New hotels, new views, startling & intimate.

Story & Photos By Corey Templeton

What photographer would turn down the challenge to take a snapshot of views that have never been seen before? In Portland’s surging skyline, all you have to do is slide into an elevator and hit the up button.

Atop the new Hyatt, a penthouse balcony juts out from a place that was just sky two years ago. Surprise–you can see all of Maine from up here, in separate vignettes. For instance, if you look toward the Fore River, there’s a vista that looks like it’s straight out of One Morning In Maine: trucks, lobster boats, classic Widgery Wharf. So strange to catch a glimpse of something so old from the top of something so new. You’re the first person ever, beyond me holding the camera, to see this. You, me, and eight million gulls.

To steal up where the sky lives atop the roof of the new Courtyard Marriott, you have to go through a set of final dark zigzags before you burst into fresh air. The interior of the Marriott may be opulent, but if I were staying here, I’d spend the entire time right where I’m standing. (Please note, the general public is not allowed up here.) I feel lucky when I can sneak up on such beauty, with views too fresh to be clichés, 360 degrees around me. The drop toward Monument Square and then down along Commercial Street is priceless.