City: Scarborough, ME

Category: Accommodations

Telephone: (207) 883-6684, (800) 836-2322

Address: 34 Ocean Avenue

Description: Owned by proprietors Bob Westburg and Diane Garofalo, the Higgins Beach Inn is a three-story, 19th-century Colonial Revival hotel a block away from the popular beach for which the inn was named. The inn has functioned as a guesthouse for nearly 100 years after being converted from a private home by former owners Mr. and Mrs. Edward Samuel Higgins around the turn of the last century. Rooms at the inn are quaint and reminiscent of bed-and-breakfast accommodations, with antique furniture and limited high-tech amenities—guest rooms do not have televisions, and wireless Internet access is available only on the first floor. Some rooms have shared baths; others have private baths. The entire hotel is nonsmoking.Be sure to stop for a meal at the in-house restaurant, Garofalo’s, which is named after co-owner Diane and has received four out of five stars from the Portland Press Herald.The quiet neighborhood along Higgins Beach, where the inn is located, is populated largely by locals during the colder months but swells with visitors young and old during the summer. The inn is therefore strictly a seasonal stopover; it is open only from mid-May through mid-October.