Local Businessman Makes the First Major Donation for Conners Emerson School Construction
Board Chair Hopes Gift Will Inspire Others
BAR HARBOR—On the first day back to school, Alexandra Simis, Bar Harbor School Committee chair shared some good news—news that she’s been working toward ever since the project was approved—a local man’s $100,000 gift to the rebuild of the Conners Emerson School, in support of its library.
“I just have so much hope about this,” said Simis who has written letters, requested meetings, gone to multiple potential donors, trying to learn how to fundraise as she goes along. “I’ve been met with so many noes. I’m feeling so good about this gift, this yes.”
That the yes came from a member of the community, someone who grew up here, means even more. Sometimes a donation is more than a donation; sometimes it’s a moment of hope; sometimes it’s a sign of commitment. Sometimes it’s a belief in community and that they can work together for kids and for each other.
In June 2023, Bar Harbor voters passed a $58 million bond to rebuild the ailing schools and support the town’s K-8 population. Broken boilers, rain inundation, a wall pulling away from the foundation, poor air exchanges, limited classroom space, and a lack of insulation are just some of the buildings’ recent problems.
The bond passed 1,005 to 502.
According to the project’s website, “The cost of building a new structure is projected to be 2.49% more than renovation.”
For Stephen Coston his $100,000 gift for the new school came even though he didn’t support the bond to build the school. What matters, he said, is supporting it now, giving back to the community and the educational system that helped him and so many others even if the plan isn’t something that he supported. It’s about stepping away from what he called a “binary hardline attitude” that is increasing divisiveness in the town.
“I don’t think that type of attacking discourse is helpful to us as a community. It’s not helpful for us accomplishing all that we could, as a community, accomplish. We have a really good thing here. Let’s support the good things that we have,” he said, even when it might not be exactly how you want it to come out—like the school bond.
Thinking more critically, supporting the community, and staying away from the more divisive us-vs-them narratives that have been part of the cruise ship debate are what he hopes for.
“I didn’t vote for the school bond,” Coston said. That wasn’t because he didn’t support a functional school. He did. He just didn’t support the bond.
Still, he’s the first major donor for the project, which is currently funded by local taxpayers.
“You don’t win them all,” he said of the bond’s passage. “In life things don’t always go your way.”
This is true in a lot of things, he said, but community is about coming together, rather than vilifying each other, having differences of opinion and diversity of experience, but still supporting each other and the community itself. It’s one of the reasons he’s quietly supported the Jesup Memorial Library’s nonfiction section, been on numerous nonprofit boards, funded the irrigation of Bar Harbor-owned ball fields off Park Street.
Coston’s gift is the Conners Emerson School construction project’s first major donation. The multi-million-dollar bond goes out to sale in mid September.
“We’re so lucky to be here. We’re so lucky to live in this community. We’re so lucky and we need to do a better job of expressing that,” Coston said.
Where else can you go from watching a performance at the Criterion Theatre or Reel Pizza, surrounded by friends and people, and then 10 minutes later be out on Sand Beach alone, staring up at stars, he asked.
Education is a big part of building community, Simis and Coston agreed. Conversation is another. Investing in its future via its people and its infrastructure is another. Diversity of thought is, too.
“You can’t wish to steamroll people into being your clone,” Coston said. It’s about responsibility and reason and sometimes it’s about giving what you can to help.
“This gift is making it real,” Simis said of the school’s fundraising efforts.
Coston has asked for his contribution to be used for the new library. Books changed his life, he said. When he was in his twenties, he floundered. He felt a bit unmoored, unsure what his goals were. His dad gave him a book, A Random Walk Down Wall Street. Burton G. Malkiel’s book changed Coston’s world. He made goals. Things clicked. He grew one small business. Grew another. Grew another.
Now, his company, Stay Bar Harbor, currently operates 395 rooms, all in Bar Harbor with the exception of one property, Cedar Crest Inn, in Camden.
“Cedar Crest has 37 rooms,” he said. “We expect The Pathmaker Hotel to open soon, however, I have not included it in the current room count. Pathmaker will offer 46 rooms.”
The Pathmaker Hotel is on Cottage Street and caused controversy because it was approved under the town’s definition of a bed and breakfast, but is large and feels more like what a hotel might be. The town is currently bringing the language of lodging categories (transient accommodations) before a vote in November. The definitions require changes to the the town’s land use ordinance.
Coston is also part of Coston, McIsaac & Shea, whose assets under management are at approximately $400 million, built up from $60 million in 2015.
Coston attended MDI High School. Bar Harbor is his home, he said. And though he didn’t intend to, he continues the legacy of one of his ancestors, his great-great-great grandfather Richard Hamor, who built the Bay View House in 1868. Hamor then built the Grand Central Hotel.
The article by Richard Savage writes, “Local residents invested large sums in the resort trades. David Rodick and sons invested $12,000 in their hotel enterprise, and Tobias Roberts was not far behind. Richard Hamor had built the Bay View House in 1868 and was soon to build the Grand Central, the town’s second largest hotel. Other proprietors invested considerably less, but as a whole, hotel construction was a great boon to Bar Harbor's economy.”
“The lodging industry has been the cornerstone of our economy—and has been driven primarily by locals—for a very long time! All of that remains true today, nearly 200 years later—an absolutely remarkable constant for this community over such a timespan, if you ask me. I always laugh a little inside when people who moved here 10, 20, or 30 years ago complain, ‘Bar Harbor has changed!’ Actually, just the opposite—it has remained surprisingly unchanged over the past 150 or 200 years, especially when compared to pretty much any other community on Earth,” Coston said.
The hotel and lodging industry was part of Coston’s past, but the denizens of those past have also impacted the Bar Harbor students in multiple ways: funding schools, libraries, and scholarships. Each year, Mount Desert Island High School students receive approximately half a million dollars in scholarships.
That money, Simis said, is because people understood that a community is about its children and about its children’s education. “A lot of it is from a long time ago,” she said. “It’s from people who believe in kids, in this community.”
“That belief, that amount of scholarship money,” Coston said, “it doesn’t exist everywhere.”
Both want that belief, the support, the care about the community’s kids and future, to continue to exist in Bar Harbor. Donating a lot, a little, serving others is important, Simis said. “I get up every day happy to be here, happy to serve this community, wondering what way I can serve it better.”
One of the formative books for Simis was Chop Wood, Carry Water.
Simis came to Mount Desert Island when she was 18 to attend College of the Atlantic and never left. She raised her children here, runs a business with her husband in Town Hill, the Town Hill Market, and chairs the Conners Emerson School Board.
“Showing kids that you can stay on the island, stay in Bar Harbor, and that there are some exciting opportunities?” Coston said. “That’s what it’s about.”
They both worry about the costs to the taxpayer for the school bond, an earlier infrastructure bond, the Higgins Pit Solar Array project bond, as well as increasing municipal, county, and other school budgets.
“Without help, the everyday person’s, our everyday community, will be very different,” Simis said, which is why those fundraising noes hit her hard. But also why she keeps asking.
Part of what Coston’s gift is about, he said, is that he worries about the impact that rising cost of living and housing costs have on local taxpayers. Those are the same people, and the same families, they said, who go fight fires, who teach kindergarten at the school, who serve tables at the Balance Rock, who work at Hannafords or the Bar Harbor Inn, dispatch at Acadia National Park, or help the sick at the hospital or one of the labs.
Community is important.
For Coston, the gift to the school, specifically for the library, is about building the community and building minds and thought. He’s passionate that discord of thought shouldn’t create division of community.
“We need to work together,” he said and stop villainizing each other, particularly the business community, which is filled with local people, he said.
Rhetoric around the town’s cruise ship issues has included stickers, social media posts, and protection orders on both sides of the argument. Hate around the Pathmaker Hotel also led to vilifying social media posts and property damage.
Coston has been featured on podcasts, Maine Biz’s 40 under 40, and other publications. That success, he hopes, will let other island students understand that they don’t have to go to Silicon Valley and create an app to be successful. They can do it here on Mount Desert Island.
“You can stay in Maine. You can stay on the island. You can stay in Bar Harbor,” he said. “Those are viable options. There are some great opportunities here.”
So great that you can make enough money to help build a functional school.
Simis said that kids are the backbone and future of the community. To keep them educated and safe and healthy, it takes a community and support.
Construction was scheduled to begin this summer with a building completion date of 2026.
“We are waiting on the DEP permit to be approved which could be any day. As soon as it is approved, construction will begin,” said Conners Emerson Principal Dr. Heather Webster.
According to Bar Harbor Financial Director Sarah Gilbert, the fundraising will not decrease the bond amount, however, fundraising does impact the taxpayers.
“Funds would be used to decrease the amount needed to be raised by taxation for debt service,” she said.
“I hope this will draw attention and drum up other support for the school,” Coston said. “I’m doing what I can. I feel like if I can do it, and I want to do it, and I can support the types of projects that help people who are struggling? I will. The school needs to be addressed, and we, as a community, are addressing it.”
“I’m really hoping it’s inspiration,” Simis said.
HOW TO HELP
If you would like to support the school rebuild, you can write a check payable to the Town of Bar Harbor and mail it to Sarah Gilbert, Treasurer, 93 Cottage Street, Bar Harbor, ME 04609
Questions can be sent to Gilbert here.
Questions can also be sent to Simis here.
Savage, Richard A.. "Bar Harbor: The Hotel Era, 1868-1880." Maine History 10, 4 (1971): 101-120.
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Simply a transaction for Coston. He thinks the benefit from the goodwill he gets from this outweighs the expense.
One Hundred Thousand Dollars is nothing to sneeze at. It is a wonderful gift. Just one question; Does the money go to pay down the debt or to buy extras not included in the building contract? Inquiring minds may want to know. Either way Thank you Mr. Coston