Beachmere Inn
Family-owned four generations — the Beachmere family actually walks the grounds every morning.
The Beachmere Inn has been owned by the same family for four generations, which is the kind of detail that's either in a brochure or actually true. At the Beachmere it's actually true. The grounds — six oceanfront acres on Ogunquit's Marginal Way, with the Atlantic on one side and the cliff path on the other — are walked by the family every morning, and the hotel is run with the slow consistency that produces.
Fifty-three rooms across a main inn, a series of cottages, and a few outbuildings. From around $315 in the shoulders, climbing in July and August. It's a working coastal inn, not a destination resort, and the difference is the point.
The setting
Ogunquit sits on the southern Maine coast, an hour north of Boston and an hour south of Portland. The town is built around three things: the beach (a three-mile sand stretch, one of the best on the New England coast), Perkins Cove (a working harbor turned restaurant district), and the Marginal Way (the 1.25-mile clifftop path connecting them). The Beachmere occupies a stretch of oceanfront on the Marginal Way itself — the path passes directly through the property.
The drive from Boston is roughly an hour and fifteen minutes, mostly I-95. Portland International is about forty minutes north.
The building
The main inn is a turn-of-the-century clapboard structure with deep porches and the full New England-Victorian instinct: bay windows, painted woodwork, ocean-facing balconies. A series of cottages and smaller outbuildings sit between the main inn and the cliff edge. Materials are what the coast has always demanded — clapboard, slate, painted pine — kept up rather than restored.
The rooms
Fifty-three rooms across the main inn, the cottages, and the outbuildings. Most have ocean views; many have private balconies or porches. Layouts vary substantially because the buildings do. The cottages are popular with returning families. From around $315 in shoulder seasons.
Food & drink
There's a serious on-site dining program working with local farms and the Maine fishing fleet — not fine dining, but a strong coastal-inn restaurant with good seafood and a real wine list. Non-guests can book. For dinner in town, Northern Union, MC Perkins Cove, and 98 Provence are the standard names. Barnacle Billy's at Perkins Cove is the lobster-roll-and-dock answer.
On the property
The grounds are most of the program here. Ocean access, the cliff path, the gardens.
- Direct access to the Marginal Way clifftop path
- Private gardens and lawns down to the cliff edge
- Sauna
- Bonfires by the water in cooler months
- Hiking via the Marginal Way to Perkins Cove and back
- Open seasonally — generally April through December
Who it's for
- Multi-generational families who've come back for years
- Couples who want oceanfront without a resort
- Marginal Way walkers — the property is the best base for it
- Anyone looking for the slower, less-built version of the New England coast
Who it's not for
- Travelers wanting a contemporary design hotel — this is traditional coastal inn
- Winter visitors looking for a year-round base — the property closes in deep off-season
- Guests expecting a full destination spa or pool complex — there isn't one
Nearby
Perkins Cove and the working harbor are a fifteen-minute walk along the Marginal Way. Ogunquit Beach is a ten-minute walk in the other direction. The Ogunquit Museum of American Art is a five-minute walk south. Kittery's outlets and the Maine border are twenty minutes south. Portsmouth, NH, is half an hour, for a day trip across the river. The Nubble Light, in York, is fifteen minutes.
