A Kezar Lake Summer The ethical culture of a Maine lake by Edgar Allen Beem Maine Times, June 30, 1989 At summer solstice the rain-swollen waters of Kezar Lake are yellow rimmed with pollen.  A soft breeze blows through the sudden heat frisking the surface and rafting the pollen dust.  There are no wakes to complicate matters.  A pair of loons rests silent on the lake, undisturbed, disappears, silently re-appears at a distance.  On shore a flight of black and white alpine butterflies alights and flutters.  The air smells of pine and ozone.  Birds titter and somewhere a flute answers. Everything is ready for the guests to arrive. The great god Nature bestowed upon Kezar Lake secret, subtle charms uncommon even among the charmed lakes of Maine.  To begin with, there is little in nature that the human eye enjoys more than water surrounded by mountains.  Running nine miles north-south through the diamond-shaped town of Lovell, Kezar Lake has an eastern shore which faces rank upon marching rank of New Hampshire's White Mountains and a western shore which contemplates Maine's own forested interior.  Other Maine lakes may be larger and wilder (sporting Moosehead), larger and more popular (suburban Sebago), more remote and pristine (gem lake Attean Pond), but none is more beautiful than Kezar. Ask anyone who has spent more than an afternoon in Lovell and he will tell you that sometime in the distant past (no one seems to know exactly when) National Geographic, that source authority on natural aesthetics, counted Kezar Lake among "the three most beautiful lakes in the world." The New York Times, they may add, put Kezar in the top five.  But regardless of official endorsements, Kezar Lake is - by virtue of its clean, deep waters, its mountainous prospects, its varied shoreline, its own intimate, secluded nature, and the unobtrusive nature of its settlement - a picture book lake of the first order. How Kezar Lake manages to be so unspoiled after a century of tourism and what is being done to ensure that it remains so are the questions animating this summer visit.  The fortunes of Kezar Lake are the fortunes of Maine in microcosm.  "No doubt the town of Lovell has benefited greatly from the turn of fortune that brought the first summer people to Kezar Lake," wrote Pauline Moore in her 1970 history of Lovell, Blueberries and Pusley Weed. No doubt and no wonder.  Lovell today is a pretty little town of some 850 souls lightly distributed in and around the villages of Lovell, Center Lovell, and North Lovell, but in the summer the population concentrated around the lake quadruples.  Virtually the entire economy of the town is based on tourism, if by tourism we mean both transients and seasonal residents.  Non-resident property owners around Kezar Lake, for example, pay roughly two-thirds of Lovell's property taxes - nonresident real estate accounting for $67 million of the town's $99 million valuation in 1988. "One of the things that's always been true," says lifelong Kezar Lake summer resident Richard Beckhard, "is that the locals never had property on the lake." Maybe not always true, but certainly after the summerfolk began arriving in the 1880s and buying up the prime frontage.  Richard Beckhard's grandfather, for example, arrived in 1890 from New York City and stayed for a time at the farm of Weston Palmer on the steep Bryant Hill shore before buying property of his own.  Martin Beckhard, like several of Kezar's early rusticators, was active in the New York Society for Ethical Culture, a humanist movement which originated among a group of Jewish intellectuals in the late 19th century.  Indeed, the fundamental tenet of the Ethical Culture movement - that God acts through human beings, thus every human action has a moral dimension- set a high tone for the original Kezar Lake summer colony. "This has always been a cultural center for people from Boston and New York," says Richard Beckhard, himself a retired MIT professor and a guru in the field organizational management. In some ways, Kezar lake behaves more like a coastal resort community than it does like a typical Maine summer lake.  Where the Maine lake resort norm tends to be motels, bait and tackle shops, marinas, summer camps for kids, and modest cottages on postage stamp lots, Kezar is old inns, estates turned into housekeeping cottages, and summer homes (some with architectural pretensions) tucked sedately away out of view. Kezar's civilized eastern shore is graced at intervals by a series of venerable turn-of-the-century cabin colonies and lodges, many of which have found new life in the modern age.  Two of the oldest, Severance Lodge (which began life as Brown's Camps in 1895) and Boulder Brook Camp (Lyons' Camps, 1900), are now private clubs with individually-owned cottages.  Hewnoaks, the half-timbered estate built by artist Douglas Volk in 1900 is operated as housekeeping cottages.  And Westways, the cottage compound Diamond Match founder William Fairburn built in the 1920's as a summer retreat and corporate headquarters, lives on as a year-round vacation resort complete with gourmet restaurant. Choicest of the old Kezar Lake resorts, however, might be Quisisana, Maine's musical retreat.  Quisisana (the name is Italian for "place where one heals one's self.") has been in operation since 1917 as a place where musicians wait on music lovers.  The staff of the lakeside cottage colony is recruited from the best conservatories and music schools in the country so that guests are treated to a week of nature by day, culture by night. This summer the musical minions of Quisi perform an instrumental program Sunday evening, The Music Man on Monday, a piano recital on Tuesday, Falstaff on Wednesday, a Broadway review on Thursday, and a recital of operatic arias on Friday.  Mozart and Maine!  Verdi in Vacationland! Of course,  Kezar Lake has a wild side as well, that being the less developed western shore where the pavement ends and the partying begins.  At least that's the way it used to be when visited by crooner Rudy Vallee, Kezar's most famous summer resident until author Stephen King came along. Rudy Vallee was lured up to Kezar Lake in the summer of 1930 by night club owner Don Dickerman, a Lovell legend who discovered the lake for himself in 1911.  Vallee promptly purchased 300 acres next to Dickerman's and kicked off a decade of show biz summers such as may never be seen in Maine again. Celebrity guests at Rudy's lodge included the likes of band leader Fred Waring, singer Eddie Cantor, ventriloquist Edgar Bergen, and actresses Frances Langford, Dorothy Lamour, and Alice Faye.  Kezar Lake old-timers still recall how Alice Faye's au natural sunbathing turned the waters around Vallee's lodge into an extremely popular fishing spot during the summer of '34. In the fall of '35, when Eddie Cantor fell ill and was unable to conduct his weekly radio show, Rudy Vallee pinch hit for him.  As a token of his appreciation Cantor gave Vallee a 31-foot Chris-Craft Cruiser which Vallee promptly christened "Banjo Eyes" in honor of the wall-eyed Cantor. "Our lunch thereafter," recalled Vallee in his 1962 autobiography My Time Is Your Time, "became a nautical ritual with a phonograph aboard playing the records of Previous broadcasts.  There was also current for the Waring Mixer to make our daiquiris on board and while our Filipino chef prepared the hot lunch, we cruised to the north end of the lake and sat in the cool of the trees listening to the broadcast records of last night's show and eating his delicious cooking.  The smaller Chris-Craft (our 'tender') would race out with the ice cream which was hoisted on board to make our Cherries Jubilee.  On lovely moonlit nights we would cruise up and down the lake, wrapped  in blankets with the phonograph playing Glenn Miller's 'Moonlight Serenade' and other equally relaxing music.  Tough Life!" Today, the lyric, "My time is your time." carved into the mantelpiece of Rudy Vallee's old Kezar lodge has been joined by the motto, "Bright and keen for Christ" as Vallee's merry band has been replaced by the happy campers of a Christian Service Brigade boys camp. The tone and tenor of Kezar Lake summers began to change after World War II as estate heirs broke up large land holdings or started taking in guests.  But Richard Beckhard, whose specialty is the study of corporate cultures, observes that the real change in the summer culture of the lake did not occur until much more recently. "The culture up until the mid-1970s was very clear," says Beckhard.  "You always knew who you were.  You were either a native, a summerfolk, or a goddamntourist - that's a single word."  Natives, says Beckhard, tended to be oriented toward development, summerfolk toward protecting the lake against development.  "Today," he says, "the whole clearly defined social structure is much muddier and that allows for a lot of crossing over on environmental issues." The Kezar Lake Association (KLA), which now represents the owners of some 200 of the approximately 220 properties around the lake, was formed in 1969 by a handful of people at the north end of the lake concerned about the possible environmental impact of the Evergreen Valley time-sharing resort being planned in neighboring Stoneham.  Evergreen Valley was a failure from the start, but the Kezar Lake Association remained active even after the resort became a moribund reality.  Today, the KLA is one of 45 lake associations allied with Maine's 4,000 member-Congress of lake Associations (COLA). "The beauty of Kezar Lake is that people really care about it,"  says KLA secretary and COLA president Joan Irish.  "Another beauty is that you can see very little of it from the road so people sometimes don't even know it's here." Kezar Lake is de facto two lakes- a deep (155 feet), narrow northern basin and broad, shallow (10 feet) southern basin separated by The Narrows.  The only glimpse a passing motorist gets of Kezar Lake is while crossing the bridge at The Narrows where the landscape, dominated by the lake's only marina, is uninspiring.  Kezar's charms are generally hidden from public view, but after a century of tourism the world knows where Kezar Lake is hiding. Publicity makes some the lake nervous, but what makes them more nervous is the effect of tourism and development on the lake itself. "Our major concern, of course," says Joan Irish, 'is the water quality of the whole lake and whole watershed." "I'd drink the water in August, I would," says an old timer kibbutzing at the town office.  "Course I'd boil it first." But according to Scott Williams, the water quality consultant who monitors Kezar Lake for the KLA, the waters of Kezar are superior to those of most Maine lakes.  Williams, who tests the lake every two weeks between May and October, reports that Secchi disk readings (which measure water clarity by lowering a disk into the water and noting the maximum depth at which it remains visible) in the north basin of Kezar are between 7.6 meters and 8.0 meters where 5.5 to 6.0 meters would be average for a Maine lake. Another critical indicator of stress on water quality is the ability of a lake to maintain dissolved oxygen levels in late summer.  When the dissolved oxygen content of a lake falls to one part per million (ppm), a chemical reaction occurs releasing phosphorus, a natural fertilizer that encourages the growth of algae. The dissolved oxygen standard for healthy lake water is five ppm; the dissolved oxygen content of Kezar Lake, even at the maximum depth of 155 feet is between seven and eight ppm - "really excellent," according to Scott Williams. The major threat to water quality on inhabited lakes is phosphorus loading, an increase in imported phosphorus due to run-off.  Natural vegetation acts to filter phosphorus-laden run-off water, but the paved, sanded, and shingled surfaces created by man tend to promote greater phosphorus loading.  For this reason, clearing of land, construction of permanent structures, dredging of soils, and dumping of sand around Maine's great ponds (bodies of water 10 acres or larger) require permits from the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). By and large, environmental vigilance and consciousness have been high on Kezar Lake, but, unfortunately, there are some in every crowd who just don't get the message.  On Kezar, the repeat offenders are a family from Conway ("They're from New Hampshire and they just don't give a damn," says one Lovell town official.) who have bulldozed shoreland, dumped sand, and built retaining walls in violation of Maine law. The DEP has cited and fined the individuals involved, but both Lovell officials and lake association members express frustration that the state does not enforce such violations more strictly. Kezar Lake is a place where the majority of summer and year-round residents share a common set of values, among which are peace and quiet and a respect for privacy.  The Conway cowboys are recent arrivals from the speed 'n greed culture who, in addition to ignoring environmental laws, aggravate the Kezar old guard by rocketing around the lake on jet skis (the water-going cousin of the snowmobile). While the state is currently trying to design workable legislation to regulate the use of the fast, noisy, and dangerous machines.  Kezar Lake Association members made a unanimous resolution three years ago not to allow jet skis on their properties.  The operators of the Kezar Lake Marina, where jet ski demo models are available, generally respect the wishes of lake residents. "The people on this lake don't appreciate jet skis," says Kezar Lake Marina manager Randy Church.  That's the reason we don't rent or promote them over here."  The phrase "taxation without representation" sometimes occurs in conversations with summer residents, but seasonal residents have ways of making themselves heard beyond the ballot box.  In Lovell, lake association officials and town officers often work together closely to achieve mutually desired ends.  At its March town meeting, for instance, Lovell passed an ordinance suggested by the KLA to limit so-called "funnel development" around the lake.  To restrict developers from selling shorefront rights on small pieces of lakefront to a large number of back lot property owners, the ordinance requires 2OO feet of shorefront before shore rights can be deeded over and then to not more than four non-frontage lots.  Any shore rights beyond four back lots require an additional 50 feet of lakefront ownership. Ironically, the cottage colonies which contribute so greatly to the character of the Kezar Lake summer community are perfect examples of funnel development.  Two years ago, in another key growth control move, Lovell increased its minimum building lot size from 45,000 square feet to 85,000 square feel.  Thus, while cluster developments are not expressly forbidden, a developer would need almost two acres for every dwelling unit constructed.  The current development concern in Lovell is the fate of Farrington's Hotel, an old (1911) lake resort next door to Quisisana.  Mountain High Development Corporation of North Conway, N.H., once proposed developing as many as 55 condominium units on the 24 acre property, but has since scaled its plans back to 14 individual units. At a special town meeting June I7, Lovell residents overwhelmingly (120 to 46) rejected a proposal that the town purchase the Farrington Hotel property for $1.24 million. Selectman Gordon 'Stub' (for stubborn) Eastman, a native, says the vote was short-sighted, but planning board member Ed Nista, who moved to Lovell 15 years ago from Providence, says the fact that the town had no specific plans for the property influenced voters as much as the fact that the purchase would have tacked another $1 per $1,000 of valuation onto local tax bills. Then, too, there is the question of whether Lovell needs to own a 24-acre lakefront hotel complex.  Other than boat launching facilities at either end of the lake, there is very little public access to Kezar Lake.  The town beach in front of Farrington's, for instance, is restricted to local residents.  There is virtually nothing for day tripping tourists to do at Kezar Lake unless they own or rent a boat. Invisibility and inaccessibility go a long way toward explaining how and why Kezar Lake has remained so unspoiled.  But as property around the lake changes hands, folks in Lovell must decide how new land uses may impact their lovely lake.  Just this March, for instance, the Lovell planning board nominated 550 acres across Route 5 from the Westways resort to the Land for Maine's Future Board for state purchase.  The property, called Westways East, is part of a 775 acre parcel Diamond Occidental Corporation has on the market.  The property includes 6,000 feet of undeveloped shore on Heald Pond and 900 on Bradley Pond. Selectman Stub Eastman is skeptical of the proposal, saying, "When the state buys something, it's open to the world.  That's why we didn't get the state in on Farrington's." But planning board member Ed Nista says, "I've had a lot of positive reaction to the idea.  Stub was probably the most cautious with his 'You get the state in here, you get the world in here.'  But I had to weigh whether it's better to have state land with public access or just let whatever might happen happen." "In the future, if it's not accepted by the state," says Nista of Westways East, "I'll bring it to the town with the help of the Kezar Lake Association and the Greater Lovell Land Trust.  It's a big part of the Kezar Lake watershed." The power of purchase, of course, is the last word in land use regulation.  Just across Route 5 from Westways East, novelist Stephen King purchased 84 acres along Bryant Hill from Diamond Occidental in order to protect the privacy of his own summer home and those of his Palmer Lane neighbors. And so, as the birds and waiters sing and the loons dip silently from sight the good folks of Kezar Lake remain on guard against the unwanted advances of population. "The whole name of the game is protecting the lake," says lake activist Joan Irish.  "When it comes to people or the lake, I figure the lake has been here a lot longer than people have."