Additional
Articles for July 2004 Issue
Flagpole maker takes his art to new height
By
Marilis Hornidge
“Run it up the flagpole and see who salutes” was a cliché back
in the 1950s, but
it’s a cliché no more. Now all over the country, flags amount to
a ubiquitous
presence—flying from porch installations, taped to telephone poles, fluttering
from antennae of cars, trucks, bicycles.
Here on the midcoast of Maine, however, where people have flown flags at their
homes long before it was the thing to do, there’s a company which specializes
in flagpoles of the old-fashioned wooden sort, and has just gone heavy-duty into
the color-and-patterned beauties that fly from them.
(above) Nor’east’s
classic Windjammer flagpole (shown here with optional yardarms) is embellished
with bronze cleats, a copper ball with hand-applied 24k gold leaf, and a unique
brass-sleeve hinge for tabernacle base support. (Photo
courtesy of Keith Whitsit)
Ladies and gentlemen, travelers on fabled Route One, may we present the new showroom and the presiding personnel of Nor’east Flagpole, Inc., maker of the classic Windjammer flagpole, supplier of fiberglass or metal poles (often of stunning height) and their hardware, and of flags—official, patriotic, pictorial and/or very, very personal—flags.
On display in the showroom: stars and stripes in various sizes,
state
flags, eye catchers of wind pennants and kites of wild configurations.
(Photo
by Marilis Hornidge)
At the heart of this entrepreneurial
enterprise are Keith and Barbara Whitsit, a real all-bases-covered team.
For years he was a consultant to municipalities, churches and organizations
in the New York area whose giant flagpoles he maintained—as
in climbed-to-repair, paint, and check to catch problems before they occurred.
“You want trouble on a wood pole?” the laconic Keith Whitsit says. “Ignore
maintenance for ‘just a while longer’ and you get rot coming
on and knotholes that go POP and flag halyards that break right at the top.”
Barbara, who
presides behind the counter at the new showroom on Route One—kitty-corner
heading north across the road from Moose Crossing’s greenhouses—is
a natural artist, seeing the world in bright color, edged shape and design.
“The flags,” Keith says with a grin, “that’s her department.
She can just listen awhile when people talk about what they think they want and
then come up with a clearer idea of what they do want and just couldn’t
put words to.”
Whitsit began the flagpole business itself in Maine in 1997, leaving behind
a successful tree business (with that sideline in flagpole maintenance) on
Long Island, believing that there was a market for the traditional wooden
flagpole and following his dream to Boothbay Harbor to learn in the time-honored
apprentice-way from the few old-time maritime woodworkers who were still
around (and wryly amused, no doubt, that someone out there still wanted to
know hands-on how it was done). The place-of-business moved about, recently
settling down on a steep hill on Route 32 headed from Waldoboro to New Harbor.
Its bright blue sign proclaimed Nor’east Flagpole 832-8108: the equally
blue house behind it had a large attached barn and a smallish dirt/gravel
driveway and parking area.
Then came 9/11. That driveway was often so crowded with cars and people that
leaving the house and driving out on to Route 32 was sometimes a survival
sport. It seemed that many Mainers (native and part-time) wanted a reallybig
traditional flagpole for their front yard. And they wanted it now (or maybe
tomorrow). Keith and Barbara Whitsit were pleased, of course, rather amazed…and quite overwhelmed.
It was then that the showroom-store on Route One became a possibility, a probability
and then—this summer—reality.
Barbara
shudders at the thought of the
high work. “I can’t
believe he does that,”
she says. “Did that,” he says
seriously.
He’s
training a younger guy to follow him but
even now,
does most of the jobs himself.
“You have to do it right,” he
says.
It’s his mantra.
Barbara
reigns in the store—which is, according to both of them, exactly
as it should be. She is very much a people-person. Whether you’re
a definite customer, one of her suppliers (just to listen in when she
talks to one of them on the phone is an education in how-to-get-things-done-with-a-chuckle)
or a curious onlooker who just might turn into a customer, you are treated
to a 200-watt grin, laser-attention to whatever you are saying, and an
attitude that spreads sunshine in an interior lit mostly by the splendor
and color of the display flags.
Keith Whitsit
in the beginning stages of making a custom-wood Windjammer pole (Photo
courtesy of Keith Whitsit)
Keith
is much quieter, more at home in a bosun’s chair working at dizzying
heights to repair a punky-wood patch or replace a broken piece of hardware.
He trained under one of the last of the flagpole riggers (himself still
working in his mid-70s).
Barbara shudders at the thought of the high work. “I can’t believe
he does that,” she says. “Did that,” he says seriously. He’s
training a younger guy to follow him but even now, does most of the jobs himself. “You
have to do it right,” he says. It’s his mantra.
They install the poles they sell too—and just watching the care and attention
that goes into setting up the tabernacle (the footings-and-devises that hold
the pole in place) and erecting a new pole is an event full of wonder and old-fashioned
hands-on amazement. It’s an engineered circus, a breath-held moment, a
heart-lifter of a sight. Look around, you’ve already seen a lot of Nor’east
flagpoles and just didn’t know it… the handsome standard that went
up in late summer of 2000 in front of Thomaston’s Montpelier, the giant
at the Chevy dealership on Thomaston/Rockland’s Auto Row, and the gallant
pole which was erected at the Rockland Breakwater Lighthouse this spring—which
is worth the walk out there just to admire.
The story, of course, doesn’t stop there. There are yet more big plans
and dreams in the works; somehow one flows rapidly into the other with this pair.
A studio-training facility-workshop in that nice large barn-space. Custom flags
possibly made locally—one of which is already in the works for
a client in Pemaquid. There are many of the more generally available
house-flags at the showroom in addition to the stars-and-stripes in various
sizes, state flags, eye catchers of wind pennants and kites of wild configurations.
A
40' pole graces a shorefront home outside Brooklin, Maine.
(Photo
courtesy of Keith Whitsit)
What’s
next?
“Yachts,” says Barbara with a glint in her eye and her fingers looking
for a pencil. “Personal pennants for yachts and flags as signals in the
rigging. Not just the usual cocktail-y ones, the catalog flags…” She
pauses. “…this winter…”she muses.
A customer comes in, sunlight flooding the space as the door opens, lighting
up the room, as does Barbara Whitsit’s smile, while outside in
the breeze, flags and wind pennants snap. The flagpole and the flags
make a statement, mark a place as personal. Here I am, it says. Here
we are. This is who we are. And sometimes, to paraphrase one of the early
ones, Walk softly.
Look for them to proliferate, consider designing one of your very own.
Then go see that pair at Nor’east Flagpole.
FMI: Nor’east Flagpole, Inc. Open Tuesday through Saturday 11 a.m.
to 2 p.m. Showroom on Route 1 in Waldoboro across from Moose Crossing Nursery.
207.832.8108, Fax 207.832.8125 Mailing address: P.O. Box 311 Newcastle, ME 04553.