North Haven fares well staying out of the way

Founded well over a century ago by Boston yachtsmen, North Haven's summer colony now includes some of the country's wealthiest and most influential families. Over the years, some members of these families have married islanders while others have settled or retired here. The result is a creative mix.

North Haven Community School, with 70 students, Maine's smallest kindergarten through grade 12 school, has produced a play (''Islands") that has been performed on Broadway.

''Plays can go out from here and become part of theater all over the country," says John Wulp, the theater arts teacher. A former New York director and set designer, Wulp was instrumental in replacing the defunct Waterman's general store with the new $3 million Waterman's Community Center.

This new home to the North Haven Arts & Enrichment program includes a 140-seat state-of-the-art theater, the venue for summer lectures, concerts, and plays, including a world premiere of a musical version of ''Little Women."The lecture series this summer features specialists on the 19th-century literati of Concord, Mass. Wulp suggests that North Haven resembles Concord at its creative apogee.

This summer even veteran visitors are rubbing their eyes when they step off the ferry. Waterman's is just beyond the Maine State Ferry dock. Its exterior, designed with input from several architects, resembles an island store; inside, however, it's the island's airy and comfortable living room with couches, tables, board games, a ping-pong table, skittles, newspapers, pastries, and coffee. No doors are labeled. Open one and you are in a rest room, another and there's the theater.