View from the Quarry House Lawn

Welcome to Light Heart Retreat in Sullivan, Maine

David and Joanna Buell invite you to share and experience the peace and beauty of their 100 acre home in the Acadia region of Downeast, Maine. Light Heart Retreat offers walking trails through old growth forest that wrap around water-filled granite quarries. Each of the four seasons offers a unique opportunity to experience nature close up and personal from the trails or from your front doorstep. You'll want to keep an eye to the sky here, too. Sunsets can be viewed from a long granite bench at the stone circle on the west overlook. Pick out the Big Dipper while roasting marshmallows at your fire pit.

A canoe is available for guest use on the quarry.

Light Heart Retreat is a great place to come with your family, your friends, your workshop or by yourself for personal retreat. LHR has also been host to several small, intimate weddings. The area has many activities and sites to explore or you may be just as happy to sit in the sun, swim in the quarry, read in the Gazebo...you know, "do nothing". Fall, winter, spring, each have their own beauty and different activities to offer up. We hope you'll come and experience the love, the light and uniqueness of Light Heart Retreat many times, throughout the changing seasons.

The Quarry House

The Quarry House. Families love the rambling, rustic Quarry House and its shallow access for swimming. The Quarry House looks south through large picture windows onto a large lawn and gardens, flowing down to quarry-side. It's spacious with 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, a Great Room, kitchen and a sun room. The Great Room has two long dining tables to join together for your lobster bake, or keep one table for your jig saw puzzle or craft project. “Big Blue”, the sectional sofa, faces the wood stove and the entertainment center. The sun room has a piano and built in couches all around. It’s a great place for a nap or go outside to the gazebo looking down on the quarry point. There are many sleeping options due to the different bed set ups in the three upstairs bedrooms. The Quarry House is a wonderful space for a family with children, a group of friends vacationing together and for family reunions. It's also available for hosting your small workshop. The Quarry House is open from June to Thanksgiving.

The Quarry House Swimming Area

BBC Kitchen

The Blackberry Cottage. The cozy Blackberry Cottage, built in 2004, is perfect for individuals or couples seeking privacy and retreat. The BBC, as we refer to it, is a colorful, cozy space with a southwest feel. The BBC was designed to accommodate one or two adults in it's single bedroom on a Queen size bed. The built-in couch in the living room can accommodate a second adult, for separate sleeping quarters. The BBC has a cheery corner dining nook, tiled kitchen island and ceramic tiled floors throughout. The BBC is situated on a small, lilly-filled quarry with a natural granite patio overlooking the larger quarry, a favored spot for ones morning coffee. A screen gazebo on the west side of the BBC gives cover from the insects of late spring and early summer. The cottage-length patio on the south is a pleasant place to sun bathe or read a book in the autumn months. Women on retreat have expressed especially, their gratitude for the warmth and safety they feel in this sweet, sunny cottage. The BBC is open year round.

Blackberry Cottage

Huckleberry Hideaway. Huckleberry is the newest cottage addition to LHR. Presently under construction at this writing, Huckleberry will be available in July 2007. The Huckleberry is a two story, custom-designed cottage in wood and stone, catering to couples. It's built handicap friendly and along green building guidelines. The first floor bedroom has a queen size bed and is adjacent to a full bath with an entrance to its own private patio. The second story bedroom has a queen bed, 1/2 bath and sitting room with glider out to the deck. The deck offers a view down on to the Sacred Standing Stone Circle and long views of Taunton Bay and surrounding mountain ridges. Watch the sunset from here or from your outdoor hot tub on the southwest granite patio. The Huckleberry is available year round and makes a cozy spot for a winter retreat with it's in floor heating and glass-fronted wood stove. No matter what the season, from within and without, the Huckleberry has a peace, beauty and comfort that nourishes the soul.

Huckleberry Hideaway with granite patio and hot tub

Huckleberry Hideaway, Christmas 2007

Privacy. Privacy is a key point that many of our guests are looking for. The cottages, our own home and out buildings are all located and oriented so that there is privacy in the large, immediate area around each. Each cottage has its own yard, fire pit and designated swimming area. On 100 acres and following the walking trails, you can find a spot to call your own--well, you may have to share your space with an eagle, otter, deer or porcupine and you can count on a chattering, red squirrel. Light Heart Retreat honors your needs for privacy and seclusion. There is also room for spontaneous fun between parties of guests and hosts. Synchronicity is always at "play" here at Light Heart Retreat.

Services. Each cottage has a guide of “how-to’s, what to’s”, etc. David and Joanna are most often on site to assist you with additional recommendations and to trouble shoot any glitches. David is happy to be your trail guide to the old growth pine and spruce trees and share the history of this place and the granite industry that flourished in this area up until the mid 1900's. Campfire wood is replenished throughout your stay. We’ll ready your first sauna for you, with some notice, and teach you how to to run it so you can have a sauna as often as you like.

Shamans Drumming in the Summer Solstice

Joanna is an experienced hands-on healer and Reiki instructor. You can set up private sessions with her at her onsite practice, Light Heart Healing. Those seeking natural answers to their health care challenges, may want to schedule a stay in the off season for the purpose of a personal healing retreat. E-mail or call Joanna for a consult on this matter. See the web site sections, "Light Heart Healing" and "Heart Light Reiki" for more info. See our Newsletter for upcoming workshops and self-health notes.

What Makes Light Heart Retreat So Unique?

A stay in a cottage at Light Heart Retreat, is not your usual Maine camp or cabin rental. All cottages at LHR are finished, heated houses, with all the amenities of home. You’ll arrive to a turnkey cottage that has been spring cleaned using natural products. You’ll sleep on a good mattress with quality bedding that has been laundered with a natural product and line dried when possible. We are generous with towels. You’ll find a bouquet of fresh flowers and a wholesome baked goods awaiting you, too.

Secluded Bragdon Quarry

At LHR we’re sensitive to your sensitivities. Our new cottages are built along green guidelines. We’re not your usual musty, dusty Maine cabin. We’re fresh and clean! You won’t find allergy producing perfumed products here from the grocery isle. Soaps, lotions, laundry & dish detergent, aromatherapy candles, etc. come from Sweet Grass Farm in Greenland, NH, a family operated business. Sweet Grass Farm uses only the highest quality aromatherapy oils and ingredients in their products.

The differences between Light Heart Retreat and other rentals doesn’t end at the cottage door. Light Heart Retreat is private. The entry is gated. No 4-wheelers, no boom boxes, no motor boats, no jet skis... Where can you go on retreat and meditate by yourself in a standing stone circle? Where can you go and skinny dip by moonlight in a granite quarry? Where can you go and hug a 100+ year old tree? Guests are amazed at the quiet and the beauty here. Animal and bird sitings are often right from your doorstep. We’ve heard many times from well traveled guests that this is the most beautiful and highly energetic place they’ve ever visited.

Become inspired! Where can you go on vacation and pick up a book that will change your life? Really, this occurred here for at least one guest who keeps in touch with us. LHR offers guests a holistic resource library overlooking the quarry with tapes, CD’s, DVD’s, books and videos, including selections from Spiritual Cinema Circle. We have “The Secret” in print, in audio and in DVD. If you’re looking for inspiration, alternative healing, or if you’re on a spiritual search, we have answers for you in our ever-growing collection. Phone service and internet hookup is available in the library, also.

Rob and Niko on Autumn Trail

For many, the campfire of childhood is just a memory. Each LHR cottage has its own fire pit which we restock with wood throughout your stay. Your first campfire is set and ready to light upon your arrival. Is there anything more magical than watching the fire dance, wishing on a shooting star, sharing songs and stories around a campfire? Don’t let your children graduate to adulthood without having this experience!!!

Many guests enjoy the wood fired sauna, set above an excellent swimming area on the quarry. There is nothing like taking a sauna on a clear night with the Milky Way above you and then plunging into the clear, cool quarry water.

Swimming Area for Guests of Huck & BBC

When you’re shopping on-line for a vacation rental, we ask you to consider the unique qualities that Light Heart Retreat has to offer. So far we’ve been able to keep our rates in the range of the usual cottage rental, yet we offer so much more! We hope you’ll choose Light Heart Retreat for your next retreat or vacation and experience for yourself the glory of this blessed place.

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words. A frequent comment we get from our guests is that our web site presentation is beautiful, but that it doesn’t even come close to capturing the beauty of Light Heart Retreat. Still, we have to make that attempt...so here’s a 100 photo slide show of Light Heart Retreat: the interior and exterior of the cottages, the flora, fauna and happy faces of our guests, put to music that begins, “Let her arms unfold you...” Click here for a preview of your visit to Light Heart Retreat.*

Susie, Guardian Angel; Her Last Swim

*If you’re unable to download this file, for whatever reason, please let us know and we’ll send you a CD.

Your Hosts at Light Heart Retreat. Your hosts David Buell and Joanna Pinney Buell, live at Light Heart Retreat in the "Tree House", a home they designed and built from lumber milled from logs growing on the property. In addition to operating Light Heart Retreat, they develop work force housing through their business, Home Angels. David is a gifted pianist, poet, nature interpreter and stoneworker. His granite creations can be viewed around Light Heart Retreat and in the displays at Buell's Granite. Joanna enjoys tending the gardens at LHR, designing living spaces, and gardening. Her greatest passion is in empowering others to take the reigns of their life and follow their dreams. She teaches Heart Light Reiki classes, self-health topics and sees individual clients at her onsite practice, Light Heart Healing. Together David and Joanna have 5 children and two grandsons, Kyle and Colby who are frequent visitors to LHR. These young, avid outdoors men will gladly teach your children how to fish and how to toast marshmallows. Joanna and David are honored to be your hosts, sharing their peace of paradise in downeast Maine, with you.

David and Joanna Buell

More information. To avoid making this web site too cumbersome, we refer you now to our individual sites for each cottage at HomeAway.com. They’ve done a super job organizing information in a simple, scroll-down format. Please click on the cottage site to find out information on location, individual cottage amenities, availability, and area attractions. Find up-to-date photos here, too, of Huckleberry Hideaway, presently under construction.

The Quarry House
Blackberry Cottage
Huckleberry Hideaway

A Picture is worth . . . Click Here for the Light Heart Retreat Movie