Rose Cottage: A Fully Furnished 1945 Log Cottage on Echo Lake in Presque Isle, Maine — With a Private Sauna, a Fieldstone Fireplace, and 90 Feet of Waterfront for $299,000

Some listings you scroll past. Some make you put the phone down and think about your life. This one is the second kind, and the market agrees — in its first day on Zillow it pulled more than four thousand views and nearly four hundred saves.

Rose Cottage sits on Echo Lake in Presque Isle, Maine, in the far northern reaches of Aroostook County. It was built in 1945, wrapped in log siding under a metal roof, and it comes with something almost no listing in America offers: it is being sold fully furnished, ready to walk into and live in. Two bedrooms, one bath, one thousand two hundred seventy-four square feet, ninety feet of owned lake frontage. Two hundred ninety-nine thousand dollars.

The Fireplace, the Vaulted Ceiling, and the Room You Will Actually Live In

The living room is the argument this house makes for itself. Vaulted ceilings open the space upward, rich wood accents run through it, and a striking fieldstone fireplace anchors the whole room. Large windows pull in the light and frame the lake beyond.

Fieldstone is worth pausing on. Unlike manufactured stone veneer, a true fieldstone fireplace is built from local rock, laid by hand, one piece at a time. Nobody builds them anymore because the labor cost is prohibitive. When you find one from 1945 still standing and still functioning, you are looking at something genuinely irreplaceable — and something that will still be there long after every trend in kitchen finishes has come and gone twice.

Come back from an afternoon on the water in October, in Maine, and light a fire under that vaulted ceiling. That is the entire value proposition, and it does not need a single additional sentence of marketing.

Sleeping Seven in Twelve Hundred Square Feet

On paper this is a two-bedroom home. In practice, the layout is far more flexible than the listing data suggests, and the seller describes it as a two-to-three bedroom cottage that comfortably sleeps up to seven adults.

Here is how it works:

• Two primary bedrooms — one on the first floor, one upstairs
• An enclosed front porch overlooking the lake, which doubles as additional sleeping space
• A separate den with a pull-out sofa

That enclosed lakefront porch as a sleeping room is the classic New England camp arrangement — you fall asleep to the water and wake up to it, with nothing but screen and glass between you and the lake. Generations of Maine families have organized their entire summers around exactly this room.

The kitchen offers generous counter space and abundant storage, with an adjoining dining area. Flooring throughout is tile and wood. Electric range and refrigerator are included, along with essentially everything else in the house.

Fully Furnished: What That Actually Saves You

The property conveys fully furnished, excluding only a few personal items. Buyers consistently underestimate what this is worth.

Furnishing a lake cottage from empty typically runs anywhere from fifteen to forty thousand dollars once you account for beds, seating, dining furniture, linens, kitchenware, outdoor furniture, and the hundred small things nobody budgets for. Add the logistics of moving all of it to northern Aroostook County, where the nearest big-box furniture selection is a serious drive, and the number climbs further.

Here it is already done, already in place, and already suited to the house. For anyone considering seasonal or short-term rental use, this is enormous — a furnished property can begin generating income the week after closing rather than three months later.

Outside: Gardens, a Gazebo, a Creek, and a Sauna

The three-eighths of an acre lot is where this property separates itself from every other camp on the lake. It has been professionally landscaped and clearly loved:

• Whimsical landscaped gardens winding through the property
• A screened gazebo overlooking the grounds
• A picturesque creek running through the land
• A charming storage shed
• A private sauna
• Ninety feet of owned Echo Lake frontage

The sauna deserves its own paragraph. In northern Maine, where winter is not a season but a climate, a private sauna transforms the property from a summer camp into a genuine year-round residence. There is a reason sauna culture runs deep across the northern latitudes — it is how people stay sane and healthy through long, dark winters. A sauna a few steps from a lake you can jump into is the traditional arrangement, and it is a serious amenity, not a novelty.

The screened gazebo solves the other Maine problem. Blackfly season in Aroostook County is legendary. A screened structure means June evenings outdoors are actually pleasant rather than a test of endurance.

Echo Lake and Aroostook State Park

The property sits within walking distance of Aroostook State Park — Maine’s very first state park, established in 1939 and centered on Quaggy Jo Mountain. Being able to walk from your own door to a state park trailhead is a rare arrangement anywhere in the country.

What that means through the year:

• Summer — swimming, kayaking, canoeing, fishing, and hiking the two peaks of Quaggy Jo
• Fall — some of the most spectacular foliage in the eastern United States, with essentially no leaf-peeper traffic
• Winter — cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, and access to Aroostook County’s extensive snowmobile trail network, one of the best-maintained systems in North America
• Spring — ice-out, birding, and the return of the lake

Downtown Presque Isle is a short drive for shopping, restaurants, and a full-service hospital — a genuinely important consideration for retirees and anyone buying remote. The University of Maine at Presque Isle is here as well, and the Northern Maine Regional Airport provides commercial connections without a five-hour drive to Bangor or Portland.

The trade-off is honest: the walkability score is zero, and this is car-dependent country. Winters are long and serious. For the buyer who wants that, it is the whole point.

The Numbers

Price and Recent History

At two hundred ninety-nine thousand dollars for one thousand two hundred seventy-four square feet, the price works out to roughly two hundred thirty-five dollars per square foot. The automated valuation estimate sits at approximately two hundred ninety thousand eight hundred dollars, with a range from about two hundred seventy thousand to three hundred eleven thousand — placing the asking price squarely within market expectations.

The price history is instructive. The property was listed in July of 2024 at two hundred forty-nine thousand dollars, went pending within roughly a week, and sold in August of 2024 for two hundred seventy-seven thousand dollars — above asking, which tells you how competitive Echo Lake frontage is. It now returns to market at two hundred ninety-nine thousand.

Looking up and down Lakeshore Drive, neighboring properties carry values ranging from roughly one hundred sixteen thousand to two hundred ninety-seven thousand dollars. This one sits at the top of the street, and the sauna, gardens, gazebo, and furnishings explain why.

Taxes

The most recent annual property tax bill was approximately one thousand nine hundred twenty-one dollars against an assessed value of eighty-five thousand five hundred dollars. Note the gap between assessed value and market price — Maine municipalities revalue periodically, and buyers should anticipate a meaningful reassessment following a sale at market value.

Maine residents who occupy a property as a primary residence should file for the Maine Homestead Exemption, which reduces taxable valuation. It must be applied for; it is not automatic.

Insurance and Systems

Utilities are well water and a private septic system, with circuit breaker electrical service. Heating is by space heater, with no central cooling — which is typical for northern Maine, where summer heat is brief.

Buyers should treat the heating system as the primary planning question. A property intended for genuine year-round occupancy in Aroostook County, where winter temperatures regularly drop far below zero, warrants a serious conversation about supplemental or upgraded heat. Cold-climate ductless mini-split heat pumps have become the standard retrofit across Maine, and Efficiency Maine offers rebate programs for qualifying installations. Check current program terms before purchasing equipment.

On insurance, request quotes early and ask specifically about:

• Whether the carrier treats this as a primary residence or a seasonal dwelling, which changes pricing substantially
• Coverage for the detached sauna, gazebo, and shed as separate structures
• Whether contents coverage adequately reflects the included furnishings
• Frozen pipe and water damage provisions, which matter enormously in this climate
• Wood stove or fireplace documentation requirements, including a recent chimney inspection

Rental and Investment Potential

Rent estimates for this property run around one thousand three hundred sixty-nine dollars per month on a long-term basis. The short-term picture is more interesting.

Northern Maine draws distinct waves of seasonal visitors: summer lake vacationers, fall foliage travelers, hunters in autumn, and — significantly — snowmobilers throughout winter. Aroostook County snowmobile tourism is a real economy, and lodging inventory near trail access is limited. A furnished, sauna-equipped lakefront cottage that sleeps seven is well positioned for all four seasons rather than the twelve-week summer window that limits most lake properties.

Before counting on it, verify Presque Isle’s short-term rental regulations, confirm your insurance carrier will endorse rental activity, and check internet service quality at the address.

Due Diligence for a 1945 Lakefront Cottage

1. Full structural and foundation inspection, with attention to any settling near the water
2. Complete electrical evaluation and panel capacity review, particularly if adding heat pumps
3. Chimney and fireplace Level Two inspection before first use
4. Sauna inspection covering heater, wiring, ventilation, and clearances
5. Well water potability and flow rate testing
6. Septic system location, inspection, and pumping history
7. Metal roof condition, fastener check, and remaining service life
8. Insulation assessment throughout, since 1945 construction rarely meets modern standards
9. Winterization review — pipe routing, heat tape, and freeze protection
10. Survey confirming the ninety feet of owned water frontage and shoreline zoning limits
11. Maine Shoreland Zoning review, which governs what can be built, cut, or altered near the water
12. Lead paint and asbestos testing, standard for pre-1978 construction

The Bottom Line

Under three hundred thousand dollars buys a furnished 1945 log cottage on ninety feet of Maine lakefront, with a fieldstone fireplace under a vaulted ceiling, a private sauna, a screened gazebo, landscaped gardens, a creek running through the property, and a state park within walking distance.

It is remote, the winters are long, and the heating system deserves an upgrade conversation. Everything else is already done — right down to the furniture.

Four thousand people looked at it on day one. That is not an accident.