Log on: A hiker near Mount Riga.   (Photo: Stewart Ferebee)

Salisbury, Connecticut
An eighteenth-century village nestled in the rolling hills of Litchfield County.
Tucked up in the northwest corner of the state, Salisbury may not have beaches (unless you count the shores of Lakeville Lake) or a Bridgehampton-caliber social scene (though Meryl Streep and Joel Siegel are residents), but it is one of the most charming villages in the area, with a postcard-perfect Main Street peppered with little shops and bakeries, white clapboard neoclassical estates, and the country's oldest public library. The surrounding countryside seems about as removed from the metropolis as you can get, with its rolling hills, string of placid ponds, uncrowded roads, and abundant wildlife. "We were determined to find a place down the road in Washington; it seemed so chic," says a New Yorker who bought a weekend place here three years ago. "But once the Realtor took us to Salisbury, we couldn't go back. It has all the charm and -- thank God -- none of the pretensions."

• Familiar Faces The aforementioned Streep and Siegel, along with Jill Clayburgh and Ed Herman, all live within town lines, while Jasper Johns, a brace of Buckleys, and Kevin Bacon et famille live in neighboring Sharon.

• Things To Do "There's kayaking, walking, hiking, biking -- plus music, dance, and theater right over the border in the Berkshires. The only problem is that there are too many choices," says Noreen Driscoll Breslauer, who owns a local flower shop, Sweethaven Farm. The Harlem Valley Rail Trail, a 12-mile paved car-free track that runs from Amenia to Millerton, is popular with cyclists and joggers. The famous Lime Rock Park raceway is only ten minutes away; you can make it in even less time after you take the Skip Barber race-car-driving course.

• Social Scene "Our family has been here for over 50 years, and you can understand why," says one New Yorker who gave up a place in East Hampton for Salisbury. "It's the pleasure of living in a small town; you know everyone by their first name; people have a real dedication to the area." The Fourth of July celebration at Town Grove is the kind of old-timey cookout that will take you back to your childhood -- or to the childhood you wish you'd had.

• Property Values Local stock ranges from the eighteenth-century clapboard houses that line Main Street to cabins on the side of Mount Riga and along Riga Lake -- which are only accessible via a steeply pitched dirt road and, in many cases, have no electricity or running water. "Rentals have been much slower this year," says broker Elyse Harney. "There are an extraordinary number of places still available -- usually everything's gone by February. For the month of August, we range from a charming three-bedroom for $4,000 to a stunning estate with a main house, guest cottage, and swimming pool for $20,000." House sales, however, have been brisk. Prices range from $128,000 for a cottage to $4.9 million for a full spread. Recently a four-bedroom, three-bath Colonial, priced in the low $500,000s, sold in a day. Another swift sale was in the $2.6 million range; "It was not on a lot of land -- only seven or eight acres," says Harney. "But it was done."

• Recommended Realtors Elyse Harney (860-435-2200), Robinson Leech (860-435-9891).

• Weekend Trips The White Hart Inn has been in business for over a century, and it has clean, well-appointed rooms (860-435-0030 or whitehartinn.com; doubles start at $149). The best local restaurant is West Main (860-435-1450), which has brightly flavored Asian-inflected fare. On Thursdays and Fridays, it hosts local bands, and the bar is packed every night of the week.

-- MEREDITH KAHN

Milford, Pennsylvania
A wooded, writerly retreat just beyond the Delaware Water Gap.
although it's technically part of the poconos, Milford, Pennsylvania, draws a crowd that's much more Yaddo than Mount Airy Lodge. "It attracts a lot of artists and writers," says Jerry Beaver, a New York City casting director who has owned property here for nearly two decades. "It's so rustic and pristine -- it's probably easier for them to be creative someplace where you can find great peace of mind." The downtown area -- officially a historic district -- is lined with landmarked Victorian homes on almost every street. But many of the homes in the surrounding area are set back in the woods, with plenty of wildlife for company: bears, foxes, or trout in a stream nearby. "In the Hamptons, you spend all this money, and then you end up feeling like you're missing something," says Barbara De Vries, the original designer for CK. "In Milford, there's nothing to miss. And I like it that way."

Familiar Faces At the turn of the last century, Milford was briefly a proto-Hollywood celebrity magnet while D. W. Griffith was shooting films nearby (bringing Lillian Gish, Mary Pickford, and Pearl White with him). Now Milford draws literary types like Frank McCourt, John Berendt, Eric Bogosian, and Spartina author John Casey (who likes to write in a tent he's pitched in the woods near his home). Todd Oldham has also discovered Milford, and built a live-in tree house 60 feet off the ground on his ranch. "It's still the kind of place where no one at the Milford Diner is even going to know who Todd Oldham is," says Sean Strub, a second-home owner in Milford (and founder of the magazine Poz).

Talk of the Town "There really isn't much of a scene," says Deborah DuCharme, a magazine executive who's been making regular visits to Milford for fifteen years. "If you want to know where all the people in black run into each other, it's at the garden-supply store." And when they do, it's probably conservation, not the cable industry, that they're discussing. Milford's well-organized advocates have so far managed to successfully oppose Home Depot and other signs of suburban sprawl. "The hottest topic last year was whether to put in Victorian- or Colonial-style lamps on the main street in town," says DuCharme. "Colonial won, but there was grumbling that someone had fixed the votes."

Things To Do You can hike to the Upper Delaware Scenic and Recreational River and Delaware State Forest, where there's a nature center and more fishing and hiking and biking trails than anyone on vacation should have energy for. On rainy days, there's always antiquing on Hartford Street or a visit to the Peters Valley Craft Education Center on the Jersey side of the river, where local artisans give courses in photography, weaving, and ceramics.

What's New As much as Milford's New Yorkers say they want to escape, they'll no doubt welcome the new Brasseria, co-owned by Scott Morgan, former wine manager of the Royalton. To complement the formidable antiques scene in the area, Donna Hamilton, set decorator for Zoolander (among other movies), and her husband, Yilmaz Guver, recently opened Indigo Arts, a store with all the opulence of ABC Carpet & Home. The new Mountain Laurel Center for the Performing Arts is scheduled to open in full glory in 2003, with the Pittsburgh orchestra committed to perform. Grey Towers, a restored château with landscaped gardens, is launching a chamber-music series; violinist Anastasia Khitruk performs in July.

Property Values Within the town confines, "we still have MasterCard houses," says Strub, citing a twenties three-bedroom home on postage-stamp-size property that recently sold for $65,000. On the other hand, a southern-plantation-style 10,000-square-footer is currently priced at $995,000. More typically, the small Victorians in town go for around $200,000, with houses outside town (on three or four or more acres) running about the same. The housing stock ranges from classic Adirondack-style lodges to airier, modern structures with an emphasis on glass and open views. Rentals range from $1,200 a week in town to $3,000 a week for properties on Twin Lakes, five miles down the road.

Recommended Realtors Davis R. Chant Realtors (800-372-4268) or re/max (570-296-9290; ask for Vicki LaSpina).

Weekend Visits Right in town, there's Muir House Inn and Restaurant (570-296-6373 or muirhouse.com; doubles start at $85), a former barn turned boarding house that's been renovated. The in-house Italian restaurant is fairly upscale, but also will let you catch your own trout in the backyard brook. A bit farther out of town, the Pine Hill Farm bed and breakfast (570-296-5261 or pinehillfarm.com; rooms start at $140) has breathtaking views and sink-into-sleep king-size beds.
-- SUSAN DOMINUS

Mount Desert Island, Maine
Lobster pounds and lakeside cottages where the Rockefellers once roamed.
First of all, it's "de-sert" -- as in what you might want to forgo after you've put away that four-pound lobster all by yourself. Mount Desert's popularity rests in part on the fact that (as one native puts it) "it's about as far as you can go on the highway without going through Customs," but mainly on its breathtaking mountains, lakes, streams, and seashore. In the first half of the twentieth century, it was the summer destination for well-to-do families from all over the East Coast. Mia Thompson Brown, whose grandmother first began leaving Philadelphia to summer on Mount Desert in 1905 ("They called it Philadelphia-on-the-rocks"), says simply that it's "the beauty of the island" that has kept her family coming for generations. "As a child, I was completely independent here," says Brown. "I'd go out on my bike in the morning and ride back home in time for dinner."

• Lay of the Land The main town of Bar Harbor is a charming tourist mecca for shopping and eating; but with 3,000 hotel rooms, it's not the place to seek solitude, at least not during the summer months. Southwest Harbor calls itself the Quietside and is more local in flavor -- plenty of lobster pounds and boat-building shops -- though some galleries and inns have popped up in recent years. Northeast Harbor and Seal Harbor? Old money and old money.

• Familiar Faces "New Yorkers are in luck," reports Earl Brechlin, editor of the Mount Desert Islander. "New Yorkers are just fine. It's Massachusetts plates that get local blood boiling." (Some locals have been known to call them Massholes.) Mainers are even less impressed by celebrities than they are by Massachusetts. "The only thing wealthy people can't buy is acceptance," Brechlin continues, "and that's the one thing Mainers hold back. They're warm and friendly, but you have to earn it." Among those who've been earning it over the years are Brooke Astor, Julia Child, Martha Stewart, Caspar Weinberger, Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Norman Mailer, Connie Chung, and native son Maury Povich, who was born in Bar Harbor.

• Things To Do In spectacular, 30,000-acre Acadia National Park -- that's half the island -- there's hiking, picnicking, and, best of all, biking along the 45 miles of wide, smooth gravel carriage roads, which were built by John D. Rockefeller and which regularly offer up Kodak-moment vistas. On the island's ponds, lakes, and streams, there's canoeing; off the coast, sea-kayaking, sailing, and whale-watching. Elsewhere: golfing, camping, and, of course, lobster-eating.

• Last Summer's Gossip Martha Stewart's confrontation with a limo driver she discovered driving through her estate one night (he said he was lost) was widely and enthusiastically discussed.

• This Year's Talking Points It remains to be seen, of course, what will displace the traditional how-much-growth-is-too-much-growth issue, though something surely will (Martha . . . ?). Right now, it's reportedly hard for anyone to resist batting around the pros and cons of the Cat, the new, whiskered high-speed ferry to Canada. "That's got folks talking," says one resident.

• Property Values The most appealing, and expensive, summer house here is a "classic" shingle on the shore. "There's nothing on the ocean that you can touch for under a million and a half," says one Realtor. For a "decent, suburban-type three-bedroom house" farther inland, expect to pay around $250,000. As for rentals during July and August, Joe Wright at L. S. Robinson says that "lakefront and oceanfront go the quickest, and you're looking at a minimum of two weeks" (prices are $2,000 a week and up for those). For a two-bedroom in the town of Bar Harbor, you might pay $1,300 a week.

• Recommended Realtors A few of the big ones: the Knowles Company, Northeast Harbor (207-276-3322); Lynam Real Estate, Bar Harbor (207-288-3334); Swan Agency Real Estate, Bar Harbor (207-288-5818).

• Weekend Visits The centrally located Bar Harbor Inn (207-288-3351 or barharborinn.com; doubles start at $99) was a popular, um, "reading room" during Prohibition. And the Claremont Hotel (207-244-5036 or theclaremonthotel.com; doubles start at $115), in Southwest Harbor, the island's oldest hotel (established 1884), is a resort in the grand style: huge porch, lawns, and jackets at dinner.

-- GEORGE KALOGERAKIS