Asticou Hotel to Open Mid-July
NORTHEAST HARBOR—Exuding the confidence and self-assuredness of someone who has done this before, the Asticou Hotel’s owner Tim Harrington said that the inn will be open, with guests in their rooms, by mid-July.
“What should be a two- to three-year project our (team) got done in under a year,” Harrington said. The original plan was to hit the end of June, he said, adding, “but happily I’ll take mid-July!”
Harrington’s team appears to be on track to make that opening goal. According to Harrington, the kitchen was fired up on July 2, the pool is filled, the water and electric were turned on the last week of June, all of the pertinent inspections will happen during the course of the next week, and the landscaping and outdoor accoutrements are being completed currently.
The biggest benefactor of the Asticou Hotel is the Village of Northeast Harbor, according to Harrington, and that is why he is happy with the mid-July opening. The people of the village and the surrounding communities benefit from the guests of the hotel who are here spending their “hard earned” vacation money and he did not want the hotel to be closed for another summer.
Harrington currently owns three hotels on MDI and one of his goals in renovating older hotels such as the Asticou, the Claremont in Southwest Harbor, and even the Salt Cottages (formerly the Colony Cottages) in Bar Harbor is preservation.
Though there are short-term inconveniences experienced by area residents, the tradeoff is the survival of landmark buildings and properties that are rehabilitated, updated, and preserved for generations to come, Harrington feels.
“It’s really incredible that the Asticou lives again and will long after we’re all gone,” Harrington said.
He would rather purchase and save these older properties himself than see them purchased, torn down and turned into a private residence or large chain hotel.
And with the Asticou’s newly redone looks come fresh indoor and outdoor spaces.
The original inn building is slated to have 50 freshly renovated rooms. In addition to those 50 rooms, there will be 15 standalone cottages that are situated within what the hotel’s website bills as the “Asticou Village.” There will also be 17 spa terrace suites. each with a private harbor-view terrace.
The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by Acadia Brochures of Maine.
All photos: Shaun Farrar/Bar Harbor Story
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As great as the new, improved Asticou is for business owners in Northeast Harbor, with it’s expanded capacity and exquisite renovation, it’s too bad the the billionaires who spend a small portion of the year there can’t bring themselves to accept housing for the working class people who are needed to maintain their lifestyle and that of the well heeled guests of the Asticou.
It’s appalling that all this new construction was approved so quickly that the entire renovation only took a year, meanwhile year round housing for workers is blocked by multiple lawsuits from people who can’t bear the idea of the people who cook, clean, wait on and take care of their children living anywhere near them. It’s actually sickening.