Portland Harbor is Peaks Island's front yard, providing islanders with water views and access to the city. Victorian beliefs about healthy salt air and newfound wealth combined to create a leisure class that flocked to the Maine seaside. Peaks Islanders replaced a hardscrabble life of fishing and farming with a tourism-based economy. They could not build fast enough. Dubbed the Coney Island of Maine, Peaks Island at the turn of the 20th century boasted...