The Mousam River abuts the plot of land where the new visitor center and office will be. Construction of the new facility began in October 2023. Courtesy photo/Karl Stromayer
KENNEBUNK — If you’ve driven on Route 9 between Ogunquit and Kennebunk, chances are you’ve admired the beauty of the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge. It was most likely a strip of salt marsh with the big Maine sky overhead.
The refuge, first established in 1966, is made up of noncontiguous pockets of protected land, which all together add up to nearly 6,000 acres, stretching for 50 miles of southern Maine coastline from Kittery to Cape Elizabeth.
Come 2026, the refuge — which is part of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service — will have a new office and visitor center in Kennebunk to honor the life and legacy of Rachel Carson and further the work.
The refuge currently has a small office and visitor center in Wells, but the new location at 188 Brown St. in Kennebunk is set to have more amenities, including an exhibit, an accessible trail around the property, and educational programming spaces.
Those spearheading the project hope will raise the profile of the refuge and the work of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
The facility, construction of which broke ground in October of 2023, will be shared with the Gulf of Maine Coastal Program, which works to protect and restore local habitats and is also part of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Employees of the refuge and the Gulf of Maine Coastal Program will both use the office to accommodate roughly 15 employees.
For Karl Stromayer, refuge manager at the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge, the most exciting part of the project is that it will offer more opportunities to connect with local communities and visitors from afar. He said he hopes “people come here throughout the year because it’s such a fabulous place to experience nature.”
Project Leader Chris Meaney of the Gulf of Maine Coastal Program said that he’s excited for the opportunities for collaboration that the new facility will engender. The Gulf of Maine Coastal Program and the refuge already closely collaborate – for example, on efforts to protect the endangered New England cottontail – but he thinks the shared space will enhance their joint work.
Karl Stromayer, refuge manager at the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge, said the most exciting part of the visitor center project in Kennebunk is that it will offer more opportunities to connect with local communities and visitors from afar. Dan King photo
The refuge’s namesake, Rachel Carson, was a 20th century marine biologist and nature writer who was rocketed to notoriety by her 1962 book “Silent Spring,” which exposed the dangers of the pesticide DDT. Her writing ultimately led the United States to ban DDT and helped spur the movement that led to the formation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Considered one of the founders of the modern environmental movement, she died two years after the publication of “Silent Spring” due to breast cancer.
Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge was established two years after her death, in 1966, with the aim of protecting local salt marshes and estuaries.
It originally had a different name, according to Stromayer, who said that it was changed to honor Rachel Carson four years after opening, in 1970. The refuge protects a wide range of habitat types and a unique composition of flora and fauna because of its proximity to the coast and nearness to the eastern deciduous forest and boreal forest.
The new 11,666-square-foot facility in Kennebunk will be built out of a renovated existing home that was previously owned by Elmina Sewall. Dan King photo
The new 11,666-square-foot facility in Kennebunk will be built out of a renovated existing home that was previously owned by Elmina Sewall. Sewall passed away in 2005 and was active in land conservation during her life; she even donated land to the refuge during her lifetime, according to Stromayer. The 15-acre plot of land with her house at 188 Brown St. was purchased by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2019.
“The house was built in 1956, and it’s an excellent example of Colonial Revival architecture,” said Stromayer. He added that “we are preserving the cultural resources and architectural values of the house, which are considerable.”
All the electricity from the building will be generated by solar power, a “net zero facility in terms of power. It will also be “bird friendly,” so that birds don’t fly into the windows, according to Stromayer.
The building was designed by the architecture firm Oak Point Associates, which is currently contracting with the Saco School Department to design the city’s new school campus. The firm Benchmark Construction is doing the renovation and expansion.
“Given where we are in the northeast, with Boston so close, I’m excited about how folks will hopefully make it a destination,” said Meaney of the new facility. He thinks people will be drawn from afar “to learn about the legacy of Rachel Carson and the good work the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is doing, in the Gulf of Maine and beyond.”
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