The Asticou Inn, which opened in 1884 and overlooks Northeast Harbor on Mount Desert Island, has a new owner.
Tim Harrington, a Kennebunk hotelier who also bought the Claremont Inn in Southwest Harbor in 2020, purchased the Asticou Inn last week through a limited liability company, according to records on file at the Hancock County Registry of Deeds.
The purchase price for the inn was just under $7 million, according to paperwork filed at the Mount Desert town office. The documents for the sale were signed and registered with the county deeds office on July 12.
The new owner listed in documents connected to the sale is Asticou Hospitality LLC. Harrington is listed as manager of the company in documents filed at the county’s registry of deeds.
Harrington is founding partner of Kennebunkport Resort Collection, a company that owns 10 high-end lodging properties in Kennebunkport. The companies established by Harrington to own and operate the inns on MDI — Asticou Hospitality and Claremont Hospitality — share a corporate address in Kennebunk with the Kennebunkport resort company, but appear to be run separately.
Harrington did not respond to an emailed request for comment about his purchase of the Asticou Inn, which has been operating seasonally for nearly 140 years.
Included in the sale were four other properties next to the Northeast Harbor inn. Those include three octagonal cottages built just west of the main inn building in the 1960s and three houses — one built in 1840, another built in 1870 and a third built in 1900 — also were purchased by Asticou Hospitality.
The five properties have a cumulative assessed value of more than $10 million, according to the town’s online assessing database. In all, the properties consist of nearly 20 acres.
According to the inn’s website, an original inn building first opened on the site in 1884 but burned down in 1900. It was rebuilt and then reopened the following year. The main building has nearly 25,000 square feet of living area, 22 guest rooms and a restaurant.
