The Bush Family Made Kennebunkport New England's Quietest Old-Money Retreat

Kennebunkport, on Maine's southern coast, built its early wealth on 19th-century shipbuilding before reinventing itself as a summer colony for wealthy families from Boston and New York, a shift that began in earnest after the Civil War as steam travel made the coast more accessible. Unlike the more visibly opulent Gilded Age resorts of Newport, Kennebunkport's version of old money has always leaned toward understatement: shingled cottages rather than marble mansions, and a working harbour that never stopped being a working harbour.

Walker's Point and a presidential summer address

The town's best-known residents are the Bush family, whose oceanfront compound at Walker's Point has been a family retreat since the 1920s, when Senator Prescott Bush's in-laws built there. George H. W. Bush spent childhood summers at the property and later used it as a summer White House during his presidency, a tradition his son George W. Bush also continued during visits home. The compound remains privately owned by the Bush family and is not open to the public, though it is visible from passing boats and from the Cliff Walk that skirts the shoreline nearby.

A summer colony, not a resort strip

Dock Square, the town's compact commercial centre, has kept much of its 19th-century scale even as boutiques and restaurants have replaced ship chandlers, and the surrounding streets are lined with the shingle-style summer cottages built for Boston and New York families from the 1880s onward. Unlike Newport's mansion tours or the Hamptons' beach-club circuit, Kennebunkport's social scene stays largely private, centred on yacht clubs and family compounds rather than public spectacle.

The coastline itself

The Marginal Way-style Cliff Walk along Ocean Avenue is the town's most photographed public vantage point, tracing the rocky shoreline within sight of several of the area's grandest private properties, Walker's Point among them, without needing to trespass on any of them.

Traveller tips

• Portland International Jetport, around 30 minutes north, is the nearest major airport.
• Walker's Point is private property; view it respectfully from the public Cliff Walk on Ocean Avenue rather than approaching by land or water.
• July and August are the busiest and priciest months; late spring and early autumn bring quieter streets and lower rates.
• Dock Square gets crowded with day-trippers by midday in summer; an early morning walk gives a clearer sense of the town's working-harbour character.