In 2017 Stephen Antonson, a Brooklyn home furnishings artisan, and his wife, Kathleen Hackett, an interior designer and writer who counts Martha Stewart among her clients, bought a summer house in Rockport, Maine, a coastal town of fine arts, lobster boats and stunning views of Penobscot Bay.

At $320,000, the small, 19th-century clapboard house was among the lower-priced properties on Mechanic Street, known for its stately homes overlooking the town’s scenic working harbor.

The Antonson-Hackett home had no such vista. Although there was a lot behind their house in sight of the harbor, it was thickly wooded and owned by Ruth Graham, the widow who lived next door.

Almost immediately, the couple asked Mrs. Graham about clearing her land of the trees that blocked their view. She refused. She was an avid gardener, and killing trees repelled her. Also, years before, she had been cited by the town because one of her two sons, unaware of strict rules protecting shore land forest, had cleared some scrub trees from her property.

Mr. Antonson and Ms. Hackett were not about to give up. They even enlisted their two children in their quest for a valuable view.

But Mrs. Graham, nearly 90 at the time, was, like her trees, immovable.

The Allure of Rockport