Photos by DAN SCHLOSSBERG Bars Inn evolved into a five-star resort with the stately but determined grace of a Cape Cod landmark. Although it marked its centennial June 6, the resort plans to celebrate all year. The list of special events includes an ice cream social, a Roaring ‘20s costume ball, a speakeasy, and occasional room rates of $191.40 (the resort was founded in 1914, the same year Babe Ruth broke into baseball and the Boston Braves performed their worst-to-first “miracle”). Except for weekends, when traffic chokes the Cape, Boston is only an hour away by car. Predictably, a Baseball & Beer Dinner earlier this season drew a huge throng eager to see the Red Sox World Championship trophies from 2004, 2007, and 2013. Visitors to Chatham Bars Inn love to walk — left out the front door to visit the town pier, with its daily lobster catch arriving by mid-afternoon, or right, to see the Chatham lighthouse. The town of Chatham, a tiny spec on the map of the Cape, is even closer. Its shops, stores, bistros, and cafes offer a pleasant diversion, especially when occasional fog creeps over the Cape. From top to A $100 million renovation, just completed, provides plenty bottom: The goldof indoor alternatives. There’s a handsome and upscale spa, domed capitol of a spacious lounge that resembles a British gentleman’s club, Massachusetts sits and several restaurants, from casual to fine dining. ABC atop a hill adjacent to News anchor Diane Sawyer once spent a summer there as a Boston Common and waitress. There’s also a shuttle to the pier, the lighthouse, or is on the Freedom such restaurants as popular-with-locals Red Nun (hint: the fishermen are boisterous but the lobster rolls compensate for Trail. the lack of quiet). Back on the mainland but still on the coast, the Cliff Founded in 1912, House Resort & Spa couldn’t have been called anything else. Fenway Park, home of It sits atop Bald Head Cliff in Cape Neddick, Maine, on the the Boston Red Sox, rocky southern coast between York and Ogunquit. The view’s is the oldest stadium the thing at Cliff House, which offers sweeping ocean vistas in the major leagues. from every room. The spa rooms, added just a few years ago, are more spacious, with room for wood-burning fireplaces that Plush spa rooms are make perfect companions in the chill of the Maine evening. the newest addition to They also feature private balconies, premium bath amenities, the Chatham Bars Inn, and proximity to both the spa and its infinity pool. It’s a Cape Cod institution impossible to tell where the pool ends and the ocean begins. since its inception 100 Though built in 1866, just a year after the end of the Civil War, the Cliff House caters to a modern clientele with every years ago. electronic amenity. But most guests prefer to linger over dinner, enjoying the panoramic ocean vista, rather than dash Spa, sea, sun, back to their devices. and infinity pool Cliff House is close to many Maine attractions, including delight guests at Cliff summer stock theater at Ogunquit Playhouse, the scenic House Resort & Spa footpaths of Marginal Way at Perkins Cove, and the York (Credit:Cliff House beaches, not to mention the Golden Rod candy emporium that Resort & Spa). has been churning out salt water taffy since 1896. Marginal Way, one of New England’s only paved shoreline footpaths, With the Green stretches more than a mile from the compact port of Perkins Mountains as a Cove to Ogunquit Beach. Also not far away is Kennebunkport, home to the Bush backdrop, the familyfamily estate at Walker’s Point and a restaurant called Mabel’s run Wilburton Inn Lobster Claw that the Bushes and other visiting celebrities of Manchester, VT favor. Artists with easels line up daily to paint the seascapes features music, shows, near the Bush enclave. and organic produce, Like the Cliff House, which was operated by one family plus proximity to for more than a century, the Wilburton Inn is owned and some of the finest operated by the third generation of the Levis family. The 30outlet shopping in acre Vermont Victorian stands on a hill in Manchester, also New England. (Photo known as a mecca for shopping outlets. The largest private credit: Wilburton Inn) estate in Manchester Village, it comprises the main mansion, various villas and cottages, a five-room reunion house, and something called The Museum of the Creative Process. The njlifestyleonline.com
LIFESTYLE | Summer 2014 35