Albion resort owners promise patrons a ‘natural’ experience

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ALBION – It’s a picture-perfect late summer day in the hills east of the Kennebec River, and a sixtysomething man is fly-fishing from a dock on a small pond.

The scene is quintessentially Maine Vacationland – except for the fact that the fisherman is nude.

Yorktown Recreation, the state’s first “clothing optional” resort, bills itself as offering “A Natural Maine Experience.”

Owners Tony and Claudia Takacs have invested nearly $1 million in the resort, which opened for business Memorial Day, and so far that “natural” experience is being embraced by as many as 140 people on weekends and a dozen during the week.

About half of the patrons are from Maine. The rest are tourists from around New England and the Canadian Maritimes and points farther away.

Most are not first-time nudists. And most fall into the 40-70 age group, though manager Ray LaBonte said one man who has visited several times is 96.

The resort caters not to hedonists, LaBonte and Tony Takacs said, but to regular folks who enjoy being nude, and enjoy hanging out – pardon the pun – with other nudists.

Yorktown is located on 73 private acres surrounded by a few hundred more acres of dairy farm, also owned by Takacs.

The resort offers tent, trailer and RV camping on a field; four rudimentary cottages; two ponds for swimming and fishing; and a recreation building that includes a heated pool, hot tub, kitchen, game room with pool and pingpong tables, and a banquet room that doubles as a dance floor for evening parties.

The resort began informally three years ago when Takacs made his land available to other nudists – or “naturists,” as they call themselves – to gather for summer weekends of camping, swimming and barbecuing.

When Takacs – who has been a practicing nudist for the last 15 years – learned that Maine was the only state without a nude resort, he and his wife started the process of building Yorktown Recreation.

That meant getting both local and state permits, though as Takacs remembers telling the Albion planning board, the nude use of the facility was in no way connected to the approval process.

“You come under the same rules as any other campground,” he said.

The town office and a state trooper who patrols the area both reported that Yorktown has not generated any complaints since it opened. Takacs said the resort was plagued with “a few gawkers” early on, but that has ended.

The resort charges $20 for nonmembers for day use on weekdays, and $25 for a weekend day. Camping costs an additional $20. The cabins are rented for $35 per night.

The recreation building was completed this spring, and construction is continuing on the site. Someday it may feature a sand volleyball area, tennis courts, putting green, horseshoe pit and cross-country ski trails.

Yorktown has behavior rules similar to other nudist resorts. The most important of those are that patrons are asked to sit on a towel in any common area, and that cameras are banned unless permission is given by those being photographed.

No one under 18 is allowed in unless accompanied by a parent. An electronically controlled gate blocks the entrance.

Yorktown is sanctioned by the American Association for Nude Recreation and the Naturist Society. The fall issue of N – The Magazine of Naturist Living reports that Yorktown “is already keeping naked visitors happy, but when [it’s completed] it will become a premier Northeast naturist club.”

“We provide a wholesome, natural environment,” Takacs said.

Though not stated in the rules, sexual behavior in public areas is taboo, the men said. Some resorts are so strict as to prohibit a man from spreading suntan lotion on his wife, or couples holding hands. Many also ban alcohol.

Yorktown does not adhere to that level of prohibition, Takacs and LaBonte said, stressing that common sense is the guide. Patrons who gather in the recreation building for the Saturday night parties can bring their own alcohol, though moderate use is expected.

The Saturday night gatherings are organized around a DJ dance, and often have themes such as the 1950s, the Old West, and body painting.

LaBonte showed photos of patrons “dressing,” if it can be called that, to suggest the 1950s. The idea was to suggest the theme while wearing as little as possible, he said.

“We had ‘Christmas in July’ and ‘Survivor Jungle,'” LaBonte said, and last weekend the resort hosted a slumber party that featured a pillow fight.

“We try to keep people as busy as they want to be,” he said. Participation in events is not mandatory, but both men said the social aspect of the resort is key to its appeal.

The pleasures of being nude in the summer sun are easy to understand.

“It’s so comfortable, the feel of sun on your body,” LaBonte said. “It brings you so much closer to reality.”

But what about being nude around others? What’s the appeal?

“When your clothes are all off, you’re all equal,” Takacs said. When the “textile barrier” is removed, doctors, lawyers, truck drivers and garbage men all look the same.

LaBonte, a practicing nudist “all my life,” expresses the same view.

“You take the clothes off, you take off the Botany 500 suit, the gold jewelry, and you’re down to the basics of the person,” he said.

Both men stressed that nudists are the friendliest people they’ve met.

Do people stare?

“Human nature and first instincts are to look at somebody,” LaBonte said. “It’s natural.”

But very quickly, nudists pay as much attention to the uncovered body as they do to someone’s eyes or smile, the men said.

Takacs, 58, is a native of Hungary who escaped the Soviet occupation when he was 16. He is a former University of Maine geology instructor who studied at UMaine and the University of New Hampshire.

As a boy in Hungary, Takacs remembers seeing women at beaches along the Danube River change from bathing suits to street clothes. No one stared or cared much, he said.

Nowhere is nudity as much equated with immorality as in New England, Takacs said.

A couple in their 50s came in several weeks ago, he said, ambivalent about trying the nude experience. Takacs told them to try it, promising to refund their fee if they didn’t like it.

“A half-hour later, he handed me a check to become a member,” Takacs said.

A visitor from Rockland left this message on Yorktown’s online guest book: “Everyone was friendly and accommodating. Your schedule of events is cool: always something going on! Sun, Jacuzzi, pool, sun, sauna-to-be, game room, sun … life does not get better than that.”