Perhaps you've already heard that innkeeping isn't what is used to be, that it's been raised to an art of dynamic styles, and that inns are becoming the accommodation of choice—even over the best resorts and hotels.

Many of this emerging genre are found in Maine, an entire state that could be considered a hideaway. Combining the proximity of such inns with the retreats of several great twentieth-century American artists, Maine creates opportunities for enjoying a double whammy of sensory experiences.

THE ART: Cushing (approximately two hours north of Portland) was just another smallish Maine lobster village until a relatively unknown artist named Andrew Wyeth visited the Olson family farm. Thanks to two philanthropists who donated the Olson homestead to the Farnsworth Museum in Rockport, you can now literally step into the house, barn, fields, and rolling wildflower meadows of Wyeth's world-renowned paintings.

Each room of the Olson House is as Wyeth painted it, with a framed print in the room or near the view it depicts. In the meadow, you can try to pick the exact spot where Christina looks back forlornly at the house and barn that were "Christina's World."

Spring/Summer 1999