Chellie Pingree owns and operates Nebo Lodge with the help of Amanda Hallowell, the chef and general manager, and her daughter Hannah Pingree, who oversees operations. Amanda’s husband, Josh Amato, is the Bar Manager and part of the construction company handling the most recent renovations to the building. Many other members of the Pingree and Hallowell family pitch in to help run the lodge.
Chellie and a group of island women purchased Nebo Lodge in 2004 with the goal of renovating the elegant old building back into an operating inn more than 40 years since it was last open for business. After more than a year and a half, Nebo Lodge re-opened its doors in 2006. Chellie now serves as a member of the U.S. Congress, representing Maine’s 1st Congressional District.
As a busy freshman Congresswoman, Chellie spends much of her time in Washington and traveling around Maine, returning home to the island as often as she can. She believes strongly in the importance island businesses play in her small community, and also in creating a welcoming place for people who visit the island. She has been known to say, from behind the inn’s cozy bar, that if her career in politics doesn’t work out, she looks forward to returning to the Lodge.
Hannah Pingree was raised on North Haven and has spent much of her 33 years here. Like her mother, Hannah is also engaged in the island community and in Maine politics. Hannah currently serves as the Speaker of the Maine House of Representatives, representing a district that includes many of Maine’s island communities. Hannah started out in the hospitality business at the age of 12 as the farm assistant and then later in the kitchen at the Pulpit Harbor Inn, then run by Amanda’s father and stepmother. In college she spent summers waitressing at Brown’s Coal Wharf, one of the island’s other seasonal restaurants and her favorite place to enjoy a lobster.
Chellie’s other children are also an important part of Nebo Lodge. Daughter Cecily is a documentary filmmaker but fills in as a waitress and caterer from time to time, and also produced the videos and photographs for the Lodge’s new website with Jason Mann, Chellie’s son-in-law and Hannah’s husband. Jason, who also works as a filmmaker, bartends at Nebo on the weekends and built the Nebo Lodge website. Chellie’s son Asa spent the winter of 2005-2006 helping to renovate the inn, and returns regularly with his son Smith, Chellie’s grandson, to visit the Inn and the island.
Amanda Hallowell, who calls herself a “cook, not a chef”, grew up on North Haven and fell in love with food and cooking because of her mom and, more recently, Stacey Glassman at Swan’s Way Catering Company in Lincolnville, Maine. She cut her teeth at the Pulpit Harbor Inn and Restaurant, a North Haven B&B owned and run by her father and stepmother from 1984-1994.
Amanda’s family has long called North Haven home. Her father is the principal of the North Haven Community School, the smallest K-12 public school in Maine, and her step-mother is the executive director of the island’s community center. Amanda’s sister Jessie, a Freeport school teacher, spends summers on the island with her two kids and assists in the kitchen. Amanda’s brother Sam worked on the most recent renovation and we hope to feature his island honey this summer.
Josh Amato, grew up in Camden, Maine and learned to cook – and met Amanda – at Swan’s Way Catering Company–and from his mom! Josh spends his summer days as a sternman for a North Haven lobsterman, his winters running A&P Construction with (and boat captain) Bill Parkerton, and is the proud father of Hella, his daughter with Amanda, who was born in November 2007. In season you will find him behind the new bar, mixing up creative cocktails and telling tall tales!