How a Falmouth hotel learned to surf.

The property has been a Falmouth landmark for generations — a classic Cape Cod hotel on the best piece of land in town. A peninsula. A private beach. The Martha's Vineyard ferry, a walk away. The building's bones were never the problem.

A few years ago, we bought it, stripped it to those bones, and started over. We kept the cedar shingles and the beadboard — both were already right. We rebuilt everything else: renovated kitchenettes, warm wood interiors, natural linens, a record player on every console, and a rooftop deck that nobody had been using properly.

The design language is deliberately mixed. Cape Cod DNA — the shingles, the clapboard, the Nobska-lighthouse palette — loosened up with the California looseness we kept running into on long-traveled research trips. Rope handles. Turkish towels. A stack of wax at the front desk. The feeling that you can come to breakfast in board shorts and nobody will look twice.

We're part of Waterside Group, a Boston-based portfolio of 30+ hospitality, marine, and residential businesses across New England and Florida. Our sister property Flying Bridge Restaurant & Marina has been a Falmouth Harbor institution for 35-plus years. The two are designed to work together — the hotel you stay at, and the restaurant on the other side of the harbor where everyone ends up for dinner.