For sale in Conn.: a vacation home with waterfront views - on all sides

Although Branford boasts bunches of seasonal houses and mansions on its well-known Thimble Islands, Guilford has two private islands, Horse Island and Fosdick Island, that are home to summer getaways.

The 0.75-acre Horse Island and its four-bedroom home are in the Sachem’s Head area next to Fosdick Island and recently went on the market for $2.1 million. Guilford’s Horse Island might be part of the Thimble Islands - but the jury’s still out on that one, its owners say.

The Joshua Cove home was built in 1965, and Allyn and Marti Powell bought it in 1973. After living on the island every summer for 36 years, the couple is selling it for “age purposes,’’ Marti Powell said.

“For most the year, it’s what you look forward to. It’s a great way of life. When you get up here, you forget anything about work,’’ Allyn Powell said.

The island’s first inhabitants might have been horses, which is where the land gets its name, according to local lore. The animals might have been left there by a passing ship.

In 1735, Ebenezer Talman became its first owner, followed by Ebenezer Stone, according to the book “A Treasury of Guilford Places’’ by Joel Eliot Helander. Ebenezer Bartlett and three generations in his family owned the island beginning in 1761, and in 1875, Dan Benton Jr. bought it and land on the nearby shore. The story goes that Benton’s cattle pastured along the shore and wandered out to the island on a sandbar during low tide.

The Powells have walked on that same sandbar to shore, though boats are the primary form of transportation to and from the island.

“When you sit on that deck and see sun setting over the Thimble Islands, it’s breathtaking,’’ said real estate agent Vinni Davis of Page Taft.

A deck wraps around three sides of the house, which has four bedrooms and a small bathroom. A living room leads into a small, open galley-style kitchen. Under the house lie storage drawers, which Allyn Powell jokingly calls the “coffins,’’ holding boating supplies. A wooden, outdoor shower stall sits a few feet from the house.

But this is no primitive “Gilligan’s Island’’ living situation: The house has electricity from a generator, town water, a full septic system and telephone lines, as well as its own pier and dock.

Davis says the real bragging rights come from being the only house on the island.

“A lot of the Thimbles have multiple houses on the islands, so this is truly a getaway,’’ she said.