He designed the Point for five houses, one for each of the men on that first camping trip and the man’s family—the Dyers’ Outer Light, the Reeds’ Rock Reed, the William Lees’ Leeward Cottage, the Hancocks’ Meadowlea, and the Edgar Lees’ WesterLee. They would be built on the western side of the spit, with a view to an inlet on one side and across the salt marsh to open sea on the other. The meadows would remain intact, with only a dirt road leading past the buildings and down toward the actual point. He drew the plans so that all habitation would stop about three-quarters of the way down, and the bottom tip remain wild for the birds and other creatures. Many artifacts had been left there by the Abenaki, who had for many decades moved down to the shore for the summer. William and Edgar dug up the leavings and kept them at Leeward and WesterLee. William and his descendants were solicited both by museums and collectors for the items, but he was firm that the artifacts belonged on Fellowship Point, and visitors were disallowed from taking photographs of the collection.
As William sketched where the five houses would go, he thought back wistfully to his initial notion that they should be interchangeable, exactly the same, inside and out. No family would own a particular house but could easily move into any one of them each summer. Little did he know he had invented the idea of time-shares. He liked the idea of people having different views and vantage points and not becoming attached to a plot. It would be liberating to have no house be grander than any other. Even Quakers—maybe especially they—could use protection from avarice, and William believed his plan would provide it quietly; but when he mentioned this to Edgar, he got resistance. Think of the women, Edgar argued. They will want to decorate.
William saw his point and designed five different houses, his own in the middle. He reminded himself that change took time, they were still young enough for moral growth, surely egalitarian sentiments would be stirred by weeks spent in that edifying landscape. He looked at many types of houses and plans before settling on a modified Shingle style for his own house, with six bedrooms, a sunroom that became known as the glass room, a screen room for insect-free meals outside, and fireplaces up and down to ward off the foggy chill. He learned enough about architecture to switch professions. He preferred not to trade on his skills, but to pour them into making the human presence on the Point as aesthetically pleasing as the site itself. He consulted with the wives on outward appearance and managed by directing their attention to details to maintain his goal of having no one house larger than any other, as well as creating a sense of unity.
The houses were capacious, yet not absurd. Not mansions! He’d wanted a simple campground, after all. But once he designed for civilization, he realized he couldn’t sustain simplicity. He and his friends were used to having servants in their houses, and while they could perfectly easily spend months sleeping on the dirt and picking mussels from the rocks for supper, they couldn’t move their households from Philadelphia to Maine for the summer without help. Who would cook? Who would clean? He supposed they could hire local people, but how would they get down to Fellowship Point? It made more sense for everyone to bring their servants from Philadelphia, but where would they live? He pondered this and woke up in the middle of the night with an idea crackling in his head. He’d build a cluster of houses near the top of the Point, in the swath of field on the other side of Point Path from Outer Light. In this environment he would realize his notion of egalitarian interchangeability. The servants would have views of the sea, too, and plenty of room. Beauty and comfort would be available to all.
He conceived of these houses as being more commodious than the narrow, one-room-per-floor Father, Son, and Holy Ghost houses that had been built for an expanding nineteenth-century Philadelphia to billet the non-ownership classes, servants included. His own family had servants living in two such houses, and though he believed the separate quarters more respectable than keeping people in attic rooms, they bespoke inferiority and cramp. He wanted to go a step further and build houses anyone who wasn’t rich would be happy to have. It would be good for everyone’s morale, good for the children growing up in the association to see a milder delineation between the owner and the servant class than they were used to, and good for the servants, who might, by living well, seek a different life. Nothing would thrill William more than to help people move up in the world. He hoped for long, peaceful, healthy summers on the coast of Maine, communing with nature and family and friends. Fellowship Point had been nameless when the association bought it, with not even an Indian word attached to it. The word fellowship was both Quaker and general. It sounded like a generic New England place name. Always better not to draw undue attention.
There was the question of whether or not to build a Meeting House. Edgar was pro, but William had another idea. He wanted to return to older times and ways, when people made do with what they had, and met in rooms or basements of meeting members. On the Point, they had open fields available—why not meet there? Each family would bring their own chairs or benches, and they’d set up in a circle, all facing one another. If it rained, they could all gather in the parlor at someone’s cottage.
William drew up a list of bylaws that he renamed guiding principles and sent them around to the other shareholders for their amendments and suggestions. It was decided there would be no regular parties, that lack to be mitigated by throwing a large Point Party in August for everyone in the Fellowship, young and old, shareholder and servant, and his or her guests and friends. The Lee Point Party instantly became a tradition, the stuff of winter dreams.
William’s finest hour was devising a system for how the property would be passed down to future generations. He wrote an impassioned treatise about the evils of land ownership, how divisive it could be, how neighbors fought about inconsequential offenses, how greed for greater holdings could induce men to break the law. He wanted everyone to own shares only, and to pay dues. Yet once again he came up against some firmly established beliefs and conventions, and once again he conceded when met with an argument. He ducked conflict of any sort, a trait Edgar worried about from a business standpoint, though it was convenient when he wanted his way. It was finally agreed that William would sell the land to an association owned by the five men, to be shared and cared for by all; but that they’d have rights to own their houses and a share of the whole, with the stipulation that a house could only be passed to a blood relative, one at a time, so that no more than five people would ever have shares. If no inheritor existed, or wanted the place, the house and its value would return to the association and the number of shares would shrink. If there were only four or two shareholders, and an issue devolved into a tie vote, it would be broken by flipping a coin thrown by an impartial party. It occurred to William to include a clause describing how the charter might be nullified, the Fellowship broken up, the land sold: three owners of sound mind would have to agree to it. If it came to that, so be it. He wouldn’t be around. The system was straightforward, equitable, and promising of a long intact future ahead.
The first summer, 1879, was hot and dry, and the association was able to be outdoors most of the time and established many little traditions and games. Everyone, women included, agreed they’d found Eden, and they eagerly invited friends and cousins over from the fleshpots to experience communal harmony and simplicity. They learned to fish and sail, and they took picnics out to the islands and strung up hammocks between soughing trees. They all liked walking through the meadows to the meetinghouse on Sundays. The wet morning grasses soaked their skirts and trouser legs, and children rubbed their cold toes together like paws as they fidgeted on the benches. People were moved to speak far more than they ever were in Philadelphia. William Lee positively expounded.