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Acadia's Carriage Rides Keep Vision Alive

July 23, 2008 - The "Grand Acadia Tradition," as it is billed on brochures and advertisements, was, in fact, not much of a tradition.

It was a dream, one that went to sleep for 40 years before a Kentucky horseman vacationed on Mount Desert Island and partnered with an unconventional government official who could not say no.

In 1986, Ed Winterberg joined forces with Acadia National Park Superintendent Jack Hauptman. Together, they found a lot of powerful people who shared their dream, which was originally a dream of John D. Rockefeller Jr.

More than 10 years later, the world-renowned Acadia carriage roads were restored, and Winterberg started rolling out horse-drawn carriage rides around the park --just as Rockefeller envisioned when he gave 11,000 acres to the National Park Service in the early part of the 20th century.

"We always turned people away, and to this day, we turn people away, because Acadia is a busy place," said Winterberg, who serves 20,000 people a year, or 200 a day on his horse-drawn carriage rides around the national park.

The rides run slowly over four different courses, up Day Mountain, around several bridges and, of course, along the famous coastline.

The routes run over the 57 miles of carriage roads that Rockfeller built between 1913 and 1940, 10 miles of which are still on Rockefeller land open to the public.

"He spent 30 years planning the carriage roads and making them accessible to the most scenic parts of the island," said Winterberg, who owns Wildwood Stables in the national park.

But, as Winterberg tells the story, the beauty in the carefully carved gravel and granite roads "went to sleep when Mr. Rockefeller died in 1960."

Rockefeller was never able to open a stable that offered carriage rides on his exquisite granite roads.

It was with Hauptman's help in 1986 that Winterberg recruited the help of Sen. George Mitchell, who would become the U.S. Senate majority leader, and benefactors such as Rockefeller's son David, to bring the dream of the park's original patron back to life.

Hauptman, park superintendent from 1987 to 1991, said the carriage roads at that time were in disrepair, neglected, and overgrown with trees, providing no sweeping vistas.

"There was no money. We got private money and matching funds. It was a partnership that restored the roads," Hauptman said from his home in Gainesville, Fla.

After the two men joined forces, the park brought in forestry students from the University of Maine to clear the trees. And with $4 million raised over 13 years through the newly established Friends of Acadia, the roads were restored, the bridges were brought back to their original brilliance, and the views were opened up for all to enjoy, said Winterberg.

Today, through these carriage rides, the Acadia National Park experience is as John D. Rockefeller Jr. envisioned it.

"The carriage roads in Acadia are the one unique thing that is in Acadia and nowhere else, and the way you experience them is on the carriage rides," Hauptman said.

The stable where Winterberg established the carriage rides 22 years ago is not where "Mr. Rockefeller" envisioned the park offering these rides -- that was to be in Bar Harbor. But the rides he offers are modeled after Rockefeller's vision.

Winterberg, who summers in Maine, has no plans to retire from Wildwood Stables.

But he has his own unique dreams: the idea of turning the stable into a nonprofit so it can be left to future generations as it was originally intended, and as it is run today.

Winterberg said he faces pressure to increase business by running more rides per day, but resists.

"You can't let the numbers drive you. The horses have to have the necessary breaks. And we want it to be a special experience," he said. "The landscape is inspiring, the story is inspiring. We want to match that."

For more information, visit the Web at www.nps.gov/acad.

By DEIRDRE FLEMING, Staff Writer, Portland Press Herald, July 20, 2008


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