Suite Experience: Staying At The Press Hotel Portland Maine

This post is all about whether The Press Hotel is worth the hype, and where to stay in Portland if you’re looking for alternative accommodations.

The photographer set up his tripod. He pivoted the legs on herringbone floors, panned away from The Press’s coin-colored couches, orange armchairs, and blue pillows, and faced a wall decked in typewriters. He stood with a hunch deepened from years of leaning too far forward at a desk and snapped a lens hood onto a chunky Nikon to avoid light flaring in from a long, half-shaded stretch of windows.

His photos likely landed in an article, accompanied by big, bolded headlines and long paragraphs. As I finished the last drops of my morning coffee, I noticed the photographer prep alongside hurried journalists, authors, and videographers.

About The Press Hotel

The Press’ lobby is a writers’ room softened into a living room, with gray typewriters on wooden ledges, glass tabletops encasing front-page cutouts, and a rounded selection of newspapers (Portland Press Herald, The Boston Globe, USA Today). In many ways, The Press is composed to invite a certain kind of storyteller – one who finds musicality in the sound of clacking typewriters, Scrabble tiles shifting into place, and the crinkly unfolding of The New York Times.

History Of The Press Hotel

In the 1920s, The Press Hotel was simply the Gannett Building, a stony seven-story space that housed The Portland Press Herald, a Maine media company and news organization [source]. For decades, the basement consumed the smells of hot metal, ink, and sweat. The presses churned and churned.

It’s this press, The Portland Press, that The Press Hotel adapts. But it took a while for the journalism-themed stay to take shape. The Portland Press Herald left the Gannett Building a decade past the turn of the century, and another half a decade later, The Press Hotel opened its doors as an Old Port boutique.

Checking Into The Press Hotel

Valet (38 dollars daily) has its own admin space, and check-in is up a little set of stairs. Matt Hutton, Professor of Woodworking and Furniture Design at the Maine College Of Art and owner of Studio 24b, designed The Press’ iconic letterpress wall. Like many details at this hotel, this art piece is Maine-crafted.

The check-in process went smoothly (once we figured out that the Valet side office was not front desk). And The Press’ receptionists were courteous.

The Press Hotel Rooms

The Press communicates a more noir, 1920s private investigator office styling upstairs. The hallways are dimly lit. Trapezoidal slants of shadows reveal room numbers. Real headlines, “Elderly Lobster Set Fee” and “Moose Licenses Auctioned,” run across walls; loose letters spill onto the carpet. The stories are Maine-specific, about weary fishermen, a local boy choir, and Christmas workers.

The Superior King Room I rolled my luggage into was small. A chunky bed took up most of 200(ish) square feet. Along one wall was a writer’s desk and a swivel chair with “The Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over The Lazy Dog” stitched onto its back.

In hotel rooms, it’s easy to forget where you are, but The Press distills Maine into local art and quippy one-liners (in the bathroom, by bottles of C.O. Bigelow body lotion and shower gel, a Tim Sample quote reads, “In Maine, there is a deeply ingrained sense that you can always get a little more use out of something”).

Amenities

Every morning in Portland, I wandered down to Inkwell, The Press’ cafe by day, bar by night. My eyes were half-shut, my movements sluggish. My room didn’t have a coffee machine (and at the time, I didn’t know you could request one), so I zombie-strode to Inkwell and self-poured a drip cup.

I sat by the fireplace and glanced over the Scrabble board (Monopoly is another board game option). The collective scent of hot coffee and light streaming in woke me up a little – just a little.

Downstairs, past a two-story installation of typewriters titled “The Swarm,” was a permanent curation of local Maine artists. The gallery is worth admiring and getting lost in.

The Press also has a gym with two Peleton bikes and a complimentary shuttle service (by request, between 3 PM and 10 PM) for the Portland area.

Food & Drink

Union is the buzzy restaurant in The Press. Union serves hyperlocal (honey harvested from the rooftop local) New American fare on Edgecomb Potters’ platters. Seafood is sustainably caught or fished in Maine; vegetables are home-grown.

Lobster Benedict or Maine Lobster-topped Avocado Toast are the brunch dishes to try. After dinner, we grabbed some Truffle Popcorn, candy-crusted in rooftop honey and seasoned with sea salt.

Around The Press Hotel

We snacked and watched clouds part ways from a tall church spire. I grabbed my camera, panned away from the Cuddledown-comforted bed, half-rotated chair, and wood-framed TV, and snapped a photo of the view.

a few recs for nearby things to do:

• Wadsworth-Longfellow House: Maine Historical Society rotates a fascinating set of displays here. The building is tiny, but the exhibitions are memorable.
• Portland House Of Music: intimate live music venue best known for showcasing emerging, local artists
• Crispy Gai: trendy Thai-food spot noted for its fried chicken

Did you enjoy this Press Hotel Portland Maine review? What are some of your favorite hotels in Portland? Let us know in the comments below!