Maine finds itself enjoying a beachy moment in the sun this summer, as a trio of new coastal hotels make their grand debuts. And luckily enough for New Yorkers, they’re all in the state’s southernmost stretches, closest to the city and major New England airports.
Just over the border from Massachusetts, an hour-plus drive from Boston, in York, is the Nevada, a midcentury throwback perched on the celebrated swimming and surfing destination of Long Sands Beach.
This rebooted high-design roadside motel, built in the 1950s, maintains its original curvaceous L-shaped look, which takes inspiration from US Navy battleships — not least the USS Nevada, which the hotel’s original owner served on during World War II.
The new Nevada comes as the third hotel from husband-and-wife owners Joe Lipton and Michelle Friar, whose first properties, the nearby Viewpoint and Stones Throw, have earned a devoted following. Lipton and Friar bought the Nevada in 2021, from descendants of the founder, and undertook a restoration and renovation that included adding a third floor, lifting the entire structure up on stilts to raise it above the coastal floodplain and creating interior hallways, so every room now has its own private terrace.
Opening in late June, the hotel will welcome a new generation of guests with 21 rooms, all with king-size beds and ocean views, plus a tiki bar and taqueria, bikes and a beach club (from $236 a night).
A few towns up the coast in Ogunquit, another mid-20th-century icon, the Dunes on the Waterfront reopened this month. Established 85 years ago by the Perkins family, who owned and operated it for three generations, the 12-acre retreat owes its brand-new life to Tim Harrington, a premiere Maine boutique hotelier who brought us the beloved Kennebunkport Resort Collection and, more recently, Bar Harbor’s Salt Cottages as well as the nearby Claremont Hotel.
To reimagine the Dunes, Harrington tapped his go-to team of local designers, Krista Stokes and Mark Cotto, who spun out a charming fantasy of timeless coastal Maine fun. Interiors of the 21 white-clapboard, green-shuttered one- to three-bedroom cottages combine beadboard millwork with spindle-post beds, leather-wrapped trucks, hand-stenciled furniture, plus commissioned artwork and pops of fern-green, sky-blue and terracotta amid otherwise creamy neutral hues.
Each cottage has its own porch and gas fireplace, with the cozy, comfortable furnishings encouraging lazy, loungy lie-ins in the morning.
The family-style summer camp offerings will tempt you out of bed, though. They center on the heated pool, grassy lawns, fishing dock and easy access to Ogunquit’s famously broad stretch of sandy beach, with the hotel providing kayaks, row boats and stand-up paddleboards (from $950 a night).
Up in Portland — whose airport welcomes several direct flights from NYC every day — the long-anticipated, newly built Longfellow opened this month. A member of Small Luxury Hotels of the World, the five-story, 48-room stay puts a focus squarely on wellness.
Its health-minded breakfast and lunch spot, Twinflower Cafe, emphasizes local ingredients and considered nutrition, with cold-pressed juices on offer. Even the bar and restaurant that enlivens the lobby in the evenings will reserve a section of its menu for zero-proof drinks. (The Longfellow partnered with a local restaurateur couple, who own the Wayside Tavern, just across the street from the hotel, for both eateries.)
Top-flight gear from Technogym outfits the fitness center, while the Atlantic Ocean-inspired spa, called Astraea, offers meditation experiences and infrared sauna rooms as well as massages and wraps. These use products from Voya, an organic Irish brand whose salves incorporate seaweed harvested off Ireland’s coast.
Brooklyn’s Post Company took on design duties at the Longfellow, continuing to mine a vein of understatedly chic interiors seen in their work at the year-old bakery and restaurant Raf’s, in Noho, and at Inness, the hotel and club in the Hudson River Valley founded by Taavo Somer, of Freemans fame. For the Longfellow, they whipped up a spare but luxe New England meets northern European look and feel that wouldn’t be out of place in Amsterdam or Stockholm.
An added bonus? Guests have free access to the hotel’s BMW i7, the German carmaker’s fastest all-electric vehicle, for the mile-long trip from the Longfellow’s West End neighborhood to the city’s bustling Old Port (from $499 a night).
