1. Discovering Hidden Pond Resort
2. Accommodation and Design
3. Embracing Wellness Activities
4. Culinary Delights and Relaxation
5. The Serenity Spa Experience
One writer takes to southern Maine and discovers Hidden Pond resort’s refreshing approach to wellness.
The day before I was set to depart for Hidden Pond, a 60-acre, 46-key resort in Kennebunkport, Maine, my contractor arrived to deconstruct my kitchen. On a wet Monday morning, I sat in my office and enjoyed the not-so-relaxing melody of drills and hammers, of stone being cut and of tile being ripped from walls. A single day of a kitchen renovation was enough to reinforce that I had made the right choice in embracing wellness an hour from my Massachusetts home in southern Maine.
Hidden Pond, part of the Kennebunkport Resort Collection, opened in 2008 with a mere 14 cottages and has since expanded; the resort now includes 16 cottages, 20 bungalows, 10 Treetop Lodges, and a restaurant. The resort offers specific wellness retreats — multi-day forays into restoration and relaxation that include spa treatments, fireside chats, nature walks, art classes, and farm-to-table dining. For two nights in June, I visited Hidden Pond with my friend, Jessika, to unpack their wellness offerings and to embrace self-care in the heart of vintage Maine.
Relaxation is practically inscribed into the dirt paths and cozy porches at Hidden Pond. From my own screened porch — I stayed in the 650-square-foot bungalow called Rendezvous — I could see white pines and towering oaks, blueberry bushes about to blush, and lichen the same color as the porch walls. The room felt like part of the forest.
In 2022, fashion designer Todd Snyder partnered with Kennebunkport Resort Collection’s creative director Mark Cotto and local art director Krista Stokes to design the property’s bungalows, focusing on three design concepts: Sea-Side, Mountain-Side, and Country-Side. My bungalow was a light, airy Sea-Side version, with John Derian oyster shell wallpaper behind the canopy bed, light wide-plank wood flooring, and neutral accents. An added luxury touch that connected amenity and resort: Malin+Goetz toiletries, in scents like cilantro and neroli, harnessed the property’s dedication to thriving botanicals.
We were eager to get out into the green of Maine to see those botanicals for ourselves. Walking down in the drizzly afternoon, we visited the Farm Garden, where guests are welcome to luxuriate in their own self-guided wellness experience by picking fruits and vegetables. We arrived in tandem with the season’s first strawberries. Later, we borrowed the resort’s beach cruisers — bikes are scattered throughout Hidden Pond for use whenever the mood hits — for a ride past the larger cottages.
At the property’s critically acclaimed restaurant, Earth, that night, which is set among the turquoise, adults-only Serenity Pool and private garden beds from which meals are sourced, Jessika and I embraced wellness in a different way: through the restaurant’s five-course tasting menu. Can a meal be restorative? This one was for me, from the ruby planks of tuna sashimi that came dusted with togarashi to the two seared scallops, flanked by chanterelles, afloat in a white wine lobster emulsion, to the helium-light sassafras- and sarsaparilla-glazed warm donuts.
The next morning, a light rain threatened to derail yoga in the garden, but Jennifer Gallo, our instructor, offered a class tailored around the unreliable weather. Guests from the resort are welcome to show up without registering, meaning that classes can range in size and ability (ours turned out to be a private class of just two). A cloudy morning and a gentle sprinkle didn’t interrupt a curious chipmunk, the chirping of birds, or the smell of fresh flowers.
“It’s meditative,” said Diane Noble, our watercolor instructor, later that day, as we bent over boards and thick, cream-colored paper, brushes in hand. We were in Hidden Pond’s petite art studio, which overlooks the guest garden. It’s true that I lost all sense of time as I poured myself into a picture of tangerine- and vermillion-colored marigolds.
Time remained suspended, too, when, after my painting class, I visited the potting shed for a vase and a pair of scissors; guests can stroll through the cutting garden to create their own bespoke flower arrangement. As we collected purple salvia, a soon-to-bloom peony, and various other perennials, Colton Stuart, the resident gardener, offered a quick tutorial, showing us how to trim our flowers and where to look for more and gifting us an Egyptian walking onion to plant when we got back home.
The rooms at Hidden Pond are without phones (guests can text a number provided in a welcome packet for any concierge-, room service-, or housekeeping-based needs), adding to a sense of serenity preparing guests for a digital detox.
We conducted our own afternoon version of this when the rains moved in again, curling up by the fireplace with leftovers from breakfast; each morning, staff delivers a small cooler bag equipped with fresh pastries and a thermos-full of coffee. For two decadent hours before dinner at Via Sophia by the Sea, an upscale Italian concept that opened last year in neighboring Kennebunk, we took in the calm and splendor of our bungalow with the help of two oversized, crumb-topped blueberry muffins.
When the sky cleared on my final morning, I grabbed a beach cruiser and rode to the Tree Spa for my last foray into personal wellness. Comprised of three individual treatment rooms and one couples’ room suspended in the trees, the spa offered a coda to a trip that married natural surroundings with quiet luxury.
Settling into my massage beneath a pine ceiling and decorative branches, I felt like I had been secreted away to a cabin in the woods, and maybe that was the point. It was hard not to feel better, more well, and more alive. And it was even harder to have to say goodbye to Hidden Pond at morning’s end.
