Courtesy / The Colony Hotel
Major redevelopment expected to cost between $14 million and $20 million is planned at the Colony Hotel, a Kennebunkport resort that dates back to 1914.
Updated: June 22, 2021
Q&A: Inspired by the past, historic Kennebunkport hotel imagines its future
Courtesy / Windward Development
The Colony, seen here under construction in the early 1910s, is one of the last “of the great New England resorts that are not turned into condominiums,” said part owner John Martin.
A major redevelopment proposed at the Colony Hotel in Kennebunkport is designed to build on the resort’s century-old legacy to enhance its cachet for visitors and local residents.
The project, expected to cost between $14 million and $20 million, is under review by the local planning board and would involve renovations, demolition and new construction. Planned in two phases, it would create a park-like campus with the historic hotel as the centerpiece.
The timeline is expected to be five years. Construction would take place during the winter and shut down during the summer in order to avoid affecting travel in the area during the busy visitor season and to allow the hotel to operate.
The ownership, Boughton Hotel Corp., is self-financing soft costs and discussing options to pay for construction if approved, John Martin, a one-third and third-generation owner and managing partner, told Mainebiz.
Designed by Maine architect John Calvin Stevens, the Colony opened in 1914 and has been owned by the Boughton family since 1947.
As a town landmark — the hotel’s cupola is noted on U.S. Coast Guard nautical charts as a navigation aid — the aesthetics of the new construction would echo the original building’s traditional style.
We asked Martin how the redevelopment was conceived and about the hotel’s place in the community. Here’s an edited transcript.
Mainebiz: How did the redevelopment idea unfold?
John Martin: About five years ago, I brought it up with my partners. Some of these buildings weren’t built to sustain long-term use. We started talking broad strokes about how to do this.
MB: Who is the Boughton family and what’s your relationship?
JM: There’s the Boughton family and the Banta family: We’re cousins. After World War II, my grandfather, John Banta, graduated from the Cornell School of Hotel Administration. He was with the first graduating class. George Boughton went to Dartmouth for business school. The ownership comes down through the Boughton side and operations fell on the Banta side. My grandfather was general manager. My mother was restaurant manager and held other positions. I got my first job working in the kitchen: I was the ‘toast boy.’ The Boughtons called me a few years ago and said, ‘Can you come back?’ I said, ‘Sure.’
MB: The Boughton family bought the Colony Hotel in Delray Beach, Fla., in 1935. Do you still have that?
JM: We do. My sister Hilary and a daughter of George Boughton, Jestena, work in Delray. And there’s a huge connection between the town of Kennebunkport and the town of Delray. Dock Square Clothiers has an outlet in both. I’ll go down to see the hotel in Delray and will see a ton of Kennebunkport people.
Courtesy / The Colony Hotel
From left, John Martin, Jestena Boughton and Hilary Roche own and operate sister Colony Hotels, going back three generations in their families, in Kennebunkport and Delray, Fla.
MB: What’s the significance of the historic hotels in Kennebunkport?
JM: It’s not just the Colony. When I think of larger New England hotels, I think more of ourselves, Nonantum [Resort], the Wentworth [Hotel], Samoset [Resort in Rockport], Chatham Bars Inn [on Cape Cod], etc. — we are the last of some of the great New England resorts that are not turned into condominiums. So it’s important that we stay independent and stay true to our nature. I think all of these big hotels are an important part of what happens in these coastal towns.
For example, we and the Nonatum are two big businesses right next to each other. We all get along. We all send each other a lot of business. We kind of joke a little bit and say, ‘If your group event or wedding comes to Kennebunkport and you walk into the Colony and say, ‘This isn’t my cup of tea,’ I’ll say, ‘What are you looking for?’ and we’ll put you in touch with Hidden Pond or the Nonantum or another resort. We say, ‘If you come to get married in Kennebunkport, we’ll get you married in Kennebunkport.’
MB: Your website says that, during the winter, the hotel is under constant renovation. You’re never done?
JM: It’s an old building. We don’t want to let the main building fall into disrepair to the point where we say, ‘This building has reached the end of its life.’ We spend a lot of time trying to preserve this big, beautiful hotel.
Courtesy / Windward Development
This initial sketch design of Building 1 depicts the traditional aesthetic style planned for the project.
The numbers are a little crazy. For example, one year we said, ‘Our windows are old. Why don’t we put in replacement windows?’ Everyone said, ‘That’s a great idea.’ We realized that totals about 450 windows and they cost about $500 apiece. There’s a lot of zeros in that math. And you realize you have to do that over several years.
And you can’t lose sight of the non-sexy things like hot water heaters and Wi-Fi. So we dog-ear about $1 million every winter for renovations.
MB: What’s your approach to renovation?
JM: We take things from our past to develop into things we do in our future. When we did our ballroom, we found pictures with wallpaper on top and wainscoting on the bottom, so we used that as inspiration. We took down the horsehair plaster, soundproofed the room and put it back to what we thought was correct for the way it should be.
We don’t want to renovate the charm out ourselves. We want to be sensitive to who we are. A lot of people come here because we’re a historic property.
For example, we don’t have televisions or AC in the main building. Customers come here and say, ‘Thanks for not having TVs in the room.’ We have a game room with classic games, and it always makes me smile when there’s a parent and a kid playing Scrabble there. How great to get them to put down a tablet or a phone and engage. That’s part of why we look back and stay the way we are.
MB: But you plan is to have TVs and AC in the new buildings. What’s the overall goal?
JM: I think that, when people visit a historic property, they like the idea of sitting in 50-year-old wicker chairs — that have been kept up — looking at the ocean and enjoying the ocean breeze. But then they want to go back to the modern amenities, maybe a flat-screen TV and great Wi-Fi. I think this will be a marriage for the hotel — we’ll be able to offer modern amenities on a historic property without renovating the historic portion of the property. I think there will be a lot of demand for that.
The other thing a lot of people don’t know is that the Colony has no way of being operational in the winter. We don’t even have winter water. So we’ll build the new buildings to be winterized. That doesn’t mean we’ll open them year-round. But it means we’ll have the flexibility in the future to offer them, maybe during Prelude [Kennebunkport’s annual December festival].
I see the future of Kennebunkport very much like the current situation on Long Island or the Cape. They were summer destinations like we are, but now they’re year-round communities. I see southern Maine becoming more like that.
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