MOUNT DESERT – Martha Stewart’s conviction has caused split opinion in the small village of Seal Harbor where Stewart owns a seaside estate with 12 bedrooms and sweeping ocean views.

Glen Merchant is one who isn’t about to cut America’s most famous homemaker any slack. He said she is getting what she deserves with possible prison time for obstructing justice and lying during a government investigation.

“I’d just as soon see her leave, as far as I’m concerned,” said Merchant, 33, a cottage caretaker, as he flipped through his mail at the post office on Saturday. “She didn’t make a good impression when she first got here.”

But others say Stewart, a patron of local artisans and businesses, deserves their compassion.

Rita Doyle, a housekeeper, said she feels sorry for Stewart, whom she has spotted at the farmers market and a local auction.

“She seemed really down-to-earth, with her cooking, and gardening and redecorating,” said Doyle, 52. “It was possible to understand where she’s come from because she was interested in the same things as the average person – except she did it on a different level.”

Many people in this town on the edge of Acadia National Park formed opinions – not all of them favorable – of Stewart long before she was accused of using insider information to dump $228,000 in biotech stock in 2001 before it nose-dived in value. She faces possible prison time on her conviction Friday of conspiracy, two counts of making false statements and obstruction of justice.

The best-known and least-flattering story around here has Stewart calling police and screaming at a limousine driver who made a wrong turn into the driveway of her 62-acre estate late one night in 2000. She is accused of blocking his path for an hour with her sport utility vehicle.

The incident fashioned her as out-of-touch and uppity, an image that persists today. The limo driver, Richard Anderson, organized a celebration party of Stewart’s conviction on Friday night at a Holiday Inn in Ellsworth.

“Maybe they should send her up here in the winter as punishment,” joked Curtis Sidelinger of Hancock, as he ate a fish burger at the Village Market in between carpentry jobs.

But others say Stewart caused no fuss, and they barely blinked when she ventured from her mansion to pick up her reserved copy of The New York Times at the Village Market, or walked past Seal Harbor’s smattering of weathered storefronts.

Barbara Smallidge, who lives with her husband next door to Stewart’s estate, said Stewart is often maligned because she is a hypercompetent woman.

If Stewart were male, she wouldn’t be taking this much heat for allegedly using insider information, Smallidge says.

“She’s really a sweetheart,” said Smallidge, 73, who met Stewart once, while each walked their dogs. “I think people are probably jealous because she’s able to make it on her own. If it were a man, no one would say anything.”