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Down East, Maine/ It was sheer serendipity, according to the owners of Canada’s first five-star inn. Long Island innkeepers Harry Chancey Jr. and David Oxford were returning from a Maritimes vacation in 1995 when they detoured on a whim to St. Andrews. “We thought we’d arrived in the magic kingdom,” recalled Harry. The owners of the deluxe Centennial House in East Hampton extended their vacation, started house hunting and within a week took possession of an abandoned mansion in which to run a second inn. The rambling 1897 cedar-shingled house and its neighbors on a ridge at the top of King Street were among the finest in one of Canada’s ritziest summer colonies. With the blessing of town officials and neighbors Lucinda and John Flemer, who funded the adjacent Kingsbrae Garden, they undertook 24 months of renovations. Now they welcome guests to a full-service inn with five luxurious rooms, three suites and a carriage house, plus all the amenities required for a designation by Canada Select as Canada’s first five-star inn, membership in Relais & Châteaux and selection as a hideaway of the year in the Harper Report. “This is the realization of a vision,” Harry said as he led a tour before settling us like old friends into the King Suite. Kingsbrae Arms is five stars with a difference – the warmth and hospitality of its owners. A crystal Austrian-style chandelier hangs in the entry foyer, a gift of Mrs. Flemer, with whom the owners worked closely so the world-class inn and the world-class garden would complement each other. The entry foyer leads into a plush, paneled and beamed library. Off the side of the foyer is a drawing room elegant in cream and peach colors, with a grand piano on a platform for recitals at one end, fireplaces on either side and two comfortable seating areas in between. Across the foyer are the dining room with a handsome table for twelve and a professional kitchen. A conference facility in the side carriage house includes a dining porch beneath a veranda, with the largest suite complete with kitchen and balcony above. The rest of the luxurious guest quarters ramble across the inn’s second and third floors. Harry designed the Canadian birdseye and maple four-poster beds and the patterned mahogany armoires that were built by local craftsmen. Except for antiques from their own collection, all the furnishings, fabrics and accessories were obtained locally. Along with instant gas fireplaces, each room has sumptuous seating, TV, telephone with data port, a writing desk, three-way reading lamps, porcelain doorknobs and original art on the walls. There are double whirlpool tubs, glass-enclosed showers and five-foot marble vanities in the six bathrooms that could accommodate them. Neutrogena toiletries, thick towels and embroidered waffle-weave sauna robes come with. Chocolate truffles are at bedside, complimentary beverages and snacks are in a little guest kitchen down the hall, and room service offers mini-meals. Rates include breakfast and dinner in the dining room or on the terrace, overlooking a deep back lawn leading to a secluded swimming pool. Whimsy and surprises abound. The Queen Room has not one but two queensize rice-carved poster beds, a sitting area beside the fireplace and a deep window seat with a chandelier – a great place for reading poetry, advises Harry, who has slept in every room in the house, as good innkeepers do. An antique matrimonial bed from Shanghai, original to the house that was built by a merchant involved in the China trade, plays a decorative role beneath an elliptical window in a third-floor hallway. The Pinnacle Suite occupies an entire wing of the third floor. It comes with fireplaces ornamented with English garden tiles in both the kingsize bedroom and its mirror-image sitting room, a stocked wet bar/pantry, his and her bathrooms, and an oversize balcony. Also with a new balcony overlooking Kingsbrae Garden is the Garden Suite. It also has two fireplaces, a kingsize canopy bed draped in green, and a bath with oversize soaking tub and corner shower clad in marble. The Earl is a triple-gabled junior suite with a sitting area in one gable, a queen sleigh bed in another (with the window enveloped in a crown canopy), and the bathroom with whirlpool tub in a third gable. The King Suite has a kingsize four-poster with a draped canopy to keep out the morning light, fireplaces in bedroom and sitting room, and a wide balcony overlooking showy gardens in the rolling back yard that ends at a swimming pool. The marble in the bathroom extends to the vanity, walk-in shower, whirlpool tub and floor. These are the designs of decorator magazine editors’ dreams. The food here is equal to the rest of the experience. Our dinner lived up to its billing as like a “dinner party with friends in a private home.” Following cocktails with nibbles on the terrace, guests gathered in the dining room for a leisurely, four-course repast served with aplomb. The appetizer was steamed Prince Edward Island mussels in a creamy pernod sauce, which chief chef and server Harry insisted everyone soak up with extra bread. The main course was delicate pistachio-crusted Atlantic salmon with fresh peas and tarragon sauce and apple-cranberry couscous. Next came a plate of three French cheeses with Corinthian grapes, pickled gooseberries and fennel. Dessert was an almond-raspberry torte with baked maple cream. Coffee and cookies were served in the living room. Breakfast the next day included dainty cut-up fruit with yogurt sauce, a first-rate eggs benedict and hazelnut coffee. In 2004, the inn was adding two more suites in a newly acquired house next door. The owners renovated the former 1860 house, once a B&B known as Pippincott, for their personal quarters following the sale of their Centennial House inn in East Hampton. They also changed the pricing structure to make the daily rates all-inclusive in the manner of Twin Farms in Vermont and the Point in upstate New York. Rates are quoted in U.S. funds.
For more information: www.kingsbrae.com. (506) 529-1897. Fax (506) 529-1197. E-mail: reservations@kingsbrae.com.
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