Historic MDI hotel closed this year for $10M renovation
By Bill Trotter/Bangor Daily News
MOUNT DESERT—One of the few remaining hotels on Mount Desert Island built before World War II is undergoing a major $10 million renovation that will keep it closed this summer.
The Asticou Inn, overlooking Northeast Harbor in the town of Mount Desert, is not expected to reopen until 2025, according to the inn’s website.
The inn is one of three lodging properties on MDI that have been acquired in recent years by hotelier Tim Harrington, founding partner of Kennebunkport Resort Collection, a company that owns 10 high-end lodging properties in Kennebunkport.
Harrington bought the Asticou Inn last year for just under $7 million.
In addition to the $10 million renovation of the inn’s main building, which has been approved by the town, Harrington is looking to build 15 small rental cabins on the property. He also hopes to get building permits for two additional annexes, each with nine guest rooms. A new outdoor pool, replacing the existing one, will be built.
Project officials are set to appear before the town’s planning board next month to get permission for the extra buildings, according to Kim Keene, code enforcement officer for Mount Desert. The town has to approve combining two lots currently occupied by the inn and grounds into one lot for the proposed buildings to meet setback requirements, she said.
The project designers have not submitted cost estimates for the proposed second phase of the redevelopment, Keene said.
Harrington did not respond to requests for additional information.
The main building of the inn has been gutted as part of the renovations. The project includes the installation of a new modern elevator, replacing an antique elevator that was roughly the size of a phone booth, and entirely new plumbing, electrical and heating-cooling systems, Keene said.
The number of rooms inside the main building won’t change, but more of them will be available to guests because the inn will no longer have staff housing on site. Previously, there were 31 guest rooms and 19 staff rooms in the main building, but after the renovations, all 50 will be exclusively for guests, Keene said.
The project also will result in a bigger kitchen for the inn’s first-floor restaurant, separate bar and restaurant spaces, and a fitness center in the basement, according to plans on file at the Mount Desert town office.
The Asticou Inn renovation is the third major overhaul of a well-known lodging property on MDI by Harrington in the past few years.
In 2020, he bought the Claremont Hotel in Southwest Harbor, where between the purchase price and upgrades he expected to spend $20 million, Mainebiz reported at the time.
In 2021, he bought the former Colony Cottages in Bar Harbor, now renamed Salt Cottages, for $3.5 million, according to Bar Harbor’s property tax assessment records. Salt Cottages, located on Route 3 in the village of Hulls Cove, also were extensively renovated by Harrington, according to the Mount Desert Islander.
According to the Asticou Inn’s website, an original building first opened on the site in 1884 but burned down in 1900. It was rebuilt and then reopened the following year.
Many of the inns and hotels built on MDI before World War II—during the island’s “rusticator” era that mostly drew seasonal visitors—are no longer standing. Several in Bar Harbor burned down in the Great Fire of 1947, and others have been replaced in more recent decades with modern buildings that cater to tourists who travel by car to spend just a few days on vacation.
Three octagonal buildings built next to the main Asticou Inn that were built in the 1960s, each of which has two guest rooms, will be removed if Harrington is permitted to build the guest cabins and annexes on the property, according to paperwork on file at the town office.
This story appears through a media partnership with the Bangor Daily News.
Correction at 2:53 p.m., May 17: A previous version of this story from the BDN mischaracterized a new swimming pool planned for the Asticou Inn. It will be an outdoor pool, not an indoor pool.
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Yet another commercial enterprise ignoring the desperate need for employee housing...just what the doctor ordered! How about spending a small percentage of that ten million for some employee housing?