The Maine Thing
It’s all about personality
EAST BOOTHBAY, Maine
A former California surfer has made himself quite comfortable as an innkeeper on the coast of Maine, and travelers can feel right at home in his establishment, too.
Mike Kennedy, who grew up in Oxnard in the 1950’s and ‘60s before embarking on a nomadic career path, owns and operates the Five Gables Inn with wife De. It’s a comfortable, turn-of-the-century hotel that nestles at the edge of a forest, overlooking Linekin Bay.
The Five Gables’ best attribute is its location on a dead-end road. This means there is very little traffic past the front door of the inn, resulting in a quiet ambience at all hours. The hotel is configured to take advantage of this, overlooks the water. The tables and chairs out here tend to be in high demand with guests, particularly at breakfast.
Although the inn doesn’t have a restaurant, breakfast is included with the room rate, and Kennedy unleashes pent-up creativity to make certain it is memorable.
He left Oxnard for the Culinary Institute of America in New Haven, Conn., and afterward became something of a vagabond, cooking on a four-masted schooner in the Caribbean, working on freighters and ocean liners, and living in Paris, Israel, Greece and Atlanta.
He now boasts that a guest could stay at the Five Gables for nearly three weeks without having a repeat breakfast entrée – and along the way might savor blueberry-stuffed French toast, tomato and basil frittata, spiced pancakes with lemon syrup and a Sicilian omelet laced with Parmesan cheese, garlic and fresh basil.
“By the late 70s, I was out of the chef business,” Kennedy said. “It wasn’t a life I liked. I like (preparing) breakfast because I’m a cook, not a chef. Cooks work with their hands, have fun. A chef is just another executive, with food costs and labor cost.”
As guests here, we settled into a grand room that occupied the center gable of five, with windows overlooking the bay. It was tastefully appointed, with antiques and period reproduction furniture. Books lined a shelf above the windows.
Each afternoon, lemonade or tea is set out, along with some fabulous homemade cookies. It’s only natural to grab a snack and a cold drink and sink into one of those comfortable chairs on the broad porch. It’s also a short walk to the bay, where a small public boat dock doubles as a swimming platform.