Wentworth by the Sea Hotel
— — a porch the Atlantic still calls on.
Not only on a wall.
“The Wentworth holds the high ground above Little Harbor, a long white Victorian with a red mansard roof and a porch that runs the length of the building. It opened in 1874, then spent most of a century watching steamships, then a long quiet stretch boarded up. The porch faces the Atlantic now the way it always has, and the rocking chairs still come out in summer.
Wentworth by the Sea Hotel, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
The Wentworth by the Sea sits on New Castle Island in Portsmouth Harbor, at the mouth of the Piscataqua River where New Hampshire meets Maine. The hotel opened in 1874 as a summer resort drawing Boston and New York steamer trade. In 1905 it housed the diplomats who negotiated the Treaty of Portsmouth, ending the Russo-Japanese War. The building closed in 1982, fell to ruin, and reopened in 2003 after a full restoration. It now operates as a Marriott property with about 161 rooms.
The Russo-Japanese War ended at the negotiating table set up here in late summer 1905. Theodore Roosevelt brought the Russian and Japanese delegations to Portsmouth; the formal signing happened at the nearby Navy Yard, but the delegations lived at the Wentworth, walked its grounds, and worked the terms across its summer porches. Roosevelt received the Nobel Peace Prize for the effort the following year. A small memorial on the hotel grounds marks the centennial that passed in 2005.
The hotel sits on Wentworth Road on New Castle Island, about three miles east of downtown Portsmouth. The public can walk the grounds and the harbor path without staying. The dining room and a small bar are open to non-guests, and weddings fill the porch and the lawn through summer. The best light on the building is mid-morning from the harbor side, when the white walls catch full sun and the red mansard reads deepest. Parking is limited; arrive early in season.