

Preliminary plans were approved June 24 by Steve Wilson, Camden's planner and code enforcement officer. Final construction plans are due to be submitted and approved prior to construction. According to Wilson, he will be making frequent inspections of the construction as it gets underway, a mandated process.

The $2.5 million retreat project is designed by Bruce Norelius, an Los Angeles-based architect who also maintains a Maine office. Additional architectural services are provided by G-Ologic, in Belfast. Engineers for the project are Becker Structural Engineers, based in Portland; Cold Mountain Builders, of Camden, is the construction company.

The building site lies within the town's rural residential zone. Construction crews will bury the power lines there, as well as the gas tank. The retreat will also incorporate geothermal wells, a source of energy. According to plans, the barn and shed use "highly insulated building assemblies designed to meet passive house levels of insulation. The Writer's Retreat is an uninsulated seasonal structure that does not include conditioned space. It is classified as a 'low energy building' by the energy code and is exempt from that code's thermal envelope requirements."

The building have metal roofs, and their exteriors include wood fascia, wood slot screens and full-bed stone veneers.

Since 2005, the Town of Camden has collected hundreds of thousands of dollars from its residential and commercial building sliding scale permit fee schedule. The largest fees collected over the past eight years are as follows.