Arts
Ogunquit: P-Town Lite
Ogunquit:
P-Town Lite
Two Village Square
by Euan Bear
Well,
Ogunquit: what it's like depends on when you go. Mary and I have in the
last couple of years gone late in the summer, a week before Labor Day
or the week after.
The town is pretty typical Maine seashore
kitschy, with some good (and some simply pretentious) restaurants and
many, many hotels, motels, small resorts, a time share development or
two, and beaucoup B&Bs. There's the
Ogunquit Playhouse, with live summer stock - this year including Elton
John's Aida, Sally Struthers in Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Swing!
and Nunsations! The Nunsense Vegas Revue.
Stonewall Kitchens is close by (home of
the best blueberry jam I've ever tasted, and owned by two gay men, though
you'd never know it from the corporate headquarters). If you entertain
like Martha used to, you simply must go there.
There's a cool miniature golf place, Wonder
Mountain, in Wells (next town up the coast) for any day that's less than
optimal for beach time. And if you’ve got kids or are a kid at heart,
there's Old Orchard Beach's midway and the gentler York Wild Kingdom.
Ogunquit has a library ("No Internet Access" reads a big sign
on the door).
For nightlife, there are four bars, three
of which are reportedly gay or at least gay friendly: Inside Out, Maine
Street, and the Front Porch. That last is the more lesbian-friendly of
the three, I'm told.
Mary and I have stayed at The Heritage of
Ogunquit, a B&B owned by a Texas lesbian (built on land inherited
from her grandparents). It looks like part of a Fifties housing development,
aged gracefully, and added onto to accommodate guests. You can cook in
the common space (when we were last there, it offered two two-burner hot
plates, coffee maker, toaster oven and microwave, plus full-size refrigerator),
and breakfast is served on weekends. It's definitely not a resort, although
the shady back yard (and a room of the house) shelters a hot tub, hammock,
picnic table, and gas grill.
The place is very homey, and about a 10-minute
walk from the beach, less than that from "the Marginal Way,"
a shore-side paved walk past rugosa roses, hotel gardens, private houses,
and beachside cliffs south to "Perkins Cove," where there are
restaurants and galleries and gift "shoppes." Often we drive
the car down to the beach lot and drop off one of us with the day's gear
and supplies, then take the car back to the Heritage and walk or take
the trolley.
The other place we've stayed is Two Village
Square, right at the junction of Shore Road and Route 1. It's owned by
two gay men, Joe Bellin and CT Steele, who took it over just a couple
of years ago. The inn has fifteen rooms, some fronting onto the lovely
Victorian living room, and boasts a heated swimming pool and a cocktail
party on Wednesday and Sunday nights in addition to regular breakfasts.
In last winter's renovation, the guest kitchen was considerably expanded.
Dining is mostly al fresco on the poolside deck. The inn is up a steep
driveway, sheltered and screened by trees, so it has more privacy than
you would expect from the address. Lesbians are welcome, but clearly in
the minority, and when we stayed there, we were the only ovarians in residence.
But of course, the main attraction is the
beach, three miles of it, both oceanside and riverside. Access to the
beach is very organized - take the "trolley" (named Rolly, Dolly,
Molly, etc.) for $1.50 and they'll drop you next to the main beach hotel
in the incredibly expensive parking lot (if you must bring your car to
the shore).
Picture long, long stretches of nearly sugar-sand,
with firmer stuff exposed as the tide recedes. Everybody walks the beach,
some barefoot and bronzed in the waves, some in sneakers and long sleeves.
And all that ocean... from the right spots and in the right weather (and
with binoculars) you can see Nubble Light in York and Boone Island, the
locale for a terrifying tale of stranding.
If you disembark at the hotel's main parking
lot, go down toward the water, and then turn north (left) and hike up
beyond the volleyball net to the (undemarcated) "gay" part of
the beach: less crowded, cute boys, nothing at all blatant. No life guard
there, although there is at the hotel part of the beach. Part of the beach
to the right of the hotel is used for kite flying, surfing, skim boarding.
Rica, the owner of the Heritage, swears that the water on the river side
is at least 10 degrees warmer than on the ocean side (where the average
late-August water temperatures are in the high fifties, low sixties).
Depending on the tide, you can tube a long ways down the river to the
ocean.
Because of the way the beach was formed,
as the tide goes out (it's pretty shallow for quite a ways), shallow (WARM)
pools get left behind near the mouth of the river. But before finding
a place on the river end of the beach, figure out which way the tide is
running - the first time Mary and I were there, we ended up nearly on
the rocks as the tide came in and ate up the available sand.
The dunes are marked as off-limits to preserve
them and bring back the sea grasses that will help stabilize their sandy
hills. But in late May I caught a glimpse of a couple of naked, um, sunbathing
men before they saw me on the walkway and ducked out of sight.
I grew up by the ocean, so just being there
is almost enough for me - good book, comfy chair, a little shade, the
smell of salt air, and the constant sound of the waves... yeah.
For more information:
Heritage of Ogunquit:
www.heritageogunquit.com
or 1-866-OCEAN-GRL
Two Village Square:
www.twovillagesquare.com
or 207-646-5779.
The lgbt travel website Purple Roofs (www.purpleroofs.com)
lists seven other gay-owned inns and B&Bs in Ogunquit.
Other info available at www.gayogunquit.com