Summer 2017 Newsletter: Highland Green Flourishes and Gives Back
Highland Green Flourishes and Volunteers HG residents live a unique active lifestyle with a community minded spirit Gene and Barbara Grove from Whitefish, Montana will move all the way to Highland Green in late July. This boosts the remarkable tally of states from which new Highland Green residents have relocated to 30! In the […]
HG Food Blog #6: Maine’s Got Moxie! June 2017
June 2017: I sent two of my more erudite foodie friends some Moxie soda to try and asked them to send me their impressions of the flavor. Predictably, the reviews were mixed. One of them raved about it: “An understated sweetness with soft notes of cardamom and smooth undertones of vanilla which give way to […]
HG Food Blog #5: Red Hot Dogs – June 2017
June 2017: Every region of the country has its favorite hot dogs. Each version can be a nostalgic comfort food for the denizens of the area. When I lived in New York City, standing on a busy corner wolfing down a couple of Sabrett “dirty water dogs” from a cart with mustard and kraut was […]
Highland Green Residents are Scrabble Champions – May 2017
May 2017: Once again, teams of HG residents took top honors in all categories at the Scrabble Fest tournament held in Augusta. Two squads swept the competitive division and social division at the April event that benefited Literacy Volunteers. Cy and Gail Kendrick won the competitive division while Nancy Johnson, Rick Diamond, George Heilig and […]
HG Food Blog #4: Devil’s Advocate
April 2017: I’ve been collecting devils most of my life. For over 40 years I have been accumulating Underwood Deviled Ham brand logo items. There’s no way to know for sure but I’m reasonably certain that I own the largest assortment of Underwood ephemera on the planet. It all started when as a small child […]
HG Food Blog #3: There’s Only One Potato Chip for ME
March 2017: Nearly every morning I drive or walk by a non-descript office building on my way to (ironically) Lifestyle Fitness Center off Route One in Scarborough. If I close my eyes as I pass I can almost smell the intoxicating aroma of Maine potatoes frying. This is the former site of the iconic Humpty […]
HG Food Blog #2: Let Them Eat Cake
There were the Northern Lights, chocolate lighthouses, an anchor crest, life saver rings, rope piping, sand dollars, and even a realistic nautical map showing Peaks Island. I could not have asked for anything more. Recently I put together a surprise birthday 40th party for my little sister Molly who lives and works in Boston. I […]
HG Food Blog #1: Real Italians
Of all of our HG Lifestyle Blog Posts, Real Italians Are Only Found in Maine from about a year ago was arguably the most popular. It evoked equal parts joy, reminiscence, consternation, comment and debate. I don’t know we can say it “went viral” but we certainly saw a huge jump in web activity. Our […]
Team HG Laced Up!
February 2017: Having lived in San Diego, California for 25 years George Heilig and Nancy Johnson wanted to relocate to the Northeast. Searching online they found Highland Green and the rest, as they say, is history. In 2014 they signed an agreement with us to create their new home in what at the time was […]
HG Friends and the Mannequin Challenge Jan, 21, 2017
“May the days ahead be sprinkled with good luck, focus, hard work, humor, whimsy, and… enough chaos to keep things interesting…” This sentiment written to us by resident Linda from North Carolina pretty much sums up our jobs here. We deal with contracts, financial reports, governing documents, advertising deadlines, construction, banking, and all sorts of […]
Happy New Year from Highland Green! Branded logos tell the unique HG story – January 2017
2016 was a sensational year at Highland Green and 2017, 2018, 2019 and beyond promise to be even more so. Construction of custom homes rolls on throughout the winter and well into the future as scores of active adults from around the nation continue to flock each year to the Northeast’s premier 55+ lifestyle community. […]
New Year 2017 Newsletter: At Highland Green…It’s Time
A Look Back at 2016 An epic journey, a magazine writer and a rock and roll band exemplify active living 2016 was another sensational year at Highland Green. It capped a four year period in which nearly 200 people opted to start their next life adventures here. Construction of custom homes rolls on throughout […]
Giving Tuesday: Cathance River Education Alliance and HG
Giving Tuesday was on November 29, 2016. It is a global day of giving fueled by the power of social media and collaboration. It raises awareness of organizations, charities, and events around the world and helps people connect to these in their own communities. On this special day, you might consider a donation to the […]
A Spirit of Giving at HG
HG residents and guest bloggers Dave Mosley and Andrew Masland talk about supporting those less fortunate: Some of the things that we all cherish are traditions like family and friends sitting down together for Thanksgiving dinner. Another Thanksgiving tradition within the Highland Green community is generously supporting the Thanksgiving Box initiative of the Mid Coast […]
Financial Video 2016
November 2016: We are pleased to announce that the full video of our very successful Highland Green Make Financial Sense event on September 16, 2016 is available for viewing on our website. If you could not attend that day, you can now watch the entire informative and interactive presentation. You can learn more about HG, […]
HG Sweeps the Nation – November 2016
November 2016: The results are in and Highland Green is a winner. Remarkably, this 55+ Active Adult Lifestyle community on the north side of route 196 in Topsham has attracted residents from Maine and throughout America. In the last four years alone well over 100 couples or single family households from varied locations and many […]
Ladies and Gentlemen… Off Their Rockers!
The 2016 formation of the new Highland Green resident “house band” represents much of what is unique and exceptional about the community. At HG, nearly 200 households and growing from 29 different states around the country have gathered. Off Their Rockers are: “Hip and Heavenly” Charlotte Hewson (aka “Keyboard Charlie”), who moved to HG from […]
Highland Green Teacher Instrumental in Star Student’s Success – September 2016
September 2016: An 18 year-long relationship has resulted in a Topsham opera singer signing a professional contract. Since age 14 Nancy-grace Dersham has been guided by Highland Green resident and voice instructor Sharon MacCallum. Now 32, Nancy-grace has recently been retained by the distinguished Lombardo Opera Agency in New York City. Of hundreds of people […]
Construction Excursion Aug 17, 2016
You can take a seven minute video walking tour of multiple Highland Green neighborhoods under construction. As of August 17, 2016 we had over 20 contracted construction projects under way. These custom homes were built for terrific HG folks from across America. You can hear about from where all these great people are coming and […]
Wicked Good Maps and Coffee
At Highland Green we love maps. In fact, the primary meeting room in our marketing office is the Map Room. A Maine topographical map, a nautical map, a Cathance River watershed map, a trail map of the 235-acre Cathance River Nature Preserve, the Highland Green cartoon map, plus our community, street, and home site maps […]
Organic Community Gardening Thrived – July 2016
July 2016: The lettuce, peas, parsley, tarragon, edible flowers and kale are ready. Eggplant, tomatoes, and more are on the way. Asparagus is planted. The Highland Green Community Garden entersed its second year. The garden serves as a fun and rewarding activity for Highland Green residents so inclined and as a charitable benefit for the […]
Celebrating The Vision of Our Founder July 2016
July 2016: A nice article was published in Mainebiz Magazine and on their website. It is background of Highland Green’s incorporation of conservation and nature, and the vision of our founder John Wasileski, who minored in Environmental Studies at McGill University. The only clarification that we offer is that Highland Green has more than 150 […]
Highland Green Rock Videos June 2016
May 2016: Two Bowdoinham residents with close ties to Highland Green caused a sensation with entertaining and informative appearances in two of our new videos on highlandgreenlifestyle.com. Geologist and longtime Bowdoin College Professor Arthur “Art” Hussey and Crooker Construction employee Shaun Riley are featured in Highland Green Rocks I and Highland Green Rocks II respectively. […]
Real Italians: A follow-up Jan 2016
Our January 16, 2016 Highland Green Lifestyle Blog post titled Real Italians Are Only Found in Maine caused quite a stir. I’m not sure if the buzz qualified as “going viral,” but the post garnered much comment online and a huge spike in traffic to our website. When Real Italians Are Only Found in Maine […]
Five Million Steps – March 2016
Highland Green resident Rob Potvin passed up a chance to work on a multi-million dollar job for a journey of five million steps. On March 15, 2016, Rob departed Springer Mountain in Georgia for a solo hike of the entire Appalachian Trail. When he arrives at the peak of Mount Katahdin in Maine this September, […]
Highland Green Works!
Andy Masland and Dave Mosley from Bridgewater, New Hampshire moved to their custom-built Highland Green home in December. Andy is a Vice President for the international information and technology firm NEC. Dave recently left the publishing industry and works as a library aide at the Topsham Public Library. Dave and Andy relocated to Highland Green […]
An Eagle and a Cuckoo
An eagle and a cuckoo got into a car. It sounds like a start of a good (or bad) joke. But it’s a real story. February 17, 2016 Highland Green resident Lynn Adams had a bald eagle and a common cuckoo in the back seat of her car. In fact, it’s not unusual for Lynn […]
Not to be confused with a Retirement Community
Just like hundreds of others from around the country, Marianne and Rob Barry from Cazenovia, New York found that there is arguably only one real 55+ Active Lifestyle Community in the state of Maine. It’s called Highland Green. The Barrys, pictured with our Highland Green New Construction Design Coordinator Sandra Halverson, will move here in […]
A Second Community Center for Highland Green!
The Highland Green Community Center is the hub of many resident-organized cultural, social, educational, fitness, and volunteer activities. The Topsham Public Library (TPL), just a mile away from the Highland Green campus, has become a de-facto second community center. Just as Highland Green is not strictly about “sticks and bricks” but is about sense of […]
Real Italians Are Only Found in Maine
You read it right. Italians are unique to Maine. We’re not talking about people here, though. We’re talking about sandwiches. Many regions around the country, especially on the East Coast, have a variation of a sandwich on a long French or Italian style roll, filled with various cold cuts and vegetables. A Submarine sandwich can […]
Some Things For Which We Are Grateful
We are grateful to work together with each other not just as fellow employees but as a true team and family. We are thankful to have residents and new visitors who are not just customers but are friends and mentors. We are mindful of how much our community of people from around the nation has […]
Scrabble Champs and Whoopie Pies
It was a clean sweep as two teams of Highland Green residents recently prevailed in a statewide Scrabble Tournament in Augusta, Maine that benefited literacy programs. Liz Lee of Red Maple Lane and Elizabeth Cole of Warbler Drive finished first in the Social Division while Gail and Cy Kendrick of Finch Drive prevailed in the […]
Thanks for Giving
This season Highland Green residents have once again broken their own record by raising $8,087 during their annual Thanksgiving Fund Drive for the Mid Coast Hunger Prevention Program (MCHPP). The participation rate was over 50% among the 171 current households here, reinforcing the fact that Highland Green inhabitants pride themselves on giving back to and […]
Three Words…
November 2015: A couple from Virginia named Tom and Sheida were exploring Highland Green. At one point Sheida, who is trained in psycholinguistics, asked me to quickly describe Highland Green using three words. Caught off guard, I uttered the first three words that popped into my head: “Community…Nature…Quality.” Later in the visit, we happened to […]
Highland Green Gets Booed – Halloween 2015
October 2015: Mysteriously started around Halloween three years ago, the “Boo To You” initiative at Highland Green has reached a crescendo in 2015. Each year it starts with an unknown Highland Green resident placing a Halloween treat, two “Boo” signs, and a set of instructions on a neighbors doorstep. The recipients are instructed to make […]
Cookie Cutter and Purple Door
If we’ve heard it once, we’ve heard in thousands of times: visitors to Highland Green love the fact that it is not a “cookie-cutter” development. They say that compared to the traditional retirement communities that they have seen in Maine and elsewhere, our homes are much more varied in size and design. They appreciate that […]
A Green Highlander at Highland Green – October 2015
October 2015: Highland Green resident Peter Blackman first fly-fished in Maine in 1964 and became hooked. He went on to become a Registered Maine Guide and expert fly-tier and angler. He even fished a couple of times with Ted Williams, who Peter says may have had a better casting technique than baseball swing. Peter’s many […]
Tips on Simplifying and De-cluttering
This week’s guest blogger is Liz Pattison of Simply Sized Home. Also known as smart sizing or right sizing, downsizing is when someone moves from their home to one which may or may not necessarily be smaller, but is designed for easier living. Is the idea of moving too overwhelming to think about? Do […]
Etymology for Lexophiles
Otherwise known as Fun with Words this eight week course is led by Highland Green residents Elizabeth Cole and Elliott Miller and takes place at the Highland Green Community Center. It is being attended by around 40 fellow Highland Green residents. The second session featured amongst other topics the Etymology of Expressions, such as: Give […]
September 11, 2015 Tribute
September 11, 2015: With 170 Highland Green households thus far, and residents from 29 States and counting, there are a good number of individuals here who have some personal connections to the events of September 11, 2001 in New York. Many still have been or are related to First Responders around the nation. Today, the […]
