The message is a simple one, though it’s 55 feet long and flanked by a tractor and potato barrels.
Perched along Route 1 at the top of the hill that descends into Aroostook County’s most populous city, a giant sign declares “I love Presque Isle,” with “love” represented as a heart.
New managers installed the sign three weeks ago outside the Presque Isle Hotel, where they hope to create a tourist attraction that brings guests through their doors and erodes stigma that has followed the iconic hotel from its previous owner.
Formerly known as the Presque Isle Inn & Convention Center — and, before that, the Swamp Fox and Keddy’s Motor Inn — the 151-room facility is the biggest hotel in northern Maine and has stood as a landmark near the city’s southern edge since it opened in 1973.
But it has faced its share of controversy in recent years. The hotel abruptly closed and was subsequently condemned in early 2023 after its owner said he did not have the money to make payroll. Twenty-five employees and family members who lived in the hotel were forced to leave in the middle of a snow storm as a fleet of police vehicles waited outside.
The building sold at auction a few months later and again in August 2024 to LMA Presque Isle LLC, which has taken on major renovations, hotel management said.
“It’s been through so many upheaves and ‘down heaves,’” hotel manager Leslie Dias said. “We want to get rid of all the bad memories and bring something fresh.”
The front lawn of the Presque Isle Hotel is already a tourist attraction. It’s home to the planet Mercury in the Maine Solar System model.
Hotel General Manager AK Sharma kept seeing people stop to take photos with it, which spawned an idea. Other cities have signs proclaiming their civic pride. Why not Presque Isle?
The concept originated from the “I Love New York” logo, designed in 1977, which is the state’s official tourism slogan and blankets signs and souvenir shops throughout The Empire State.
Today, similar signs exist across the world, from Tashkent, Uzbekistan, to Fargo, North Dakota.
In Presque Isle, the tractor and potato barrels reference the city’s agricultural industry. The hotel also plans to add a sculpture of a hot-air balloon, to reference the Presque Isle’s ballooning history, among other items.
“We wanted to bring all of the iconic things of this area,” Dias said.
Inside the hotel, all of the rooms have been renovated, Dias said. Siding has been replaced and the indoor pool was redone. New landscaping greets visitors as they walk inside. Management is currently in the process of replacing rugs in the hotel’s main corridor.
“It never ends,” Dias said with a laugh. “It’s like having a house multiplied by 100.”
It has not been all smooth sailing. Time Out Sports Bar, a bar and restaurant inside the hotel, was closed for more than a month this summer after its permit to sell alcohol expired.
Presque Isle leadership requested that the City Council deny a new liquor authorization over public safety concerns, but the council approved a license after Dias and Sharma proposed that the bar would eliminate live music and hire experienced bouncers.
The restaurant has reopened, and the hotel is looking forward with a focus on its guests and promoting what’s great about Presque Isle, Dias said. The sign outside says as much.
“We’re not a franchise, we’re a standalone. We work closely with customers,” she said. “We do everything that we possibly can for people.”