NOTE: This story was originally published in 2002.
FRENCHBORO, Maine - In the film "The Piano" a 19th century Scottish woman, played by actress Holly Hunter, arrives by ship in New Zealand on an isolated beach and is left there with her belongings and her daughter. Her most prized possession, a piano, is left on the shore as her new husband insists it is too cumbersome to carry to their home through the forested, hilly terrain.
Technology has improved since the period portrayed in the film, but a similar problem exists today on Great Duck Island, a 262-acre piece of land located seven miles out to sea off Mount Desert Island.
There, a piano sits unplayed and nearly forgotten in a dilapidated building whose owner wants the structure torn down. A man who owns a seasonal home on Great Duck wants to have the piano but, with no roads connecting the properties and no boat dock on the island, there is no easy way to transport the instrument to his home.
No one lives year round on Great Duck, the vast majority of which is a nature preserve owned by The Nature Conservancy. The island is more than a mile long, about half a mile wide, and has few buildings on it. At the southern tip is a lighthouse owned by College of the Atlantic but operated by the Coast Guard. At the northern end, in an old log cabin built from trees on the island, sits the upright piano.
The conservancy, which owns the building, would like to demolish the structure to make sure it does not pose a threat to the safety of incidental visitors, according to Doug Radziewicz, the conservancy's Down East preserves steward.
"It's a beautiful building," Radziewicz said last week. "It was well put together, but it has deteriorated so much that repairs would be astronomical. It is a hazard right now."
The cabin, and a few smaller ones on the property, were built by George Cloutier, a psychologist who bought the island in 1963, Radziewicz said. Cloutier opened a Gestalt therapy clinic on the island in 1975 and had the piano brought out to Great Duck for the enjoyment of the clinic's visitors. The piano was left behind when Cloutier sold his property to the conservancy in 1985, according to Radziewicz.
Most of the contents of the cabin have been removed but because of its size the piano remains in the building. The conservancy does not want to destroy the piano with the building, Radziewicz said, nor does it want to keep the instrument, he said.
"We have no use for the piano," Radziewicz said. A piano tuner has inspected the instrument and determined that it is in "OK shape," he said, though it could stand to have its finish restored. He added that he does not know who manufactured it or how much it is worth.
A Massachusetts doctor who knew Cloutier and owns 5 acres on Great Duck would like to have the piano, Radziewicz said. Dr. Rich Borofsky declined to be interviewed, but according to Radziewicz the summer resident has the right of first refusal to the instrument.
"We're happy to let him have it," Radziewicz said, "but there's a lot involved in getting the piano from one point to another."
Andrew Peterson, COA's marine superintendent, said dense forest separates Borofsky's house, which is also near the island's northern tip, from the conservancy cabin. The college keeps a tractor with a trailer in tow on the island to help maintain the lighthouse and the other buildings on the 12 acres it owns, Peterson said. Though there are some paths wide enough for the tractor between the conservancy buildings and the college property, no such paths lead to Borofsky's place, he said.
Carrying the piano there by hand would be a formidable task, he added.
"The thing must weigh 600 pounds or so," Peterson said.
Radziewicz said that Leach's storm petrel, one of the protected species of birds that summer on the island, burrows underground to build its nests. Carrying a 600-pound instrument across anything but a well-established path could pose a crushing threat to the birds and cause the people carrying it to trip, he said.
"We would not alter the landscape in order to get the piano from our property to [Borofsky's] property," Radziewicz said. Because of the seasonal presence on the island of the petrels, black guillemots, bald eagles and other birds, the nature preserve on the island is closed to visitors each year from Feb. 15 to Oct. 15, he said.
Peterson, who travels to the island by boat in the summer and hitches rides on a Coast Guard helicopter in the winter, said there is no good place to land a boat on Great Duck.
"The island is too exposed to build those kind of facilities," Peterson said. It might be possible to get the piano onto a barge beach near the conservancy cabin, but there is no place by Borofsky's house where the barge could safely unload the piano, he said.
"You'd have to pick optimal weather [to even try a barge landing on the island]," Peterson said. "There aren't too many days where you could get a wheeled vehicle ashore."
It is more feasible to transport the piano by barge to the mainland than it is to take it to the doctor's house by water, he said. A cargo-capable helicopter is another option, but they tend to be expensive, he added.
Because of the lack of activity on Great Duck in the winter, the piano does not have to be moved anywhere within the next couple of months. One option is for the college to transport the piano in the spring to one of its buildings at the southern tip of the island so that the conservancy can dispose of the cabin, Peterson said.
In the meantime, the parties will continue to work together to determine the piano's fate.
"We shall see," Radziewicz said.
