BAR HARBOR, Maine — A local hotelier has added yet another lodging property, and three others in New England, to his portfolio.
David J. Witham, who owns nine other hotels or motels in Bar Harbor, this week purchased the Bar Harbor Motel from the family of Richard V. Collier for an undisclosed sum. Witham indicated in emails Tuesday that he also recently bought two other Comfort Inns, one in South Portland and another in Danvers, Mass., and a Hampton Inn in Saco. He declined to indicate the purchase prices for any of the properties.
The Bar Harbor Motel consists of 86 rooms in several buildings spread out over 14 acres, according to information posted on the motel’s official website. The current assessed value of the property is $4.2 million, according to the town’s official assessing database.
Witham said Tuesday in an email that he has long admired the property, which he thinks has a good location on Route 3, near other hotels and Witham properties and within walking distance of the local downtown village.
“Most of all it is a way to develop long-term relationships with young family members who will be the future of Bar Harbor tourism,” Witham wrote.
Witham indicated his only planned change for the property is to replace the double beds with queen-sized beds. The motel will open as usual in the spring for the 2012 summer tourist season, he indicated.
The purchase is the latest by Witham in a shopping and building spree in Hancock County that dates to 2008, when the Witham Family Partnership bought from the Cough family the Atlantic Oakes Hotel on Route 3, across the street from the Bar Harbor Motel. He renamed that property the Atlantic Oceanside Hotel and Conference Center.
At the time, Witham also owned the Bar Harbor Inn overlooking the local harbor, the Grand Hotel on Main Street, and the Acadia Inn, also on Route 3. Witham bought the 125-year-old Bar Harbor Inn in 1987 and built the Acadia Inn in 1995 and the Grand Hotel in 2003.
Since buying the Atlantic Oceanside Hotel, Witham also has purchased the Villager Motel on Main Street, the Rockhurst Motel on Mount Desert Street, Aurora Inn on Holland Avenue, the Quality Inn on Kebo Street, and Best Western Acadia Park Inn on Route 3 in Salisbury Cove, all of which are in Bar Harbor.
Also since 2008, Witham has purchased majority stakes in the Ramada Inn, the Hampton Inn, and the Comfort Inn, all in Ellsworth, and the Knights Inn across the Ellsworth city line on Route 1 in Hancock.
Witham suggested that his buying spree may be over, at least for the foreseeable future. Members of the family partnership, he wrote Tuesday in an email, “are going to sit down next fall and evaluate just where we are and where should we be going.”
The total number of rooms in all of Witham’s hotel properties in Hancock County is more than 1,000. The cumulative assessed values for all those properties is estimated to be more than $50 million.
This guy has a monopoly going, he has started jacking all of the rates and people dont have anywhere else to go because he owns all the name brands.
actually the Walsh family is giving him a run for his money….they have several hotels/motels in Bar Harbor as well
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I worked at the Regency(an OPL Property/Tom Walsh) in the late 80’s. The room price is the same now as it was then. $108 per night. Kind of hard to make the “price fixing/Running Up” argument there.
David Witham employs many, many local people in all of his hotels. By boycotting Bar Harbor you are only hurting the people of Bar Harbor and other businesses you may encounter while there. If he did not employee many of these people who work for him, they wouldn’t be able to live here as the jobs wouldn’t be available to them. If you look around the rates between all walsh/witham and other bar harbor properties are all about the same, for what you are getting.
Hogwash. The hotels would be there anyway but spread out among many people and the employees would be there regardless. The point is concentration of ownership. The cost of the best rooms are pricey. These 2 gents who make up the majority of ownership would not be doing this if it did not make money.
To make money is the point, isn’t it.
Of course,but that is your point, mine was monopolies, they are not good for business but feel free to pay the rates these fellows are going to want to make money.
He employs “many, many local people”. You must mean all those “local” Eastern Europeans and Jamaicans that show up every spring, work for minimum wage, and leave every fall…
This guy majored in capitalism with a minor in longevity.
God Bless the U.S.A!
Witham puts his money where his mouth is. He loves Bar Harbor and makes a lot of money in Bar Harbor. He has taken huge risks that have paid off as he continues to grow his empire.
Posters talking about boycotting bar harbor and slamming on Witham are insecure jealous idiots. Simply fools. BTW, if all of the critics on this board boycotted anything it wouldn’t amount to a thing. News for you…NOBODY CARES!
So Witham, what this comment section should say is congrats on your acquisition and much success.
God Speed.
We do not need monopolies concentrating money to the 1%ers.
Come on, really,1%er? Sounds like a 99%er whose family followed the american dream and made it. Good for them, sounds like you have a sour grape in you.
That 1%er employs an awful lot of 99%er who desperately need the jobs he provides. You need to take the energy youput into jealousy and put it into making yourself as successful as he is. Quit whinning you are the only one to blame if you do not have what you want.
I just don’t understand where OPI and Witham house all their imported help?