At Maine resort, unstructured time is an amenity in itself
LOVELL, Maine — The dinner bell echoes through the towering pines at Quisisana Resort, signaling guests to make their way to the lodge.
My family of four is seated in the dining hall for a meal that looks and tastes like it belongs in an exclusive upscale restaurant rather than a woodsy, lakeside setting. But it’s not just the lavish cuisine that is unique. Our server, Georgia (and the rest of the staff ), will rush from dinner service to the stage next door, where they put on a different production every night of the week.
Andrew Vogel is the executive chef and mastermind behind the menus that include things like smoked short rib, duck duet, horseradish-crusted halibut, and the most extensive seafood buffet I’ve ever seen. (As a Mainer, I don’t say this lightly.)
“My hope is that when people leave Quisisana, they aren’t just remembering the lake and the mountain views and the shows,” said Vogel. “I really hope the food is part of an all-encompassing experience. I want guests to leave kind of wowed by the food.”
Out of tradition, some things about the menu will never change: A version of blueberry pie for Saturday’s welcome dinner, steak sandwiches for lunch on Wednesday, Strawberry Shortcake on Thursday evening, and the pancakes and waffles that are offered daily.
“Everyone talks about the magic of Quisi,” Vogel said as he recalled a recent guest who was visiting for her 41st summer. “And I think the magic really is there and a lot of that has to do with what Jane built.” (Indeed, Travel + Leisure readers recently named Quisisana the best resort in New England in the magazine’s annual “World’s Best Awards” survey for 2023.)
I wasn’t surprised to hear Vogel mention “Jane” and “magic” during our conversation. These are words I heard guests and employees use over and over to describe what has made their experience special, why they return, year after year, decade after decade.
Jane Orans took the helm of Quisisana back in 1984 after spending most of her life as a guest. When she passed away in 2020, Jane’s son, Sam Orans, and his wife, Nathalie, made sure her legacy continued. Of course, a legacy isn’t just your life’s work, but how you go about the work that people remember.
During my time at Quisisana, I heard Jane described as amazing, fun to work with, warm and welcoming, simple and traditional, but full of life. Marshall Taylor, the resort’s artistic director for the last 35 years, told me the choice of bold, colorful fabrics found in the cabin interiors is a nod to Jane, who liked to keep things cheery.
“I think Sam and Nathalie are doing a really good job of continuing to improve the resort but not losing the part of Quisi that makes it special, which is the feeling of community,” said Vogel. “You’re going on vacation to this all-inclusive resort for a week, but in some ways it feels like you’re going home. That’s what draws people back.”
Jane may have had a no-frills-needed mentality, but there are luxuries everywhere. Sometimes in plain sight, like the expansive deck on the main lodge that makes you feel like you’re sitting in a treehouse, where Vogel shucks fresh oysters on Thursday nights. Other times, it’s simply the hospitality around every corner.
Also clear is Jane’s love for kids. In fact, Sam said his mother would’ve been happy running a big summer camp. Instead, she took the staff under her wing and made Quisisana a place where generations of families could retreat from their busy lives and reconnect with one another.
Kids have the option of a separate dinner time from parents with supervised playtime while the adults eat. As you can imagine, a slew of actors and singers as baby sitters means there’s never a shortage of creativity and enthusiasm. Chef Vogel’s wife, Kelsey, who is a talented performer, puts together “rehearsals” where younger kids practice a song and dance to show families at the end of the week.
While a part of the magic is in the connections, it’s also in the limited distractions. There are no televisions on the property, cellphone signals are mostly nonexistent, and the only Wi-Fi is at the main lodge.
Since the dinner bell seems to be the only real keeper of time, our days were intuitively guided. The hours between breakfast and lunch go something like this: Skee-Ball, Ping-Pong, kayaking or paddle boarding, games on the cabin’s screened-in porch, and building sandcastles. Before dinner it’s more arcade games, lounging in the hammock, collecting blueberries, and back to the beach.
The unstructured time is an amenity in itself, allowing you to observe things that sometimes go unnoticed in the day-to-day rush. Like watching your kids walking barefoot across the grass, dripping lake water with every step. Or listening to the hum of a motorboat just out of sight.
There’s a nostalgia at Quisisana that is familiar to me. For almost 100 years, generations of my family have been visiting the same lakeside spot in a different no-stop-light town three hours away. Mainers call this going “Upta Camp.” The digs are much more rustic than Quisisana, but the days are just as simple, and the beauty just as hard to put a finger on. To make sense of my family’s dirt road paradise, I wrote a book of poems about camp and I could publish 50 more and still not feel like I fully conveyed the magic. Or even understand it.
But isn’t that the point? To share the stories of yesterday so the magic continues to sing for generations to come.