3 Best Sights in The Southern Coast, Maine

The great American landscape painter created many of his best-known works in this seaside home from 1883 until his death in 1910. It's easy to see how this rocky, jagged peninsula might have been inspiring. Access to the historic property, which is on a gated residents-only road, is only allowed via a guided 2½-hour tour with the Portland Museum of Art. Tours depart from the museum’s downtown Portland campus at 7 Congress Square.

Built in 1718, this waterfront home was remodeled in the 1760s by Jonathan Sayward, a local merchant who had prospered in the West Indies trade. By 1860, his descendants had opened the house to the public to share the story of their Colonial ancestors. Accessible only by guided tour (first and third Saturday, June through mid-October, 11–4 with the last tour at 3), the house reveals the decor of a prosperous New England family and the stories of the free and enslaved people who lived here at the outset of the Revolutionary War. The parlor—considered one of the country's best-preserved Colonial interiors, with a tall clock and mahogany Chippendale-style chairs—looks pretty much as it did when Sayward lived here.

Also known as the Nott House, this imposing Greek Revival mansion with Doric columns is furnished with the belongings of four generations of the Perkins-Nott family, whose patriarch, then the wealthiest merchant in town, built the house in 1853. Guided tours are offered from mid-July through mid-October, and showcase the fine items the family gathered in its global travels—including hand-painted wallpaper from Paris. The house also serves as a gathering place for village walking tours. It is owned by the Kennebunkport Historical Society, which has several other historical buildings, including an old jail and schoolhouse, a mile away at 125–135 North Street.