Meet the Hosts Behind The Maine Barns: Essie and Mike Haimes

The most memorable wedding weekends share a common thread. The setting is beautiful, of course, but what guests remember most is how the experience felt. The welcome was warm but effortless. The pace unfolded naturally. The details felt thoughtful rather than overproduced.

Behind the scenes, there is a quiet confidence that the place itself knows how to host.

At The Maine Barns, that sense of ease begins with its owners, Essie and Mike Haimes. For couples exploring a wedding or event at Flanagan Farm or Walnut Hill, Mike and Essie are often the first people they meet and one of the most consistent presences throughout the planning journey.

Chris Bennett

Their role is rooted in stewardship and support — caring for the properties, maintaining strong relationships within the local hospitality community, and ensuring that couples and their planners have everything they need to create an exceptional celebration.

They are also, in the most literal sense, people who know what it means to be married here.

Essie's Background

Essie's path to The Maine Barns traces through some unexpected places.

Early in her career, she spent three years living and working across Southern Africa, primarily in Mozambique, leading international development programs with volunteers from around the world. It was demanding, cross-cultural work that required rigor and deep human attentiveness — and it built a steadiness under pressure that has stayed with her since.

She carried that back to New York, where she spent the next decade leading communications, fundraising, and major events for a national nonprofit organization. The work included large-scale galas bringing together hundreds of guests, as well as building long-term relationships with high-net-worth donors and philanthropic supporters that required discretion, genuine care, and a nuanced understanding of what people need to feel truly valued, not just well-served.

That combination of experiences, one forged in the field, one in some of New York's most demanding rooms, is the foundation she brings to every client, couple, and family she works with at The Maine Barns.

Harper Photo Co.

Mike's Background

Mike's path to The Maine Barns began in professional kitchens. He trained and worked as a chef in Maine and Colorado before traveling to Italy to apprentice with Dario Cecchini — the celebrated Tuscan butcher and chef whose approach to hospitality is as legendary as his food.

Mike later cooked professionally in San Francisco, where his focus on northern Italian cuisine deepened his understanding of how the right combination of food, atmosphere, and intention can work together to create something truly memorable.

Alongside his culinary career, Mike also spent years working as a social worker in Maine and New York City. It's a detail that often surprises people, but it makes complete sense when you see him at work. The patience, the attentiveness, the genuine interest in the people around him — these aren't hospitality techniques. They're simply who he is.

Together, his background gives him something rare: a chef's sensitivity to the sensory experience of a gathering and a human-centered instinct for what helps people thrive and feel most at home.

Emily Delamater

How They Got Here

Mike and Essie were married at Flanagan Farm.

They were a newly engaged couple when they first toured the properties, and like many couples who visit, they found themselves drawn to both in different ways. Their wedding ultimately took place at Flanagan Farm — and something about the place stayed with them long after.

David Murray

Years later, when the opportunity to become stewards of The Maine Barns presented itself, it felt less like a business decision and more like a return. They knew these properties not just as owners but as a couple who had celebrated here, who understood what it meant to trust a place with something that mattered.

Today they live in Portland with their two daughters, deeply embedded in the city's food and hospitality community — professionally and personally. They know the restaurants, the chefs, the hidden spots worth seeking out, and the people behind them. That local knowledge is one of the quieter benefits of planning a celebration here.

They oversee both Flanagan Farm and Walnut Hill from that place of connection — to the properties, to the city, and to the broader Maine community they have chosen to build their lives within.

Jamie Mercurio

A Shared Commitment to Belonging

Equally important to Mike and Essie is the kind of welcome they extend to every couple who celebrates here.

They care deeply that every person who comes to Flanagan Farm or Walnut Hill — every couple, every family member, every guest — feels respected, celebrated, and safe. Equity and inclusion are not aspirational language for them. They are the baseline from which everything else is built.

Through the Love/Give program, launched in 2020, a portion of proceeds from every celebration is donated to nonprofit organizations supporting Maine's communities, environment, and future. Couples can direct that contribution toward the causes that matter most to them, and the donation is made in their honor at no additional cost.

It is a small but meaningful expression of something Mike and Essie have always believed: that moments of joy, when approached with intention, can ripple outward long after a singular moment.

Meeting Them

For many couples, meeting Mike and Essie is the moment the venues stop feeling like venues.

The properties are beautiful — but they are also places shaped by people who have thought carefully about what hospitality means, who have celebrated here themselves, and who have chosen to build something here worth caring about.

If you're considering a wedding or event at The Maine Barns, reach out. We'd love to meet you.

Harper Photo Co.