Sand Beach: Cultural Landscapes Inventory, Acadia National Park

Killion, Jeffrey; Cahill, Megan

Sand Beach is a National Park Service (NPS) developed area in Acadia National Park, located in Hancock County, Maine. Acadia was the first national park established east of the Mississippi River and today encompasses over 50,000 acres across Mount Desert Island, the Schoodic Peninsula, and other smaller islands. Sand Beach is located in Newport Cove, in the southeastern section of Mount Desert Island, one half mile south of the entrance station on the Park Loop Road. Sand Beach itself is the only sandy Atlantic beach within the park and is one of the few beaches on Mount Desert Island that is accessible to the public. Much of the sand surface is actually composed of pulverized seashells. Swimming is allowed at the site all year, though only monitored by park lifeguards between Memorial Day and Labor Day. The core area of the Sand Beach development is located on a gently sloped bluff, situated below the Ocean Drive segment of the Park Loop Road and above the beach and an adjacent pond/wetland named Beehive Lagoon. The site is accessed from Ocean Drive by way of a curving access road that leads to a 100-car, three-tiered (lower) parking lot. Walkways and steps convey visitors to a three-paneled lawn area that fronts a historic comfort station, which features a hipped, bellcast roof and brown-stained board and batten siding that reflects the Rustic Design style used throughout the park. Flanking the comfort station are two long, rectangular structures that house changing rooms and a lifeguard storage/office/vault toilet. Of more recent construction, they replaced earlier changing rooms built in 1955. Paved walkways, stone retaining walls and steps, and accessible ramps link the three buildings to the parking lot and trail that connects a smaller (upper) parking lot to the beach (also accessed from Ocean Drive). Historic small-scale features include a historic stone water fountain and a memorial dedicated to the donors of the land, the Satterlee family. Other contemporary features include a shelter for riders of the Island Explorer bus, a stainless-steel drinking fountain, informational kiosks with wood awnings and steel interpretive waysides, split rail fencing along paths, a steel bicycle rack, and numerous covered trash cans. Successional woodlands, along with select NPS plantings of trees and shrubs, provide substantial shading throughout the site, except at the more open parking lots. The vegetation that reinforces the bluff edges also frames views to the beach, especially from an overlook at the top of a concrete staircase that accesses the beach. At almost 1,000 feet long, Sand Beach offering expansive 360-degree vistas that highlight the impressive landscape and seascape. Sand Beach is one of Acadia National Park’s most popular coastal destinations, regularly attracting several thousand sunbathers, walkers, and picnickers per day during peak season and serving as the gateway to the Ocean Path corridor, the Beehive, and the Great Head Trail. Its sandy shoreline, dramatic geology, and ease of access make it one of the most photographed and visited sites in the park.

Sand Beach: Cultural Landscapes Inventory, Acadia National Park

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