The Claremont Hotel is a historic hotel on Claremont Road in Southwest Harbor, Maine. Built in 1883, the main hotel building is one of the only 19th-century hotels to survive on Mount Desert Island.
“In 1883, Capt. Jesse Pease and his wife, Grace Clark Pease, hired Edward Glover to build a four-story hotel. The Claremont Hotel opened in June 1884.” - The Ellsworth American – October 24, 2002.
"The Claremont Hotel was built in 1883-4 by Capt. Jesse H. Pease and was opened to guests in the summer of '84. After the death of Capt. Pease in 1900, his wife successfully conducted the hotel for some seasons and then sold it to Dr. J.D. Phillips, who, with his son. Lawrence D. Phillips, now conducts it as a summer hostlery. Some years after acquiring it [circa 1911] Dr. Phillips purchased the Pemetic Hotel or "The Castle" as it was sometimes called, a building which Deacon Clark erected about 1878 as a rooming house in connection with his summer hotel. This stood in the woods across the road and east of the Island Cottage. It was moved to the Claremont lot and made a part of the hotel. Dr. Phillips has greatly enlarged and improved the hotel during his ownership and it has always been a popular place, commanding as it does a splendid view of Somes Sound and the harbor, with the hills in the background. The fiftieth anniversary of the hotel was observed in 1934 with interesting excercises." - Traditions and Records of Southwest Harbor and Somesville, Mount Desert Island, Maine by Mrs. Seth S. Thornton, p. 168 - 1938.
The main building of the Claremont was built in 1883 by Jesse Pease, a retired sea captain, and was one of the first large hotels to be built on Mount Desert Island. It is a 3-1/2 story wood frame structure, finished in clapboards, with a cross-gabled hip roof and a stone foundation. The main (west-facing) facade is seven bays wide, with a simple port-cochere near the south end providing entrance to the building. A single-story porch wraps around the south and east facades (the latter facing Somes Sound). From the eastern facade a broad lawn extends down to the waterfront, where there is a boathouse. The interior has been modernized, but with attention to maintaining original Victorian features.
On March 29, 1978 the Claremont Hotel was listed in the National Register of Historic Places - #78000162.
