Bar Harbor loved Glen Mary Wading Pool, but it doubts it can it afford to bring it back the same way.

Carrie Jones

Apr 22, 2026

The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by First National Wealth Management.

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BAR HARBOR—Bar Harbor is a town full of opinions, but there was one thing that everyone gathered before the Parks and Recreation Committee one Monday night back in December in 2022 seemed to agree about: they loved Glen Mary’s wading pool.

Now with the simplest plan having a $2.3 million price tag, everyone learned, April 22, that it’s doubtful that it can bring the broken pool back.

“Have you ever heard anyone say, ‘We should get rid of Glen Mary,’” Marie Yarborough asked the approximately twenty members of the public at the December 2022 committee meeting. “They like cruise ships. They don’t like cruise ships. They like dogs. They don’t like dogs.”

Yarborough was referencing two of the town’s major discussion points at the time: whether to have a dog park and how to manage cruise ship visitation.

Unlike those topics, Glen Mary and its wading pool is an in-town oasis, she said. It was loved.

And among the public, town staff, and committee members that had gathered in Council Chambers at the Bar Harbor Municipal Building that December night, there was a consensus that Glen Mary was something special, something that needed to be taken care of because it makes the Bar Harbor community special, and that it was something that deserved a future.

One by one, members of the public told members of the committee and Public Works Director Bethany Leavitt how Glen Mary shaped their lives or others, how it was a place that built community as children learned to swim, neighbors shoveled snow off ice together, young families and grandparents converged to encourage children to splash and play in the water or just push someone on a swing set.

On April 21, the Town Council heard some worrisome news about the financial viability of fixing the Glen Mary wading pool as David Witham of the Bar Harbor Village Improvement Association asked the town to commit to a certain level of support—which would be matched by the VIA—to the project.

Witham asked for a town match of $750,000. That amount would hopefully support a water feature and green space. The VIA would raise the same amount.

“We’ve spent well over $100,000 on design fees up to this point,” Witham said, adding that the volunteer-run nonprofit is pushing forward as best it can after the Shore Path repair project that the VIA fundraised for after winter storms demolished the path. “We need to design towards a number.”

And that currently proposed number won’t support the wading pool.

“It won’t be a swimming pool like we’ve all known it, we know that, I think at this point, but we should be able to do a nice park and hopefully have some kind of water feature for the smaller kids,” Witham said.

The VIA has been leasing the pool and surrounding woodland park to the town since 1995 and 2014 respectively.

Speaking before the Town Council, Witham continued, “The other reality, too, is that it is currently the town’s pool on the VIA’s land. The town built the pool originally, they’ve always taken care of it, maintained it, upgraded it and that, but right now, it’s in disrepair, as we know, so now we have the town’s dis-repaired pool on our land, and we’re getting a lot of pressure from the neighbors, and rightfully so, because the town deserves better, the neighbors deserve better, and I think we’re just looking for where the town is at in this partnership ‘cause it’s always been a partnership and as everyone knows it’s been quite an asset to the community for generations.”

The town and VIA could not recreate what had been there, he said.



However, ice skating is now supported at the Park Street ball fields, thanks to the VIA and Witham Family’s funding combined with the volunteer efforts of local families and Bar Harbor’s public works and fire department staff.

The town reached out to Mike’s Pools to seek out costs, which were in the $2.3 million range, to just replace the asphalt pool at its current size and layout with a concrete pool, which is cheaper, and some upgrades to the site’s pool house. That cost would require an estimated $1.25 million split between the town and VIA.

“That’s about as simple as it’s going to get to keep what you had. And I think our feeling is that is still probably too far out of reach in the current fiscal environment that we’re in,” Town Manager James Smith said.

Smith said they’ve tried hard to figure out a vision and a project but they keep “busting the budgets.”

According to Smith, in February 2026, talk of no wading area ever again was just a rumor.

“We are currently working through an alternative pool plan, and that work may help inform whether a future pool could also support skating. However, no determination has been made at this time. If a final proposal for the Glen Mary Pool project were to conclude that ice skating is not feasible, that conclusion would be clearly disclosed to the Council during its deliberations so the Council could consider that impact as part of the anticipated redesign,” Smith had said in February.

“This has been a very challenging project and process with a lot of moving parts. I think a lot of people thought it was going to be simple and easy. It’s not been simple. It’s not been easy,” Smith said, April 11, though the town and VIA have been committed. “It’s just been a slugfest to get even to this point.”

There is just under $200,000 the town has reserved for the project currently, Finance Director Sarah Gilbert said. There are some funds available in the roads capital improvement budget—possibly up to $300,000 that could be replenished in FY 2028.

That combined total is $500,000, still $250,00 short.

“I think I’d like to do something there. It’s been a long time that it’s been offline,” Councilor Earl Brechlin said. “And I think looking at what we have and seeing what we can do is a great approach. We’re going to the ferry terminal later tonight. It’s amazing what things cost when you have a nice shiny report.”

The first conceptual phase of turning part of the town’s ferry terminal property into a marina is approximately $11.6 million. The Council agreed to go forward with next steps on that plan.

“I don’t think the taxpayers have any stomach for putting anything else on a credit card right now,” Brechlin said.

He asked if there were any Higgins Pit money that could be used since those were reauthorized and if there were any energy efficiency applications toward the Glen Mary Pool construction so that those funds could be shifted. His question was not answered.

Councilor Steven Boucher said it was a good time to re-evaluate the relationship between the town and the VIA about the Glen Mary pool.

Smith agreed that re-evaluating the lease would be good to do.

Boucher said that there should be something written with expectations “with a project this big.”

Councilor Randy Sprague said that it was only fair that the town match the amount the VIA raises. Councilor Joe Minutolo also spoke in favor of the project.

“I would support matching or being creative if it isn’t seeming like it’s going to be enough because that was a great thing for our town. People used it. It would be nice to see something like that put back into place again. But let’s see what we come up with.”” said Councilor Minutolo who also thanked the VIA for the things it does for the town. “If it doesn’t look like it’s going to be enough, let’s figure this thing out.”

Council Chair Valerie Peacock asked where the other $250k would come from and worried that the end product might not meet people’s expectations.

“The pie in the sky is gone, but it also can’t just be grass field there. It needs to be something,” Peacock said.

Gilbert said there could be parking fund balance money or other places to reallocate funds from. Smith said the town could also look for grants for the project, but those grants tend to be competitive.

“We definitely could dig a little deeper,” Gilbert said.

There will likely be a Council order at the next meeting with a detailed plan for the town’s match, Smith said.

The pool is sited where there is a natural spring. It’s the same spring that gave Spring Street (which borders the park) its name. That spring was eventually fenced in sometime around 1983 and a wading pool was created. Some in attendance at that December 2022 remembered the pool being much deeper in the 1960s and 1970s. It also used to have a lifeguard. And a fire pit. People would roast marshmallows and hot dogs there.

“It’s a really special place for folks that have been there 50 years and folks like me who haven’t been there for 50 years,” Yarborough said. “Anything that has to do with the children in this town is an investment in the future.”

Glen Mary is that kind of investment. Yarborough’s daughters are both competitive swimmers and both spent hours at Glen Mary. Like others, Yarborough spoke of shoveling off the ice with neighbors. People pull up with their cars to light the area as kids play hockey. Ellen Grover spoke of that community spirit and work to keep the skating rink going as well.

For many years Walter Seward took care of the skating pond, tending fires in an outdoor wood stove, helping children (and adults sometimes) getting their skates off or on. In the early 2000s, the Bangor Daily News quoted Seward as saying that “It’s like generation to generation, and I get to keep making people happy.”

Seward is gone now, but evergreens still flank many of the pool’s sides. Houses still sit across the street. And maybe, many hope, the pool has the potential to still stay on in some way, too.

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LINKS TO LEARN MORE

To watch the meeting.

The town’s parks’ website.

Parks & Recreation Committee.

Glen Mary Pool Facebook page

Bar Harbor VIA

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