Southern Maine
Inn By the Sea
40 Bowery Beach Road (off Route 77)
Cape Elizabeth, ME 04107

Nearly $7 million went into this luxury resort launched in 1987 on the site of the former Crescent Beach Inn in the Portland suburb of Cape Elizabeth. And it looks it, from the marble-tiled lobby and the twelve Audubon hand-colored engravings gracing the inn’s walls to the luxury suites with two TVs (the one in the sitting room hidden in the armoire) and no fewer than three telephones. There’s an ocean view from every room’s patio or balcony.

Handsomely done in Maine shingle style, the angled complex consists of 25 one-bedroom suites in the main building and eighteen condo-style one- or two-bedroom suites in four attached cottages. The loft suites on the second floor are most in demand, each with a kitchenette, a large living room opening onto a private balcony, and a loft bedroom and an enormous bathroom/dressing area upstairs.

We liked our first stay in a garden suite facing the lawn and ocean on the first floor, its living room – with reproduction Chippendale furnishings and a blue chintz sofa – opening through sliding doors onto an outside patio. Its small bedroom with a four-poster queen bed was quite adequate, even though the windows opened onto the parking lot. Next time we reveled in the extra space of a loft suite, which offered a better water view from its balcony and a three-section bathroom bigger than the kingsize loft bedroom. Furnishings are most comfortable and the decor understated in a Maine woods theme. In addition to the complete updating of the décor of all the suites this past winter, one of the newer features you might find are the automatic blinds for the large living room bay windows of the Loft Suites. These come in quite handy especially for those people that would love the opportunity to watch the sun rise, without having to get out of bed to actullay raise the blinds.

Owner Maureen McQuade, a Maine native who had managed large properties, lucked into buying this inn in foreclosure in 1993. A hands-on innkeeper, she’s very much at home here and her enthusiasm shows. The friendly young staff is dressed in khakis and bids everyone "A Great Maine day." Families are in evidence, at least in summer. So are pets. The four-diamond, four-star inn not only accepts but encourages travelers’ pets, pampering them almost as much as guests of the human persuasion. (The "gourmet pet menu" offers not only doggie tapas but chargrilled New York sirloin strip steak with pan-fried potato and summer vegetables and a dessert of French vanilla ice cream with crumbled granola and whipped cream.)

Pets or no, you can swim in a pleasant pool or saunter down a boardwalk to a private entrance to the beach at Crescent Beach State Park. The tea garden with rose bushes and ivy covered gazebo overlooking the ocean are a quiet retreat.

Breakfast and dinner are served in the Audubon Room, a harmonious space striking in white, with comfortable chairs and an enclosed porch around two sides. Tables are topped with white linens, English bone china and fresh flowers. The dinner fare has been elevated as well as condensed in recent years. We hear the rack of lamb is to die for, but were quite content at one visit with a couple of salads (spinach with grilled portobello mushrooms and caramelized walnuts, and fanned breast of duck on baby spinach and arugula) and main dishes of grilled medallions of jerk-spiced pork on a papaya and sundried-cherry relish, and shrimp szechuan, tossed with broccoli rabe, snow peas and a zesty orange-ginger sauce on cellophane noodles.

Another occasion produced a fabulous seafood fettuccine, loaded with lobster, diver scallops and tiger shrimp in an ethereal seaweed and saffron cream sauce, and a rich seafood strudel. The latter was accompanied by asparagus, pattypan squash, carrots and red peppers. Though there were no chilled desserts on the menu, the kitchen managed to turn up a dish of chocolate ice cream garnished with blueberries.

Breakfast (not included) is a feast as well. You can order a lobster and cheese omelet, amaretto or grand-marnier french toast, or eggs benedict with lobster. Portions are abundant, and the lady at the next table exclaimed that her pancakes and blueberries were the biggest she ever saw.

They do things up big here. Even the bill comes on an oversize computer printout.

Material excerpted from Getaways for Gourmets in the Northeast, by Nancy and Richard Woodworth. Copyright 2006.

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