About Winterland
Our Story
When our last kid left for college, we knew we were ready for a massive change. As an interior decorator and a corporate sales manager working remotely, we could do our jobs anywhere. Our goal was to live in a building that inspired us; challenged us and that was paid for. Also, we didn't want another typical single family home. After scouring the entirety of the United States, looking at every church, school house, Masonic Lodge, and even a bowling alley, we discovered Grange Halls. And after almost a year of looking, we found THE grange hall.
Winterland Hall (the grange hall formerly known as New Norland Grange) was built in 1900 and was perfectly imperfect in every way. We fell in love over Zoom and made an offer sight unseen. 30 days later we packed 23 years of life into a semi truck and moved 20 hours across the country, to a city we never visited, to a state we'd only spent 24 hours in, with 2 cats, 1 dog and no clue what we were getting ourselves into.
"Misery Makes Memories" this is our family motto. Oftentimes, the worst situations make the best stories and in those cringey moments of terror, lie the lessons that shape you. Now, we're not saying this experience has been miserable, but moving into and reviving a 100+ year old non-traditional home was never supposed to be easy. A crash course in heating a 4800 square foot building during a Maine winter nearly killed us. Not to mention a bat infestation, leaky roof, a shocking lack of insulation, and what the hell were we supposed to do with all this wood??
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