The 1661 Inn
Named for the year Block Island was founded — 25 rooms in a Victorian compound, ocean views from the lawn.
A twenty-five-room Victorian compound on Block Island, named for the year the island was first settled by Europeans. The 1661 Inn sits on a low rise overlooking the Atlantic, its lawns running to a stone wall above the water. The view is the headline. The property is a familiar Block Island shape — clapboard, porches, hydrangeas, ocean — done at the larger end of what passes for grand on the island.
Run together with the Manisses (its sister property up the road), it's the closest thing the island has to a full-service hotel — a real lobby, a real restaurant, a lawn where breakfast is served in summer, and ocean views from most rooms.
The setting
Block Island sits twelve miles off the Rhode Island coast, reached by ferry from Point Judith (an hour) or seasonal services from Newport, New London, and Montauk. There are no chain hotels. The island is twenty square miles, a year-round population around a thousand, summer-tripled.
The 1661 Inn is on Spring Street, a few minutes' walk from Old Harbor (the main ferry port and town) and about ten minutes on foot to Crescent Beach. The Atlantic is just below the lawn — close enough that breakfast on the lawn is genuinely an ocean-view breakfast.
The building
The original 1661 Inn building is a wood-shingle and clapboard Victorian; the property has grown over the years to include several outbuildings around landscaped grounds. It's grand on the island scale — a real porch, a proper dining room, the kind of common rooms that feel built for a long August stay.
Materials are clapboard, wide-plank floors, painted wainscoting, and the inevitable Block Island hydrangea outside every window. There's a small petting-farm-adjacent area on the grounds (the Manisses next door has the actual menagerie) that families notice.
The rooms
Twenty-five rooms across the main house and smaller buildings, ranging from compact garden-view rooms to ocean-view suites with private decks. Most rooms have water views in some form. Beds and bathrooms have been kept up; the look is traditional Victorian B&B — floral, four-posters, brass fixtures.
Rates start around $425 in shoulder and climb to four figures for the suites in peak August.
Food & drink
Breakfast on the lawn is the property's signature — a real plated breakfast, not a buffet, served outside in summer with the ocean below. Dinner runs through the Manisses next door, which has the more notable kitchen on the property. Both serve non-guests with reservations.
On the property
The lawn, the porches, and the ocean view are the program. There's no pool — Crescent Beach is a short walk down the bluff. Bikes are available, and most guests use them or mopeds to circle the island.
- Breakfast on the lawn (seasonal)
- Restaurant access via sister property (Manisses)
- Bike rentals, beach access
- Petting animals on grounds
- Open seasonally — typically May through late October
Who it's for
- Families doing a Block Island week
- Couples who want a real Victorian-inn experience with ocean views
- Repeat Block Island travelers who already know the rhythm
- Travelers who like a hotel with a lawn and a porch
Who it's not for
- Design-hotel travelers — this is traditional, not contemporary
- Winter travelers — the property closes in the off-season
- Anyone wanting a modern boutique experience
Nearby
Old Harbor (the main ferry port and town) is a short walk for restaurants, shops, and the harbor. Crescent Beach is ten minutes on foot. The Mohegan Bluffs and Southeast Lighthouse are a fifteen-minute bike ride south. The North Light at Sandy Point is a twenty-minute drive. Mansion Beach is the wide quiet one. The whole island is bikeable in a day.
