If there’s one thing high school English teaches us, it’s the transformative power of leaving home in order to contemplate a New England pond. Henry David Thoreau sought Walden Pond to live deliberately; I arrived at Pattagansett Lake obliviously, on a weekend escape planned by someone else.
At the end of an unassuming suburban road in East Lyme, we crossed the land bridge to “the island.” This island has been home to some form of camping since the 1950s; a central structure once housed a rec hall with a jukebox. These days the land is divided between two owners, and if you’re seeking a short-term getaway, the half you’re looking for is Kevin Scanlon’s. Since 2020, Scanlon has been the proprietor of The Island RV Park, which does rent lots to longer-term guests, evidenced by Florida license plates and elaborate patio setups. But Scanlon is also the visionary behind the island’s latest and hygge-est evolution.
One by one over the last three years, Scanlon has populated empty lakefront plots with tiny houses to form the mini-resort currently called The Tiny Houses at the Island RV Park (future rebranding has not been ruled out). The tiny houses, which are made by a specialty company in Wisconsin, measure 24 by eight and a half feet—around 200 square feet of living space. Scanlon’s scepter currently includes nine tiny houses plus the RV plots and the former rec hall, now a two-family duplex that can also be rented as a five-bedroom lakehouse. Communal boats were added this season. As the property continues to evolve, it may take on additional amenities: perhaps a sauna or a cold plunge, but definitely more well-placed plant life by Rebecca Nolan, the landscape architect who happens to be married to Scanlon.
I was immediately won over by our tiny house’s (proportionally) giant front window, which offered a gorgeous view: all lake, no people. The houses have been cleverly angled and landscaped to avoid guests being too up in each other’s business, but this isn’t an experience of total isolation. Your neighbor is a length of gently glowing Edison-bulb garland away, so if you are the sort of hermit-philosopher who is incapable of exchanging passing pleasantries with the nice folks next door, this may not be your ideal escape. Our house had its own picnic area, small dock and “low-smoke” fire pit that I am still sort of freaking out over. It’s one thing to wake up from a night of fire-gazing and behold the vista of gently curling mist upon a glassy lake. It’s a whole other level to experience it without the intrusion of smoky hair and clothing.
The tiny houses are built for one or two guests. More than one proposal of marriage has been proffered here. If you are holding still while your partner stomps around the kitchenette, you’ll notice a little more vibration than you’d feel in a building with a foundation, but it’s not as if the trailer is a-rockin’. If a romantic interlude is not in the cards, the site is an equally appealing venue for a writing retreat or any other potentially transcendental solo activity. Fishing, perhaps? My traveling companion communed with nature by reeling in bluegill and bass from our dock—nothing that was quite frying size, but the process seemed meditative.
Staying at The Tiny Houses at the Island RV Park isn’t exactly roughing it. There’s no oven, but the kitchen does have a two-burner stove, a full-size fridge/freezer and a thoughtful assortment of tools: decent knives, an electric kettle, a carafe for pour-over coffee. The unit has a bluetooth speaker and strong enough wifi to use it, so plan your playlists accordingly.
Should you wish to flee even this level of modern noise, grab one of the complimentary kayaks or the pedal boat. A leisurely paddle around the perimeter of the lake (with pauses to ogle birds and real estate) takes under two hours. The stillness is truly lovely. Even on a weekend at the height of summer vacation season, we encountered just one jet ski and a couple of puttering fishing boats. The two halves of the island share a sandy beach which has a swimming area delineated by buoys. I swam (at my own risk, obviously) out past the ropes to the middle of the lake, which is perhaps ten feet at its deepest, and floated under a blue sky like I owned the place. No boats or wakes broke the spell.
Your high school English teacher may not have mentioned that Throreau wasn’t completely isolated at Walden Pond. He visited friends, brought his laundry to his mother and threw an annual melon party. So you should not feel guilty about leaving the island for fun or necessities. There’s a Walgreens a mile away and a CVS across the street from that. Mystic makes an easy side trip, especially if you’re ready for bigger crowds. Maybe you’re looking for Melville’s New England rather than Thoreau’s, but you skimmed the more procedural chapters of Moby Dick. If so, the Seaport Museum can catch you up on whale-hunting techniques, and there are actual white whales (albeit beluga) at the Mystic Aquarium. We opted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of brunch at The Shipwright’s Daughter, whose chef is a recent recipient of a James Beard award. Closer to the campsite is Rossa Negra, an East Lyme Latin fusion restaurant with friendly service and a solid paella.
The property’s listing on Airbnb is for a “Lakefront Boho Tiny House,” which gives a pretty well-ordered set of key words to describe the experience. The houses are available all year, with prices that vary from $175 to $275 a night depending on the season. It will be beautiful in the fall when the leaves change and also in the spring when the East Lyme High School rowing team practices on the Pattagansett. True hermits can have the lake mostly to themselves in the deepest part of winter (the tiny house walls are insulated). So really, whenever you find yourself feeling, like Thoreau, that you “could not afford to sacrifice the bloom of the present moment to any work,” it’s a good place to watch the present moment bloom.
Written by Sarah Harris Wallman. Images 1 and 2, featuring a view from the private dock and part of the tiny home interior, photographed by Sarah Harris Wallman. Image 3 provided courtesy of Kevin Scanlon.
