Real estate speculators from Massachusetts and Kennebunkport purchased more than 700 acres of coastal land from Cape Porpoise to Lord’s Point in 1872. They opened the Ocean Bluff Hotel in 1873 with the intention of subdividing the land around it into closely packed cottage lots. The hotel soon enjoyed healthy patronage, but Kennebunkport’s infrastructure was not conducive to the ambitious cottage development that the Boston & Kennebunkport Seashore Company had anticipated.

Trains went only as far as the Kennebunk Depot then and the roads were not of a quality suitable for city folk. Boating was advertised as a recreational enticement, but the river was not actually safe for inexperienced boaters. The War Department was finally persuaded to improve the channel and in 1876, according to C. E. Blunt’s Report to the War Department “it was made a navigable width and depth from the mouth of the river to the village”. Still, by 1880, the number of Cape Arundel cottages could be counted on one hand. A train station was opened at Lower Village in 1883. Government Wharf was improved the same year. During the first half of the 1880s a few more hotels were opened and another handful of cottages built. These improvement measures started to work.

A development explosion occurred at Cape Arundel during 1887. The corner stone for St. Ann’s Episcopal Church was laid and Arundel Hall, a spacious new building for entertainments was constructed at the junction of Old King’s Highway and Arlington Street. Arundel Hall would, in 1890, be expanded to include tennis courts and a dance hall. Thenceforth, it would be referred to as The Arundel Casino. Miss Sarah P. Bancroft would act as its treasurer for 42 years. Parts of the casino were moved to Ocean Avenue in 1929 and today stand opposite the boathouse of the Kennebunk River Club. A dozen beautiful new structures would adorn the Cape Arundel landscape by 1887 season’s end.

For more on Cape Arundel History, join us at the Town House School July 23rd at 5pm.