Scarborough inn set for downsizing 2 wings, outbuildings would be razed

SCARBOROUGH – Major changes could be in store for one of Maine’s best-known resorts as its ownership group proposes to downsize the Black Point Inn on Prouts Neck.

Plans call for demolition of two wings of the inn and several outbuildings. BPI Partners LLC would sell off two existing cottages, convert an existing barn into three condominiums and create up to nine house lots.

A third cottage could be sold or demolished for a housing lot.

The plan would eliminate almost 60 rooms and could put 15 housing units on the market in a community that includes the one-time studio of painter Winslow Homer.

BPI Partners needs local approval to move forward. The ownership group is scheduled to discuss the plan next week before the town’s planning board.

BPI Partners, created by more than three dozen members of the Prouts Neck community, closed on the property earlier this year. The partnership seeks a better return on its investment and wants to reduce traffic and other nuisances, said Bob Gould, one of its leaders.

He also said members don’t want to close the resort after more than a century of operation.

“The best parts of it will still be there,” said Gould, a Massachusetts resident whose family has owned property on Prouts Neck since the early 1900s.

The inn opened in 1878, but the wings BPI wants to demolish were built in the 1950s and in the last decade.

A smaller Black Point Inn would be a major change in Maine’s luxury resort market, according to Greg Dugal, executive director of the Maine Innkeepers Association.

“I do believe it is a loss. But as I said, that’s their property.”