Bristol Vacation Rental Investment
This page is about the Town of Bristol, Maine, the Lincoln County peninsula town on the Pemaquid Peninsula that is home to Pemaquid Point Lighthouse, Pemaquid Beach Park, Colonial Pemaquid, and the working harbor village of New Harbor. It is not Bristol, England (the town's actual 1765 namesake), Bristol, Rhode Island, Bristol, Connecticut, Bristol, Tennessee/Virginia, Bristol, New Hampshire, or Bristol Borough, Pennsylvania, all of which share this name. It is also not South Bristol, a separate adjoining Maine town across the Damariscotta River with its own tax collector, its own Route 129 swing bridge, and its own lobster co-ops. The honest starting point for an investor is this: no reliable current median home price for Bristol, Maine could be found anywhere in the public record checked for this page, so this page does not build a rental-income or cap-rate calculation on top of a number that does not exist. What it does instead is lay out the real, verifiable tourism draw, the town's real and recent storm exposure, and exactly where the data runs out, honestly, rather than inventing a home value or a nightly rate to fill the gap.
Why This Page Does Not Open With a Home-Price Calculation
A direct check of Zillow's Bristol, ME 04564 page turned up no Zillow Home Value Index and no median-value figure of any kind, only a raw count of eight active single-family listings with no price statistics displayed. Redfin does not appear to maintain a dedicated Bristol, Maine housing-market page at all; searching for one instead surfaces Redfin's Bristol pages for New York, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin, another instance of this town's name being overloaded by larger, unrelated places of the same name. No Census ACS median-home-value figure specific to this Bristol was located either.
That is a genuine, confirmed data gap, not a temporary inconvenience, and this site's own editorial standard is not to paper over it. Rather than borrowing a neighboring Midcoast Maine town's price level, which would risk actively misleading a buyer, this page states plainly: do not treat any home-price or rental-income figure attached to Bristol, Maine as confirmed anywhere on this page, and pull a current figure directly from Zillow, Redfin, or a Maine MLS source before underwriting any purchase.
The Real Draw: Pemaquid Point Lighthouse
Pemaquid Point Lighthouse is the single strongest, most nationally recognizable asset this market has. It was commissioned in 1827 under the John Quincy Adams administration, then rebuilt in 1835 after the original tower's salt-water-mixed mortar failed. The 38-foot granite tower stands on a dramatic apron of wave-fractured, striated granite ledge, which is much of its visual appeal. Ownership is layered: the U.S. Coast Guard retains title to the light itself, licensed to the American Lighthouse Foundation, whose local chapter, Friends of Pemaquid Point Lighthouse, supplies volunteer docents who open the tower seasonally, reported as mid-May through mid-October. The surrounding grounds form Pemaquid Point Lighthouse Park, a separate layer of stewardship run by Bristol's own Parks and Recreation Department at 3115 Bristol Road in New Harbor. A day-use admission of $4 per person, with a suggested $1 donation to climb the tower, and general hours of 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily have been reported by a visitor-guide source citing the park's own posted rates, though fees and hours are exactly the kind of detail that changes yearly and should be re-verified close to any visit.
The keeper's house, built in 1857, holds the Fishermen's Museum, which opened in 2008 with exhibits on the peninsula's maritime and fishing heritage, alongside a Learning Center added the same year and a small on-site art gallery. The lighthouse's fame extends well beyond Maine: it was chosen by statewide popular vote for Maine's entry in the U.S. Mint's 50 State Quarters Program, the 23rd coin in the series, released in 2003, depicted alongside a three-masted schooner modeled on the windjammer Victory Chimes. It was separately listed on the National Register of Historic Places on April 16, 1985. The complex was also in real, current news in 2024 and 2025: a powerful nor'easter on January 10, 2024, with wind gusts reported near 79 to 80 mph, tore apart the lighthouse's historic 19th-century bell house. The tower itself was undamaged, and the fog bell, dating to the 1840s, escaped harm only because it had already been removed for conservation work in August 2023. Follow-up local reporting found the park fully restored roughly eight months after the storm, so this is accurately described today as storm-damaged and since fully rebuilt, not an open issue.
Pemaquid Beach Park and Colonial Pemaquid: Two More Reasons Visitors Come
Pemaquid Beach Park is a real, town-operated sandy beach, also run by Bristol Parks and Recreation, and a relatively rare feature on this rocky stretch of the Maine coast. It appears on Maine's official Healthy Beaches water-quality monitoring list, meaning the state treats it as a monitored public swimming beach rather than just a scenic overlook. Current-season hours and admission fee could not be confirmed directly from the town's own website for this page, and that fee should not be assumed to match the lighthouse park's separately reported $4 rate, since they are two different facilities.
Colonial Pemaquid, also known as the Fort William Henry Historic Site, sits on Pemaquid Harbor near New Harbor and is a separate attraction from both the lighthouse and the beach. It is a Maine State Historic Site owned and managed by the Bureau of Parks and Lands, with a nonprofit, Friends of Colonial Pemaquid, supporting interpretation and upkeep. The site preserves one of the oldest continuously documented European settlement and fishing-station locations in New England, part of a National Historic Landmark archaeological district, and includes an archaeological museum and building foundations from the original settlement. The stone fort visitors see today is a 1907-1908 reconstruction built to mark the 300th anniversary of English settlement, modeled on the 1692 Fort William Henry, the third fortification on the site, not an original 17th-century structure. A notable footnote: the English galleon Angel Gabriel was wrecked here by a hurricane in 1635, and a plaque for its survivors' descendants was dedicated in 2010. Current hours and fees for this site were not confirmed in the research behind this page and should be checked directly with the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry before a visit.
New Harbor: A Working Harbor Village, Not a Tourist Strip
New Harbor is Bristol's genuine working harbor village, distinct from the Pemaquid Point tourist draw a few miles down the peninsula, and it deserves its own identity here rather than being folded into the lighthouse. Descriptive sourcing characterizes it as one of the last true working harbors on Maine's midcoast, still built around active lobstering rather than tourist-oriented shops. Hardy Boat Cruises operates out of New Harbor and runs a currently marketed passenger ferry to Monhegan Island, plus seasonal puffin-watching cruises, roughly mid-May through mid-August, and seal and nature cruises. This is a legitimate, ongoing business, not a stale listing, though it is worth noting that Boothbay Harbor's own Balmy Days Cruises runs a separate, unrelated ferry to Monhegan as well; neither town has exclusive access to the island.
Lobster fishing remains a real economic backbone of the town, evidenced directly by the active co-op and wharf structures in New Harbor and in Round Pond, where the Round Pond Lobstermen's Co-op at 25 Landing Road also functions as a seasonal seafood take-out and dining spot with active reviews as of 2026. Charter fishing based specifically in Bristol, New Harbor, or Pemaquid proved thin on direct verification: Maine's Department of Marine Resources Saltwater For-Hire Fleet listing did not show any vessels homeported here, with the nearest verifiable charter operations found in Boothbay Harbor, Bath, and further south. Bristol is honestly stronger on excursion and nature cruises and working lobster harbors than on dedicated sportfishing charters. For dining, the most solidly verified current names are Shaw's Fish & Lobster Wharf at 129 Maine Route 32 in New Harbor, an active seafood wharf restaurant with 190-plus Yelp reviews as of July 2026 that has since recovered from January 2024 storm damage to its bait shed and pilings, and the Round Pond Lobstermen's Co-op itself; a longer-standing spot, the Anchor Inn in Round Pond, surfaced in search results but was not independently re-verified as currently open.
Who Lives Here: An Aging, Second-Home-Heavy Population With Conflicting Income Data
Population figures for Bristol vary slightly by source rather than agreeing on one precise number. Wikipedia's population-history table lists 2,834 for the 2020 Census, while WorldPopulationReview cites 2,845 for the same Census release, an 11-person discrepancy likely from different vintage snapshots rather than a real disagreement; the honest way to state it is roughly 2,800 to 2,950 year-round residents, essentially flat to slightly growing over the past decade, rather than a single precise figure. The town is clearly aging: median age was 54.1 in the 2010 Census, and current estimates put it at 61.0 to 61.4, with one source citing 41.4% of residents age 65 or older, consistent with the broader pattern of Midcoast Maine's retiree-heavy, seasonal-home-heavy small towns.
Median household income estimates also conflict rather than converge: one source cites $100,750, another cites $93,794, a roughly $7,000 gap that could not be cross-verified against a Census Bureau ACS table directly for this page, so the honest range to use is roughly $90,000 to $100,000, not either figure alone. Public education runs through Bristol Consolidated School in the Pemaquid village area, part of a multi-town Alternative Organizational Structure serving Bristol, Bremen, and other nearby Lincoln County towns; there is no public high school within Bristol itself, and high-school-age students are commonly described as tuitioned to a regional school such as Lincoln Academy in Newcastle, a detail that should be verified directly rather than assumed as settled policy.
Storm and Flood Risk: A Real, Recent, Named Event
The Pemaquid Peninsula's exposed, rocky, deeply indented coastline is genuinely storm-vulnerable, and this is documented by real, current events rather than generic climate boilerplate. Back-to-back January 2024 nor'easters, on January 10 and January 13, did serious, named damage: the Osier family wharf and fish house, built in 1953, and the Scammon family wharf and fish house, built in 1971, in the New Harbor and South Bristol area, were destroyed across the two storms. Shaw's Fish & Lobster Wharf lost its bait shed and sustained piling damage, and the New Harbor Co-op's pilings and structure were damaged as well. Local reporting put the broader New Harbor and South Bristol area's losses at more than 35 docks and wharves, residential and commercial combined, with 38 truckloads of debris recovered from the harbor afterward, and along Route 32 in Chamberlain, multiple homes were reportedly torn from their foundations.
The same storm system tore apart Pemaquid Point Lighthouse's historic bell house, since fully rebuilt, as described above. Beyond this one well-documented event, Maine's coastal hazard profile in this region is driven primarily by nor'easters and winter storm surge rather than direct hurricane landfalls, though no dedicated historical hurricane-track search specific to Bristol was carried out for this page, so that should be treated as an open question rather than a claim of zero hurricane risk. The Lincoln County Regional Planning Commission maintains a Lincoln County Sea Level Rise Flood Study covering the Pemaquid Peninsula, which would be the correct primary source for any specific flood-zone or sea-level-rise figure; no specific figures from that study were confirmed for this page, so none are stated here.
Short-Term-Rental Rules and Taxes: Two More Confirmed Gaps
No current short-term-rental ordinance details for Bristol were confirmed for this page, and that should not be assumed to mirror any other Maine town covered on this site. Old Orchard Beach, for example, has a well-documented, unrestricted current framework, with roughly 800 active short-term rentals and no cap after its Town Council rejected a proposed moratorium in October 2023. Nothing here confirms whether Bristol has anything similar, a registration requirement, a cap, or a different rule set entirely; a prospective investor should verify current rules directly with Bristol's own town office before assuming any particular framework applies.
The town's property tax mill rate is a similar gap. Bristol's own town website has a Mill Rate History page, but automated attempts to fetch that site consistently failed during the research behind this page, so no current mill rate figure can be published here with confidence; it should be pulled fresh from the town's own Tax Assessment and Collection pages. As with every Maine market on this site, Bristol is not New Hampshire: Maine levies a state personal income tax on top of any local property tax bill and on any rental income earned, and that should be weighed alongside whatever current mill rate a buyer confirms directly.
Bottom Line: What This Page Does and Does Not Tell You
What is confirmed: Pemaquid Point Lighthouse, rebuilt in 1835, licensed to the American Lighthouse Foundation and opened seasonally by volunteer docents, is a genuinely nationally recognized landmark, featured on Maine's 2003 state quarter and listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1985, that took real storm damage to its bell house in January 2024 and has since been fully rebuilt. Pemaquid Beach Park is a real, state-monitored sandy beach, and Colonial Pemaquid is a separate, genuine state historic site nearby. New Harbor is a real working lobster harbor with a currently operating Monhegan ferry and puffin-cruise business, Hardy Boat Cruises, plus verified current dining at Shaw's Fish & Lobster Wharf and the Round Pond Lobstermen's Co-op. The population runs roughly 2,800 to 2,950, aging, with a median household income roughly in the $90,000 to $100,000 range. January 2024's back-to-back nor'easters did real, named damage to multiple working wharves and homes in the area, beyond the lighthouse itself.
What is not confirmed, and what this page does not invent: any current Zillow, Redfin, or Census ACS home-price figure for Bristol, Maine; any rental-income, occupancy, or nightly-rate figure for a short-term rental here; Bristol's current short-term-rental ordinance status; the town's current property tax mill rate; and current hours or fees for Pemaquid Beach Park or Colonial Pemaquid. Nothing on this page is investment, tax, or legal advice. Before buying a Bristol, Maine property with rental income in mind, verify current short-term-rental rules and the mill rate directly with the Town of Bristol's own office, pull a current home-price figure directly from Zillow, Redfin, or a Maine MLS source, and consult a Maine-licensed real estate professional, a Maine-licensed property manager or appraiser, and a Maine-licensed tax professional about the specific property under consideration.
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Get a Free Agent Referral →Independent research. No ads. No sponsored listings. This page is about the Town of Bristol, Maine, in Lincoln County, on the Pemaquid Peninsula, home to Pemaquid Point Lighthouse, Pemaquid Beach Park, Colonial Pemaquid, and New Harbor, and is unrelated to Bristol, England (this town's actual 1765 namesake), Bristol, Rhode Island, Bristol, Connecticut, Bristol, Tennessee/Virginia, Bristol, New Hampshire, Bristol Borough, Pennsylvania, or South Bristol, a separate adjoining Maine town, all of which share or nearly share this name. No current Zillow Home Value Index, Redfin median sale price, or Census ACS median-home-value figure specific to Bristol, Maine was found in the research behind this page; a direct Zillow fetch for the Bristol, ME 04564 page returned only a count of eight active single-family listings with no price statistics, and Redfin does not appear to maintain a dedicated Bristol, Maine city housing-market page. Population figures (2,834 per Wikipedia's population-history table and 2,845 per WorldPopulationReview, both for the 2020 Census) and median-age figures (54.1 in the 2010 Census; 61.0-61.4 in current estimates, with 41.4% age 65-plus per one source) are as cited. Median household income estimates ($100,750 per one source and $93,794 per another) could not be cross-verified against a Census Bureau ACS table directly. Pemaquid Point Lighthouse details, including its 1827 commission, 1835 rebuild, American Lighthouse Foundation licensing, Friends of Pemaquid Point Lighthouse docents, reported $4 admission and 9 a.m.-5 p.m. hours, the Fishermen's Museum, its 2003 Maine state quarter appearance, its April 16, 1985 National Register listing, and the January 10, 2024 bell-house storm damage and subsequent rebuild, are per the sources compiled in this site's own Bristol, ME research file, including maineexplored.com's visitor guide and Lincoln County News reporting. Colonial Pemaquid and Fort William Henry details are per the Maine Bureau of Parks and Lands and Friends of Colonial Pemaquid. Pemaquid Beach Park's listing on Maine's Healthy Beaches program is per Maine DEP. New Harbor and Hardy Boat Cruises details are per Hardy Boat Cruises' own descriptive materials. The January 2024 storm-damage account for the Osier and Scammon family wharves, Shaw's Fish & Lobster Wharf, the New Harbor Co-op, and Route 32 homes in Chamberlain is per Lincoln County News reporting. Dining details for Shaw's Fish & Lobster Wharf and the Round Pond Lobstermen's Co-op are per Yelp and Tripadvisor listings current as of July 2026. Bristol's own town website, bristolmaine.org, could not be directly fetched during this research, so its Mill Rate History, Pemaquid Beach Park fee and hours, and Harbors and Landings pages could not be independently confirmed. Old Orchard Beach's short-term-rental framework, cited here only as an example of what this page is not confirming for Bristol, is documented separately for that town alone. This research did not find, and this page does not invent, any home-price, rental-income, occupancy, or nightly-rate figure for Bristol, Maine, its current short-term-rental ordinance status, or its current property tax mill rate. Nothing here is investment, tax, or legal advice; before buying, verify current short-term-rental rules and the mill rate directly with the Town of Bristol, and consult a Maine-licensed real estate professional, a Maine-licensed property manager or appraiser, and a Maine tax professional about the specific property you are considering.