Eco-Friendly Hotels
There may be no more basic need for vacationers than finding the right lodging—and for eco-minded guests, New England offers many hotels with LEED certification, low-waste operations, and creative earth-friendly initiatives. In summary, when you’re looking for a place to lay your head for the night, New England’s green hotels will make sure your conscience rests easy, too.
CONNECTICUT
Leave it to the city that hosts one of the world’s best universities, Yale, to offer a master class in sustainable hospitality: New Haven’s Hotel Marcel, which opened in 2022, is the first net-zero hotel in the nation. Set in a landmark 1967 Brutalist-style building designed by Marcel Breuer, the 165-room hotel is completely electric and sustained by an array of 1,000 solar panels. Repurposed building materials have been used throughout, while new additions—triple-glazed windows, upgraded temperature and air quality controls—help make the vintage building supremely energy-efficient. The restaurant serves local fare alongside biodynamic and organic wines, and 12 Tesla Superchargers and universal level-two chargers are ready to power up guests’ electric cars.
Old Saybrook, the hub of the Lower Connecticut River Valley, is where you’ll find Saybrook Point Resort & Marina, an upscale waterfront property that in 2009 became the first “Green Lodging”-certified hotel in Connecticut. More 30 years of eco-innovation—including saltwater swimming pools warmed by a system that captures and recycles heat—has reduced its energy use by half. Noticeable initiatives include solar panels, a biofuel backup generator, and electric vehicle charging stations; ask for an “eco tour” of the hotel and discover its behind-the-scenes green magic.
RHODE ISLAND
Built and operated with respect for its sensitive harborfront location, Rhode Island’s first hotel to achieve LEED certification has environmental best practices living in its bones. At Forty 1° North in Newport, most of the eco-conscious touches are subtle (energy-efficient lighting, dual-flush toilets), but guests will surely notice having their newspapers delivered via iPad, the luxuriously thick towels engineered to dry quickly, and the mesmerizing entryway mural made of a sustainable material: seashells.
Luxury and sustainability go hand in hand at the year-round beach resort Weekapaug Inn, located in the town of Westerly on the southwestern shoreline of Rhode Island. A Relais & Châteaux property (like its nearby sister hotel, the grand Ocean House), the Weekapaug has shaped its landscape to help protect its setting on lovely Quonochontaug Pond, with vegetated buffers of native plants and erosion-fighting stone borders, while wastewater is channeled into irrigation; plus, the resort’s state-of-the-art geothermal heating and cooling system runs on a closed loop to avoid impacting the sensitive coastal environment. Dining initiatives are another highlight: No food travels more than 155 miles (250km) to reach the property’s kitchens, and all food scraps are composted and repurposed into soil for farms in the region.
MASSACHUSETTS
Stay at The Lenox, a 4½-star boutique hotel in downtown Boston, and you won’t be sacrificing anything compared with non-green properties: The LED chandeliers sparkle brilliantly, the eco-friendly bath amenities by Beekman 1802 are indulgent, and the cocktails mixed with honey from hives on the hotel roof are naturally sweet. In addition to aggressively slashing water and energy use, the Lenox purchases offsets to achieve carbon neutrality. And for a few extra dollars, guests can opt for the “Travel Lightly” package, which covers offsets for the pollution generated by their flight and ground transportation.
Another downtown favorite is the Seaport Hotel, which was the first Boston hotel to go smoke-free, the first to provide in-room recycling, and the first to use a composting system. From water-saving showers and toilets to energy-conserving triple-paned thermo-glass windows, this award-winning waterfront hotel is filled with eco-friendly touches. Plus, guests can reduce their carbon footprint and tour the city with the hotel’s complimentary bikes, hop aboard a water taxi, or even catch public transportation from the on-site MBTA station.
In the college town of Amherst, famed as the home of poet Emily Dickinson, the Inn on Boltonwood received a $14 million makeover in 2011 that helped raise this early-20th-century inn to a level of greenness that is rare for a historic hotel. Many of the environmentally attuned updates at the LEED Silver–certified inn are invisible to guests: geothermal heating and cooling, energy-recovery ventilation, efficient plumbing. But one is so obviously cool, you’ll wonder why it’s not in use everywhere: When you exit and take your key, everything but the outlets you need to charge devices will automatically power down.
MAINE
The environmental pedigree of Cape Elizabeth’s Inn by the Sea traces back to 2001, when this beach resort’s head gardener, Derrick Daly, ripped out the landscaping to reintroduce native plants. The move didn’t just lower water use and lure wildlife but also proved wildly popular with guests. In the years since, every undertaking here—from light bulb replacement to major renovations—has considered the impact on the coastal surroundings. So, how does Maine’s first hotel to have dual-flush toilets, a LEED-certified spa, biofuel-powered heating, and a role in saving the endangered New England cottontail rabbit write its next green chapter? By educating—whether on a naturalist-led beach ecology walk or at dinner at Sea Glass, which is known for highlighting whiting, pollock, and other abundant yet underutilized fish.
Rooftop solar panels provide about 80 percent of the energy needed to run the recently renovated Craignair Inn, a nearly century-old property in St. George on Maine’s scenic Midcoast. The cheerful 16-room bed-and-breakfast serves a complimentary vegetarian breakfast, uses eco-friendly cleaning supplies and refillable shower products, and boasts an on-site eatery, The Causeway, that’s been named an “Ocean Friendly Restaurant” for its commitment to cutting out single-use plastics. Nature lovers will also appreciate the nearby pedestrian causeway leading to Clark Island, a Maine Coast Heritage Trust preserve.
NEW HAMPSHIRE
The fifth iteration of the Glen House—a hotel that’s been based in the same spot at the base of Mount Washington since 1852—opened its doors in 2018 and immediately gained attention for a modern environmental attitude within a traditional mountain hotel setting. The 68-room property draws energy for heating and cooling from a closed-loop geothermal system utilizing 30 wells drilled 500 feet (152m) deep. LED lighting is standard throughout, and even the elevators do their part, regenerating energy when the car is moving down and returning it to the system. A particularly nice touch is that all outdoor lighting is Dark Sky Compliant, which means that all light is pointed toward the ground—helping to preserve the starry views over the mountain landscape.
The college town of Hanover is an eco-leader: In 2017 it became the first town in the United States to commit, by popular vote, to transition to 100 percent renewable energy. So it’s no surprise that the landmark Hanover Inn, owned by Dartmouth College, already featured some environmentally friendly touches. First built in 1780, the property incorporated reclaimed wood and local granite in a major renovation 10 years ago, and recycling is the standard throughout hotel—right down to the food scraps from the on-site restaurant, which are composted for use at the Dartmouth Organic Farm, among other places.
VERMONT
Opened in 2013, Hotel Vermont offers a green escape in the heart of Vermont’s biggest city, Burlington. The LEED-certified independent boutique hotel puts a focus on sourcing locally—very locally, as in bath products by Lunaroma and coffee by Brio, which are both Burlington companies. Initiatives at the on-site Juniper Bar & Restaurant, meanwhile, run the gamut from using mainly grass-fed beef and pasture-raised chicken and eggs to recycling waste food oil. And of course, it uses local, organic, and/or non-GMO ingredients whenever possible.
In the heart of the Mad River Valley, the West Hill House B&B in Warren may be small—just nine rooms—but it’s thinking big about global warming. All the electricity at this renovated 1850s residence comes from solar power, which also helps to cover two-thirds of the property’s water heating. (There is complimentary EV charging, too.) Water comes from an on-site spring-fed well, and guests are provided with reusable bottles; the coffee served here comes from the United States’ first roastery powered by 100 percent renewable biogas, Vermont Coffee Company. There are LED lights throughout, and composting on-site—even the litter for the inn’s friendly resident cats is environmentally friendly!
