Pier without peer

Wealthy summer people and their high-priced lawyers have been struggling for months in a dispute over a large proposed dock in Somes Sound on Mount Desert Island.

William P. Stewart has spent several million dollars building a showplace summer home near the mouth of the sound. He wants the town to approve his plan to expand his big dock and float to accommodate his 154-foot sailboat and 10 smaller boats including a 59-footer.

Redmond Finney, a summer neighbor, took the issue to the Mount Desert Zoning Appeals Board. He says the proposed “mini-marina” would spoil the view from his older but likewise big “cottage,” as summer folks often still call their waterfront mansions. Others in the community have taken sides, and two four-hour sessions of the board have been standing-room-only affairs. A third and possibly final session is set for 6 p.m. Wednesday. Better go early if you want a seat.

There are four ways to look at the fracas:

The first, as some contend, rests on a moral principle of property rights. As the chairman of a nearby zoning board once said, “I can’t see why anyone can’t do what he likes with his own property.”

Second is a similarly moral tenet. It holds that a property owner should always give way to the tastes and desires of the neighbors. Mr. Finney’s wife, Jean, has been “summering” on the sound as long as she can remember. Her grandfather built their house in 1915, on the East Coast’s only natural fjord. They don’t want the big boat to block their view of Acadia Mountain.

A third consideration has brought environmentalists into the action. Some of them contend that such big docks and huge boats harm the natural beauty of Acadia National Park, which surrounds the sound. Some also say that the structure will cause a harmful change in the silting pattern on the bottom.

Finally comes a purely outsider view by a good many ordinary folks. They enjoy seeing the rich fighting the rich, especially, as in this case, when the wrangling involves old money vs. other old money.

They could find a basis for looking askance at both sides in a 1899 book, “Theory of the Leisure Class.” The author, Thorstein Veblen, coined the term “conspicuous consumption.” He contended that people gained status by showing that they could afford needless or wasteful expenditure, beyond the needs of mere subsistence.

A woman’s long fingernails show that she cannot type. A lapdog’s fragility shows that it would be no good for herding or hunting. And a big house or a big pier shows, among other things, that the owner is rich enough to afford it.

Some of the protesters in this case built big piers a while back. Could it be that they feel a loss of status when a newcomer builds an even bigger pier?