Poland Spring
The Beginning
Ricker Family
Mansion House
Poland Spring House
   Activities
   Architecture
   Dining Room
   Outbuildings
   Getting There

Riccar Inn
Spring & Bottling
  
Marketing
Bath Department

Maine State Bldg
All Souls Chapel
Hill-Top Magazine
Souvenirs
Famous Fans
Today

Related Topics
SamOset Hotel
Mt. Kineo House
Forrest Hills-Ricker
Summit Springs

The Balsams
Mt. Washington
Mohonk Mt. House
Mountain View Grand


References

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Innkeeping at Poland Spring began in 1790 with an overnight stagecoach stop.  Guided by the Ricker family, the spot blossomed into an elaborate resort that would host European royalty, American presidents, and the robber-baron industrialists and financiers of the Northeast in the early part of this century.  Many came for the clean mountain air.  Others came to take the waters of the nearby spring--the same bottled water sold today under the Poland Spring name.
Over the years, neglect, economic downturns, and a host of other factors sent the once-prestigious resort into a slow decline.  The aging Poland Spring House closed its doors in 1965, and was left to deteriorate until 1972, when Mel and Cyndi Robbins bought the property and began changing it back into a resort.  Catastrophe struck on July 3, 1975 when the grand old hotel
went up in flames.
Today, Poland Springs survives as a handful of historic buildings, a 20th century Inn, an 18-hole golf course designed by Donald Ross, and haunting memories of a bygone era.  Those memories, together with photographs, postcards, and selected excerpts from a variety of sources have been gathered here as a tribute to one of the grand resort hotels of the Victorian era. 

 


Brian Harris

22-Jul-2009

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