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In thie first half of my conversation with Amelia Dow, we explore the human side of wealth—how it’s built, how it’s managed, and how it’s thoughtfully passed from one generation to the next.
If you’ve been hearing about the Great Wealth Transfer and wondering what it actually means for your family, your children, or your future in Maine, this episode offers both clarity and perspective.
Amelia shares her remarkable journey—from growing up in Western Maine to building a career in finance, and ultimately co-founding Portland Trust Company—a firm designed to put relationships, not shareholders, at the center of wealth management.
What We Cover in This Episode
A Thought to Consider
One of the most compelling ideas from this conversation:
It may be more generous—and more effective—to give thoughtfully during your lifetime than to leave uncertainty behind.
Learn More
To learn more about Amelia and her work:
Coming Up in Part II
In the second half of our conversation, Amelia and I take a deeper dive into:
Elegant Maine Living explores Maine’s homes, communities, and people—through the lens of lifestyle, values, and thoughtful living. I host conversations with leaders, creators, and advisors who help illuminate what it truly means to live well in Maine.
Connect with Elise
🌐 Website & Listings: EliseKiely.com
📸 Follow Elise on Social Media:
Have Questions or Topic Suggestions, e-mail Elise at
Subscribe, share with a friend, and join Elise every other week to discover what makes Maine not just beautiful—but beautifully lived.
Please remember this podcast is for entertainment and educational purposes only and does not create an attorney client or real estate advisor client relationship. Please reach out to me directly if I can assist you in your real estate journey.
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Moving to Maine Later in Life: Finding Community, Lifestyle, and Real Estate in Scarborough
Episode Summary
What does it look like to move to Maine later in life and intentionally choose a community that supports both connection and lifestyle?
In this second half of Elise’s conversation with Karen Nelson, we explore how Karen and her partner Richard made the thoughtful decision to build their next chapter in Scarborough, Maine—a coastal community just minutes from Portland that offers a unique balance of nature, community, and convenience.
After decades of professional and personal life in the Boston area, Karen and Richard weren’t simply looking for a house—they were looking for a Maine lifestyle. A place where they could stay intellectually engaged, physically active, and meaningfully connected to a new community.
In this episode, Karen shares how Scarborough stood out as the ideal place to call home in Maine—offering access to the outdoors, opportunities for civic involvement, and proximity to Portland’s vibrant restaurants, arts, and cultural life.
For anyone considering relocating to Maine, exploring Maine real estate, or finding the right Maine community later in life, this conversation offers both practical insight and inspiration.
Elegant Maine Living explores Maine’s homes, communities, and people—through the lens of lifestyle, values, and thoughtful living. I host conversations with leaders, creators, and advisors who help illuminate what it truly means to live well in Maine.
Connect with Elise
🌐 Website & Listings: EliseKiely.com
📸 Follow Elise on Social Media:
Have Questions or Topic Suggestions, e-mail Elise at
Subscribe, share with a friend, and join Elise every other week to discover what makes Maine not just beautiful—but beautifully lived.
Please remember this podcast is for entertainment and educational purposes only and does not create an attorney client or real estate advisor client relationship. Please reach out to me directly if I can assist you in your real estate journey.
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What does it look like to begin a completely new chapter of life—and even find a new home—in Maine later in life?
In this episode of Elegant Maine Living, host Elise Kiely sits down with Karen Nelson, a former healthcare executive who spent decades working in Boston’s leading academic medical systems, including Dana Farber and Mass General Brigham systems, before choosing to design a new lifestyle in Maine.
After being widowed, Karen met her partner Richard during the COVID pandemic. Together they made the thoughtful decision to begin again—building a relationship, choosing a new home, and creating a shared lifestyle rooted in the values they care about most.
But this conversation goes beyond career. It explores the deeply personal experience of reinvention, connection, and the courage to create a new life in Maine.
For anyone curious about relocating to Maine, designing a lifestyle around community, or finding the right Maine home in a new stage of life, Karen’s story offers thoughtful insight and inspiration.
What You'll Hear in This Episode
• Karen’s career journey in healthcare leadership and regulatory administration
• Why intellectual curiosity and lifelong learning shaped Karen’s professional path
• Dating and building a relationship later in life
• Meeting her partner Richard during the COVID pandemic
• A memorable first date walking for hours along the Charles River in Boston
• Why they chose to start fresh instead of moving into one another’s homes
• How they began imagining a shared future and lifestyle beyond Boston
• The early conversations that ultimately led them to consider homes and lifestyle opportunities in Maine
A Conversation About Reinvention and the Maine Lifestyle
Karen’s story reflects something many people quietly experience: reaching a moment when careers evolve, children grow, relationships change, and the question becomes—what does the next chapter look like?
For Karen and Richard, that question led them to rethink not just where they would live, but what kind of lifestyle they wanted their home to support.
This thoughtful conversation explores the idea that a home is more than a property—it’s a place that supports connection, curiosity, and the life you want to build.
For anyone considering moving to Maine, buying a home in coastal Maine, or designing a lifestyle centered on community and nature, this conversation offers valuable perspective.
Elegant Maine Living explores Maine’s homes, communities, and people—through the lens of lifestyle, values, and thoughtful living. I host conversations with leaders, creators, and advisors who help illuminate what it truly means to live well in Maine.
Connect with Elise
🌐 Website & Listings: EliseKiely.com
📸 Follow Elise on Social Media:
Have Questions or Topic Suggestions, e-mail Elise at
Subscribe, share with a friend, and join Elise every other week to discover what makes Maine not just beautiful—but beautifully lived.
Please remember this podcast is for entertainment and educational purposes only and does not create an attorney client or real estate advisor client relationship. Please reach out to me directly if I can assist you in your real estate journey.
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In the second half of my conversation with Nanci Boutet, founder and executive director of Special Surfers, we explore how a simple act of generosity grew into one of Maine’s most meaningful community outreach programs.
What began in 2003 as a request to take a few children with special needs surfing has become a nationally recognized adaptive surfing nonprofit serving thousands of children and adults of all abilities at Gooch’s Beach in Kennebunk, Maine .
This episode is about inclusion, courage, volunteerism, and the transformative power of one wave.
What Is Special Surfers?
Special Surfers is a Maine-based nonprofit adaptive surfing program that welcomes individuals with autism, Down syndrome, physical disabilities, cognitive differences, and any special need — no diagnosis required.
Participants register, arrive at the beach, and are paired with trained volunteer “wave captains” and surf assistants who guide them safely into the ocean.
In peak events, Special Surfers has hosted:
Over 22 years, more than 10,000 participants and volunteers have been impacted .
Learn more about Special Surfers here:
👉 https://specialsurfers.org
Nanci’s work earned recognition as a “Point of Light” under President George H. W. Bush’s Thousand Points of Light initiative, after encouragement from Barbara Bush in Kennebunkport .
While awards matter, Nanci makes clear: the real reward is watching someone discover confidence in a space where they are often underestimated.
Learn more about Aquaholics here:
👉 https://aquaholicsurf.com
Sometimes the most elegant thing we can do is help someone catch their first wave. 🌊
Elegant Maine Living explores Maine’s homes, communities, and people—through the lens of lifestyle, values, and thoughtful living. I host conversations with leaders, creators, and advisors who help illuminate what it truly means to live well in Maine.
Connect with Elise
🌐 Website & Listings: EliseKiely.com
📸 Follow Elise on Social Media:
Have Questions or Topic Suggestions, e-mail Elise at
Subscribe, share with a friend, and join Elise every other week to discover what makes Maine not just beautiful—but beautifully lived.
Please remember this podcast is for entertainment and educational purposes only and does not create an attorney client or real estate advisor client relationship. Please reach out to me directly if I can assist you in your real estate journey.
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What does it mean to go hard — in Maine, in cold water, and in life?
In this first half of my conversation with Maine surfer and entrepreneur Nanci Boutet, we explore how one woman helped reshape surf culture along the Maine coast and created space for women in a traditionally male-dominated sport.
Long before founding Special Surfers, Nanci was an adult beginner who fell in love with surfing in Southern Maine. In 2002, she opened Aquaholics Surf Shop, becoming one of the few women leading a surf business in the region. Her mission was simple but powerful: make surfing in Maine accessible — especially for women who were curious but intimidated.
From that vision came Mom’s Morning, a free weekly Maine surf gathering designed to welcome women of all ages, body types, and athletic backgrounds into the ocean with confidence.
In this episode, we discuss:
You’ll hear stories of:
At its core, this is not just a Maine surfing story. It is a story about women, courage, entrepreneurship, and community along the Maine coast.
Nanci’s approach is tough but transformational. She demands effort, presence, and commitment — not perfection. Her belief is simple: if you are willing to face cold water, uncertainty, and self-doubt, you can build confidence that extends far beyond the beach.
If you are interested in:
This episode will resonate.
In Part II, we continue the story and explore how this “Go Hard” philosophy evolved into Special Surfers — a Maine nonprofit serving children with special needs and their families.
Elegant Maine Living explores Maine’s homes, communities, and people—through the lens of lifestyle, values, and thoughtful living. I host conversations with leaders, creators, and advisors who help illuminate what it truly means to live well in Maine.
Connect with Elise
🌐 Website & Listings: EliseKiely.com
📸 Follow Elise on Social Media:
Have Questions or Topic Suggestions, e-mail Elise at
Subscribe, share with a friend, and join Elise every other week to discover what makes Maine not just beautiful—but beautifully lived.
Please remember this podcast is for entertainment and educational purposes only and does not create an attorney client or real estate advisor client relationship. Please reach out to me directly if I can assist you in your real estate journey.
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In the second half of my conversation with Jane Wellehan, we turn to a chapter many families will eventually face: selling a parent’s home and a beloved family vacation property while honoring memories, relationships, and legacy.
Jane shares her experience of selling her father’s waterfront home in Yarmouth and later, the Pine Point beach house that had been in her family since the 1960s. These were not simply properties. They were places layered with decades of history—of dinners, sailing, laughter, grief, and growth.
What struck me most in this conversation was Jane’s intentionality. With five sisters, she approached the process not as a transaction, but as a shared family experience that required structure, respect, and space for storytelling.
💛 Honoring Siblings and Personal Attachments
Jane and her sisters developed what they called the “Diva Pick” system—a thoughtful, rotating selection process that avoided assigning dollar values to sentimental items. Rather than reducing memories to spreadsheets, they:
In other words, if something mattered deeply to one sister—even if it seemed small or trivial to another—that attachment was respected.
They also included children in the process, recognizing that legacy extends forward as well as backward.
Jane’s message is clear: make room for stories before making decisions. The storytelling itself became part of the healing.
🏠 Different Homes, Different Emotions
The Yarmouth home, where her father had lived later in life, was emotional but more straightforward. The Pine Point beach house was harder. It had held childhood summers, decades of shared experience, and family identity.
The objects inside the multigenerational family beach house—shell crafts, cork lobster decorations, old bunk beds—carried meaning beyond their material value.
Jane emphasizes that when selling a family property, you are not just managing assets—you are stewarding memory.
♻️ A Maine Approach to Stewardship
Another powerful theme in this episode is intentional redistribution.
Jane was deeply committed to ensuring items found new homes whenever possible. Rather than defaulting to dumpsters, she:
She speaks beautifully about the Maine ethic of not wasting, of respecting usefulness, and of understanding economic diversity. For her, this approach was not only practical—it was consistent with her parents’ values.
🌊 Maine, Memory, and Continuity
As we close the conversation, we return to Maine itself. Jane reflects on the state’s ethic of craftsmanship, integrity, and quiet generosity. She believes deeply that Maine is a place where things—and people—are built to last.
Elegant Maine Living explores Maine’s homes, communities, and people—through the lens of lifestyle, values, and thoughtful living. I host conversations with leaders, creators, and advisors who help illuminate what it truly means to live well in Maine.
Connect with Elise
🌐 Website & Listings: EliseKiely.com
📸 Follow Elise on Social Media:
Have Questions or Topic Suggestions, e-mail Elise at
Subscribe, share with a friend, and join Elise every other week to discover what makes Maine not just beautiful—but beautifully lived.
Please remember this podcast is for entertainment and educational purposes only and does not create an attorney client or real estate advisor client relationship. Please reach out to me directly if I can assist you in your real estate journey.
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In the first half of this special two-part conversation, I sit down with my friend and client Jane Wellehan, a member of one of Maine’s most storied families, long associated with Lamey Wellehan and Sebago Shoes.
This episode begins with the story of a classic Maine family business—one built through hard work, risk-taking, and a deep respect for customers, employees, and community. Jane shares how her grandfather, an Irish immigrant, helped found Lamey Wellehan in Lewiston after World War I, and how Maine’s shoe manufacturing and retail industries became a powerful economic engine for the state.
Jane reflects on growing up in a household where business was part of daily life—where work was discussed openly at the dinner table, where international distributors sometimes joined family holidays, and where all six daughters were expected to understand how the family made a living. She shares what it was like to work alongside her father at Sebago for 15 years, helping navigate branding, product development, and eventually the difficult decision to sell the company as global manufacturing shifted away from Maine.
Alongside the business story, Jane paints a fuller picture of her family life—her mother’s deep commitment to the arts and education, her father’s love of music and painting, and the way creativity and industry coexisted in their home. We also talk about the importance of sailing in Jane’s life, from Casco Bay to decades of participation in the Monhegan Regatta—a distinctly Maine tradition that mirrors patience, skill, and continuity across generations.
This first half is intentionally a setup. By understanding the values, history, and emotional weight behind a family like the Wellehans, we begin to understand the complexity of what comes next.
In Part II, Jane speaks candidly about how the current generation faces one of life’s most difficult transitions: selling signature family properties, sorting and distributing personal belongings, navigating sibling dynamics, and honoring a family legacy while letting go of places filled with decades of memory. This foundational story gives essential context to those deeply human decisions.
💬 Key Themes
🧭 What’s Ahead in Part II
In the second half of our conversation, Jane shares thoughtful, practical insight into selling a parent’s primary residence and a beloved family vacation home—addressing the emotional realities, sibling relationships, and decisions around personal property with clarity, respect, and grace.
Elegant Maine Living explores Maine’s homes, communities, and people—through the lens of lifestyle, values, and thoughtful living. I host conversations with leaders, creators, and advisors who help illuminate what it truly means to live well in Maine.
Connect with Elise
🌐 Website & Listings: EliseKiely.com
📸 Follow Elise on Social Media:
Have Questions or Topic Suggestions, e-mail Elise at
Subscribe, share with a friend, and join Elise every other week to discover what makes Maine not just beautiful—but beautifully lived.
Please remember this podcast is for entertainment and educational purposes only and does not create an attorney client or real estate advisor client relationship. Please reach out to me directly if I can assist you in your real estate journey.
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In this episode of Elegant Maine Living, I’m joined once again by Chris Lynch, Owner and Designated Broker of Legacy Properties Sotheby’s International Realty, for a wide-ranging and thoughtful update on Maine’s real estate market.
Together, we take a clear-eyed look at what’s happening nationally and locally—and, more importantly, what it actually means for people making real decisions about their homes and their lives. We discuss whether Maine is currently a buyer’s market or a seller’s market, how prices are behaving across key counties, and why Maine continues to “bump along the top” rather than swing into extremes.
Chris shares his perspective on interest rates and why waiting for the “perfect” rate may not serve buyers as well as focusing on readiness, lifestyle, and long-term goals. We also explore how the great wealth transfer—from Baby Boomers to Gen X and Millennials—is reshaping who is buying in Maine, why buyers are getting younger, and how gifted cash is changing the competitive landscape.
Finally, we address one of the most serious issues facing real estate today: the growing sophistication and frequency of fraud and cybercrime in transactions. Chris outlines the real risks buyers and sellers face—and the practical steps everyone should be taking to protect themselves.
This conversation is both reassuring and candid: Maine remains resilient, desirable, and values-driven—but navigating today’s market requires intention, trusted advisors, and informed decision-making.
🔗 Episode Links
Elegant Maine Living explores Maine’s homes, communities, and people—through the lens of lifestyle, values, and thoughtful living. I host conversations with leaders, creators, and advisors who help illuminate what it truly means to live well in Maine.
Connect with Elise
🌐 Website & Listings: EliseKiely.com
📸 Follow Elise on Social Media:
Have Questions or Topic Suggestions, e-mail Elise at
Subscribe, share with a friend, and join Elise every other week to discover what makes Maine not just beautiful—but beautifully lived.
Please remember this podcast is for entertainment and educational purposes only and does not create an attorney client or real estate advisor client relationship. Please reach out to me directly if I can assist you in your real estate journey.
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In the second half of this conversation on Elegant Maine Living, Elise Kiely continues her discussion with Sandra Stone—former chair of Maine Angels, founder of C Cove Solutions, and a long-time advocate for entrepreneurship and women in investing.
This episode offers a clear, accessible look at how angel investing fits into the life cycle of a company—after friends-and-family funding and before traditional venture capital—and why early-stage capital is so critical for founders trying to scale responsibly. Sandra explains how individual investors, pooled funds, and Maine-based institutions work together to support innovation across the state.
Elise and Sandra explore:
The conversation also touches on the evolution of deal flow at Maine Angels, the shift toward supporting more Maine-based companies, and how angel investing can offer intellectual engagement, community, and purpose—especially for those looking to contribute beyond financial returns.
Sandra closes by reflecting on Maine’s pace of life, its culture of stewardship, and her optimism for the future of Maine’s startup and investment ecosystem.
Resources & Links Mentioned in This Episode
Elegant Maine Living explores Maine’s homes, communities, and people—through the lens of lifestyle, values, and thoughtful living. I host conversations with leaders, creators, and advisors who help illuminate what it truly means to live well in Maine.
Connect with Elise
🌐 Website & Listings: EliseKiely.com
📸 Follow Elise on Social Media:
Have Questions or Topic Suggestions, e-mail Elise at
Subscribe, share with a friend, and join Elise every other week to discover what makes Maine not just beautiful—but beautifully lived.
Please remember this podcast is for entertainment and educational purposes only and does not create an attorney client or real estate advisor client relationship. Please reach out to me directly if I can assist you in your real estate journey.
Send us Fan Mail
In this episode of Elegant Maine Living, Elise Kiely sits down with Sandra Stone—former chair of Maine Angels, founder of C Cove Solutions, and one of the most influential voices in Maine’s entrepreneurial and investment ecosystem.
In the first half of this thoughtful and inspiring conversation, Sandra shares her personal journey to Maine, how an unexpected first investment sparked a lifelong commitment to entrepreneurship, and why she became so passionate about encouraging more women to participate in angel investing—not as experts on day one, but as curious learners willing to lean in.
Together, Elise and Sandra explore:
This episode is especially for listeners who are curious about startup investing, interested in supporting Maine-based entrepreneurs, or wondering whether there’s a place for them—particularly women—in the world of early-stage investing.
Coming up in the next episode:
Elise and Sandra dive deeper into the industries attracting investment across Maine and New England, including aquaculture and sustainable products such as packaging and building materials. They also discuss mentoring early-stage companies and the growing number of women actively participating in angel investing.
If this conversation sparked your curiosity, you won’t want to miss what’s next.
For more information on Maine Angels please visit the website.
Elegant Maine Living explores Maine’s homes, communities, and people—through the lens of lifestyle, values, and thoughtful living. I host conversations with leaders, creators, and advisors who help illuminate what it truly means to live well in Maine.
Connect with Elise
🌐 Website & Listings: EliseKiely.com
📸 Follow Elise on Social Media:
Have Questions or Topic Suggestions, e-mail Elise at
Subscribe, share with a friend, and join Elise every other week to discover what makes Maine not just beautiful—but beautifully lived.
Please remember this podcast is for entertainment and educational purposes only and does not create an attorney client or real estate advisor client relationship. Please reach out to me directly if I can assist you in your real estate journey.
From the publisher's feed
Elegant Maine Living explores Maine’s luxury real estate market, distinctive properties, and the lifestyle that makes this state such a special place to call home. Hosted by Elise…