Missouri woman wins Northport house Home & Garden TV prize includes furniture, ocean view from every room

NORTHPORT – A woman from the nation’s heartland has won a dream house on the Maine coast.

Kathy Headrick of Kansas City, Mo., learned Tuesday that she – alone among 6 million who tried – has acquired a fully furnished house on Penobscot Bay through a promotional giveaway by the Home & Garden Television network.

HGTV, as the network calls itself, features programs about home building and repair, decorating, gardening and cooking. The network gave away a house in Oregon last year.

Headrick, an elementary school art teacher, had entered the contest for the house on HGTV’s Web site over and over again through last year. Busy tutoring students after school in 2001, she wasn’t able to enter as many times.

But it was enough.

Headrick was chosen randomly from more than 6 million entries.

The two-story house is part of the Highfields at Catching Cove development off U.S. Route 1, just north of Lincolnville Beach. The developers – former Belfast City Manager Arlo Redman and his wife, Janey Knight, and Allen and Marge Mitchell – bought the former Mount ‘n Sea Motel, tore down the buildings and divided the property into 14 lots, most with water views.

Bill Pickford, a broker with Camden Real Estate, represented the sale of the lots. He said Wednesday that HGTV representatives were touring the area and came into his office asking about property. Pickford showed them the Highfields subdivision, “and they fell in love with it.”

The gently sloping property offers views of the Islesboro ferry, working lobster boats, seals and waterfowl, Pickford said, drawing “oohs” and “aahs” from the network representatives.

The network contracted with McCormick Builders of Camden to construct the house. McCormick is owned by the Mitchells.

The house is designed so there are views of the water from every room. The house comes fully furnished, and a new sport utility vehicle will be sitting in the driveway. The estimated value of the prize package is $892,000.

HGTV officials surprised Headrick at Garfield Elementary School in Missouri on Tuesday with the news. “The only previous thing I’ve won is six pencils,” she told a local interviewer. “I’m kind of in major shock.”

Headrick, 48, also said it’s too early to decide whether she’ll move.

She has lived on the East Coast, but has never been to Maine.

She said she probably won’t see the house until next month, when she will take a trip to Northport, also part of the prize package.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.