Kennebunkport Inn was a tea merchant’s private residence before opening its doors as a hotel in 1926. Built on property dating back more than two centuries, today the hotel’s just steps away from the area’s best shopping, dining, and cultural offerings. The inn, which sits on four acres along 400 feet of frontage on the Kennebunk River, still boasts quite a few of the former Federal-style home’s original elements, including four open fireplaces, a parlor, a library, a butler’s pantry, and a servants’ dining room. At the dawn of the 19th century, Ephraim Perkins, of the prominent Perkins family of merchants and sea captains, left 15 acres fronting the Kennebunk River, to his son who made a home for his family amid Maine’s proud shipbuilding industry. Seven generations of the Perkins family called this place home until the property was sold out of the Perkins line in 1888. Under new ownership, the home was torn down and rebuilt. Come the turn of the century—2001, husband-and-wife hospitality experts Thomas Nill and Debra Lennon bought the inn and renovated it to its current glory: A 35-room homage to its former status as a private estate with a subtle infusion of contemporary flair.
