CAPE ELIZABETH–The state will continue to lease the private land that comprises about 40 percent of Crescent Beach State Park for another year, while talks with the land’s owner continue.

That news about the picturesque state park in Cape Elizabeth comes just weeks before the April 24 expiration date of a 50-year lease that grants the state use of nearly 100 privately owned acres of land in the park.

Without the leased land, which is owned by the Sprague Corp., the park would be only 60 percent of its current size of about 242 acres. Even the control station, where visitors pay fees or show passes to enter the park, is on the private land.

However, Will Harris, director of the Maine Bureau of Parks & Lands, says that the park will remain as is for at least another year.

“We have made an agreement with the Sprague Corp. for an extension of the lease for one year, during which time we will be working together to come up with a more permanent resolution to the use of their land,” Harris said last week.

He said that such a lease arrangement in a state park is unusual, and that the state hopes to be able to purchase the land, which makes up much of the western end of the park.

“We would like to buy it if we can work out what the terms might be,” Harris said.

He said the extension of the lease “gives us time to do that.”

Harris declined to give details of the negotiations with the Sprague Corp. but described them as “forthright and productive.”

Seth Sprague, president of the family owned corporation, also declined to reveal details of the talks, but said that the family wants to conserve the land.

“We are interested in finding a solution with the state,” Sprague said. “We’re working with them. It just takes time.”

Harris last week did not have a set date on which the lease extension agreement would be signed. However, he said, “I feel confident that we can have it accomplished prior to the end of the current lease.”

Sprague said the terms of the lease would remain unchanged for the coming year.

He said his grandfather, Phineas Shaw Sprague, played a key role in creating Crescent Beach, donating some land to the state and also leasing some of it.

The state’s rent on the lease is just a token – $1 per year – so it’s clear Phineas Shaw Sprague wasn’t renting the land for the money.

Instead, Seth Sprague said, his grandfather wanted to make sure that the park functioned well at a time when state parks still were relatively new.

This year marks the 75th anniversary of the Maine state park system, established by the Legislature in 1935.

“He was able to put terms in there on how the park would be operated. There weren’t a lot of examples of how the state was running beaches like that,” Seth Sprague said. “Being a landlord in a sense gave some leverage to make sure they were going to operate the park the way they said they were.”

Harris said the state owns 142.7 acres at Crescent Beach State Park and leases 99.41 acres. Adjacent to the park is 66.8 acres the state owns at Kettle Cove.

Kettle Cove is at the eastern end of the mile-long crescent-shaped sandy beach that gives Crescent Beach State Park its name.

Seth Sprague said his family owns the western end of the beach and the scenic headland with fields and woods at that end of the park. About a quarter of the park’s parking lot is on Sprague land. A stream that runs down from the woods and cuts across the beach is roughly the boundary line dividing his family’s land from state-owned land, Sprague said.

Harris said he believes that the only other state park for which the state leases land is Cobscook Bay State Park in Edmunds Township. The land in the 888-acre park is owned by the federal government, he said.

Crescent Beach State Park had 98,500 visitors last year, and Harris said he hopes the news about the lease extension will make more people aware of the beautiful park and draw more visitors there during the state’s 75th year celebration of its state parks.

“Crescent Beach offers a great recreational opportunity for folks who want to really enjoy some of the best of what Maine has to offer,” he said.

Susan Samberg of Cape Elizabeth walks with her dog Wally at Crescent Beach on Tuesday morning. Part of the nearly 240-acre park is leased by the state from the Sprague Corp. The arrangement has been extended for another year.
Staff photo by Brandon McKenney