Hotel Pemaquid, a Pemaquid Point landmark since its July 4, 1888 opening, is changing hands.
Former owners Skip and Cindy Atwood sold the nearly 12-acre property, which includes the hotel and several smaller buildings, to Charlie and Judy Duggin June 30.
The Duggins, of Malden, Mass., don’t plan any immediate changes.
“We love the vision that Cindy and Skip have,” Judy Duggin said in a July 15 interview on the hotel’s porch. “We really want to continue that vision.”
“That makes it a lot easier for me to give it up,” Skip Atwood said. Atwood, of Nobleboro, the co-owner of Hotel Pemaquid since 1984, is assisting with the transition.
“He’s just a wealth of information,” Judy Duggin said of her predecessor. “He knows the hotel inside and out.”
Atwood, in addition to guiding the transition at the hotel, is serving as the Duggins’ guide to the community, driving the family around to restaurants and sites of interest and introducing them around town.
“He has been awesome,” Judy Duggin said. “We couldn’t ask for anything better.”
Hotel Pemaquid has been for sale “off and on” for 4-5 years, Atwood said, although he estimates it was only actively on the market for a total of about one year.
Judy Duggin describes Hotel Pemaquid as “a grand old hotel” in “an awesome location.”
“At night, you can hear the waves crashing,” Judy Duggin said.
“…and the bells in the harbor dinging away,” Charlie Duggin added.
The Duggins, teachers by trade, will live in Maine during the season, which runs from Memorial Day weekend through Columbus Day. For now, they’re on the hotel’s third floor with their three boys – Will, 10, Ray, 8 and Nick, 6.
Charlie Duggin teaches science at Watertown High School in Watertown, Mass. and moonlights at North Shore Community College in Lynn, Mass. Judy Duggin teaches history, although, busy with the children and now a hotel, she’s taking a break from professional teaching.
The Duggins have family in Bath and visited the Bristol area while dating in the ’90s. “We’ve always had kind of an interest in this hotel,” Judy Duggin said.
“It’s a grand place,” she said. “It’s just… as you come around the bend a little bit, you see the hotel – it comes alive.”
The hotel’s 19th century aesthetic appealed to Judy Duggin.
“She loves antiques,” Charlie Duggin said. “She loves old movies, so the place just fit perfectly.”
The appeal of the place “as is” provides all the motive the Duggins need to maintain the status quo.
“You come here because it’s a certain style, it’s a certain ambience and that’s what we like, so no real immediate changes or significant changes [will happen] that we can foresee,” Judy Duggin said.
“The people who have been coming have been coming here for 20-30 years,” she said. “They like it the way it is.”
The couple didn’t rule out the possibility of future evolution, but for now, they’re just settling in. “We want to keep everything the way it is and keep Cindy and Skip around,” Judy Duggin said. “We first want to understand it before we change it.”
The long-time innkeeper, Sally Hamilton, Skip Atwood’s sister, is staying on to help the Duggins manage the housekeeping staff and run the busy hotel.
The Atwoods immediately launched an extensive restoration. “We have brought it full circle,” Atwood said.
A project of such magnitude becomes “an intricate part of your life and it’s hard to walk away from,” Atwood said. “It’s kind of like nurturing and bringing up a child. After 28 years, you have to release it.”
The former owner said he and his wife “couldn’t have picked better people” as buyers. He described the Duggins as “enthused” and “in tune with the history” of the place.
The Atwoods strove to create an atmosphere of “a step back in time” and the Duggins appreciate the motif, he said, putting the former owners and the hotel’s many regulars at ease.
Atwood passed on a message to all the patrons of Hotel Pemaquid over the years. “We’re very appreciative of all the local support and we hope they continue to support it in the future,” he said.
Hotel Pemaquid hosts annual, two-week artist workshops in June and July, one of which was ongoing at the time of the interview.
In addition to the artists and a large contingent of repeat visitors, the hotel frequently welcomes walk-ins, but plastic-happy patrons beware: “We don’t take credit cards,” Charlie Duggin said.
Hotel Pemaquid accepts cash and checks only, which helps the owners keep prices “very reasonable” by avoiding the payment of fees to credit card companies, the Duggins said.
For more information about Hotel Pemaquid, including rooms and rates, visit www.hotelpemaquid.com. To make a reservation, call the hotel at 677-2312 or walk into the office at 3098 Bristol Rd.
