OTISFIELD — A move by selectmen to increase lease fees at Heniger Park may mean the end of summer living on Pleasant Lake for some families who have benefited from a 70-year-old land gift to the town.

Otisfield resident Jacob Heniger, a noteworthy Broadway producer and director, gave the town about 100 acres of mostly woodland on Pleasant Lake off Jacob’s Way in 1943. The will stipulated that selectmen would decide what would be done with the real estate and that it be called Heniger Park.

By 1965, selectmen divided the land into 35 lots and leased them for $1 to more than $1,000 each. Lessees were allowed to build houses on their lots. They pay taxes on their houses and fees for the land.

All leases are set to expire between 2015 and 2035 and the fees are expected to rise dramatically then.

The Heniger Park Committee recently voted unanimously that the lakefront lots be charged a rate of two times the adjusted land value, and back lots four times the adjusted land value. That could mean a rise in annual fees, for example, from $50 to $4,000 or more.

The new values are based on independent appraisals of what the lots would be assessed if they were outside of Heniger Park. The assessments ranged from $206,783 to $248,900 for lakefront lots, and from $44,340 to $45,900 for back lots.

The buildings on the lots are largely summer camps owned by Maine, Massachusetts and Rhode Island residents. Owners are waiting for the final decision that may determine whether they keep their camps or are forced to sell when their lease expires.

Some owners said they are willing to pay their fair share, but others think the committee’s action is “spiteful,” and they are being treated unfairly.

“It has been our cottage for almost 50 years,” said one owner who has paid $50 per year to lease the land for the past 49 years. “Increasing the fee to $4,000 is just spiteful.”

Shirley Boyce of Norway said the Heniger Park people are “happy to pay the equivalent of the value of the land and buildings, just like any landowner would pay in Otisfield, and feel that is very fair.” But, she added, “it is very unfair to pay more than what others in town would be expected to pay for a similar property.”

The lot has been in her husband, Jim’s, family for 46 years. Under the new proposal, she expects the lease to rise from about $1,337 to more than $5,800.

“Most people with leases at Heniger are average people who could not afford to purchase something on the lake otherwise. If they could, they wouldn’t be in Heniger Park,” said Boyce, who is Norway’s town clerk. Their camp was not built for year-round living, she said.

Despite concerns about the future of her camp, Boyce said she and others in Heniger Park are grateful for the opportunity Heniger’s gift to the town provided them.

“Four generations of our family have been very grateful to Jacob Heniger for having had the chance to have a little camp by the water,” Boyce said.

ldixon@sunjournal.com

Henigers Involved in Theater

OTISFIELD — Jacob and Minnie Heniger’s love of the theater and a physical education course at Columbia University first drew them together in New York City and set the stage for a lifetime of summers on Pleasant Lake in Otisfield.

Jacob Heniger was a prominent Broadway director and playwright in New York City in the early 1900s. He was born in 1881 in Austria-Hungary, a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary. He immigrated as a child to the United States.

Heniger wrote and produced shows, including, “The Traveling Man” (1916), “Thy Neighbors Wife,” (1911) and “Editha’s Burglar” (1916.)

He married Alice Minnie Herts, a social worker and writer who was born in New York. She founded and managed the Children’s Educational Theater on the lower east side of New York. Humorist Samuel Clemens, known popularly as Mark Twain, served as the theater’s president.

Ethel Turner of the Otisfield Historical Society said information she found written by the late Dr. Nellie McCaslin, educator, author and actress who died in 2005 at the age of 90, shows Minnie’s work was of lasting consequence.

“Alice Minnie Herts was a social worker but also a theatre enthusiast, who envisioned more than a few Saturday afternoons of fairy tales for children; she wanted a season of the best literature available produced and performed professionally,” McCaslin wrote in 2004.

“(Minnie Heniger) included in the new program classes in acting, puppetry and storytelling for young people of all ages,” McCaslin wrote. “The Children’s Educational Theatre was highly successful, serving as a model for other settlement houses in urban areas from coast to coast.”

Jean Hankins of the Otisfield Historical Society said Minnie also taught an extension course in the physical education department at Columbia University around about 1914. “Jacob Heniger apparently participated in the course,” Hankins said.

Hankins said Dr. George Mehlan, who founded Camp Arcadia on Pleasant Lake in Otisfield, was then a faculty member of the physical education department at Columbia University.

“It may have been through him that the Henigers first became acquainted with Pleasant Lake and with the idea of founding a summer camp for children,” Hankins said.

She said that in 1917 the Henigers, joined by Minnie’s sister, Sophia Levy, bought 100 acres of land in Otisfield and established Camp Songo for girls. The camp specialized in creative dramatics, and the girls acted in several lavish performances, including a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta, complete with elaborate costumes.

The Henigers both believed in the necessity of good entertainment for children.

Hankins and Turner believe that in 1921 the couple bought another 100-acre parcel adjoining the first. The second parcel, which included the Ezekiel Sylvester Farm, eventually became Heniger Park.

ldixon@sunjournal.com

Copy the Story Link