Maine Memory Network

Since its construction in 1927, The Eastland has held the position as Portland most prominent hotel. Built at the expense of $2,000,000 and designed by local architect Herbert Rhodes, it was the largest building in Portland for many years.

The Eastland’s colorful history began with a pompous opening ceremony that included Graham McNamee, a well-known radio personality of the time, dropping the keys to the new Hotel into Portland Harbor from an airplane--an act to signify that the hotel would never close. Around 5,000 individuals toured the hotel at the opening reception and a select group of local elite were treated to a meal in the Spanish Baronial dining room. Around the time of its opening, the Eastland advertised "369 rooms and 369 baths" as well as 140 other apartments and shops.

Throughout the latter half of the twentieth century, the Eastland began a turbulent chapter in its history. In the early 1960s, the Eastland and the adjacent Congress Square Hotel were sold to a New Hampshire firm, Dunfy Corporation, for a sum of $2.5 million. They renamed the hotel the Sheraton-Eastland Motor Hotel. In the early 1970s the hotel changed hands again as Aetna Life of Hartford Connecticut purchased the property.

In 1981, a three-alarm fire raged through the hotel's ballroom, forcing residents to evacuate. Later, in 1983 Sonesta International Hotel Corporation obtained the hotel stating that, "professional hotel people" were needed to keep the hotel afloat.

Sonesta put the hotel through a $5 million renovation, only to sell the hotel in 1992 to Innkeepers Ltd., of Pennsylvania for $3.5 million. Five years later, the Eastland was sold once again, this time to a Florida company for $9 million. In 2013 the Eastland changed hands, becoming a Westin Hotel.