Cape Elizabeth, ME Neighborhoods: Two Lights & Fort Williams
Cape Elizabeth, Maine does not organize into a long list of named villages the way some of its Southern Maine neighbors do. It is a smaller, more tightly bounded town — 9,535 residents at the 2020 Census, just 14.70 of its 45.93 square miles being land, the rest being water off a peninsula jutting into Casco Bay — and its identity is built around a handful of distinct geographic clusters and landmarks rather than a roster of village names. This page walks each of those clusters on its own terms: the Two Lights headland, Fort Williams Park and Portland Head Light, Crescent Beach State Park and Kettle Cove, the Spurwink River boundary it shares with Scarborough, and The Well at Jordan's Farm inland. It does not borrow Higgins Beach, Pine Point, or Prouts Neck from neighboring Scarborough, and it does not describe Cape Elizabeth, Alaska or the unrelated Cape Elizabeth on Sakhalin Island, Russia — both real, separate places that share only the name.
Two Lights: A Headland Where Two Lighthouse Towers and a Lobster Shack Share the Same Point, But Are Not the Same Thing
Cape Elizabeth Light — locally known as Two Lights — is a pair of cast-iron towers built in 1873-74 to replace an earlier set of 1828 stone towers, each standing 67 feet tall on the same headland. Only the eastern tower still operates as an active aid to navigation today; the western tower was decommissioned in 1924, was sold to actor Gary Merrill in 1971, was resold again in 1983, and has remained privately owned ever since, with no public access to the light station itself.
Two Lights State Park is a separate, 41-acre property that opened in 1961, with roughly two miles of trails through headland forest and seaside rock ledges, plus the remnants of Battery Construction Number 201, a World War II coastal-defense fortification. The park, the lighthouse towers, and The Lobster Shack at Two Lights — a restaurant at 225 Two Lights Road that describes itself as operating since the 1920s — all sit on the same small headland, but they are three legally and physically distinct properties under three different owners. The park does not contain the lighthouses or the restaurant, and visitors should not assume one grants access to the others.
Fort Williams Park and Portland Head Light: Maine's Most Photographed Lighthouse Belongs to Cape Elizabeth, Not Portland
Portland Head Light sits at 1000 Shore Road — inside the Town of Cape Elizabeth, not the City of Portland, despite its name. First lit on January 10, 1791, it is Maine's oldest lighthouse. The Town of Cape Elizabeth owns and manages the property today; the U.S. Coast Guard maintains only the light itself and the fog signal. It is a genuine, easy-to-miss fact worth stating plainly for anyone assuming Portland's namesake lighthouse sits within Portland's own city limits.
The lighthouse stands inside Fort Williams Park, a 90-acre municipal park built on the grounds of the former U.S. Army's Fort Williams, an active installation from 1872 to 1964 that was heavily manned by the 240th Coastal Artillery Regiment through World War II. The Town of Cape Elizabeth purchased the property in 1964 and formally named it Fort Williams Park on July 23, 1979. Today it is a free public park with tennis, pickleball, and basketball courts, baseball diamonds, and a fitness course, alongside the lighthouse itself.
Crescent Beach State Park and Kettle Cove: A Mile-Long Beach with a Documented Erosion History
Crescent Beach State Park centers on a mile-long crescent of sand that the State of Maine has leased since 1961 from the Black Point Corporation and the Sprague Corporation. The adjoining Kettle Cove has a documented erosion history in 2005 and 2007, and both Crescent Beach and Kettle Cove were named among Maine's storm-impacted coastal parks after the back-to-back January 2024 storm sequence.
Kettle Cove is also home to a small public boat-launch area adjacent to the state park. A 2021 public information meeting examined a possible relocation of that launch, using an engineering study from Sebago Technics — but this page cannot confirm the project's current 2026 status, and anyone relying on the launch for boat access should verify current conditions with the Town of Cape Elizabeth directly.
The Spurwink River: A Shared Boundary with Scarborough, Not an Exclusive Cape Elizabeth Address
The Spurwink River forms part of the town line Cape Elizabeth shares with Scarborough to the west, and it is a real, currently used destination for recreational kayaking and paddling. It is worth being precise about this one: the river is a shared geographic feature between two towns, not a landmark that belongs to Cape Elizabeth alone, and it should not be confused with any of Scarborough's own named coastal villages on the far side of that boundary.
The Well at Jordan's Farm: An Inland, Working-Farm Character Beyond the Headland Cluster
Away from the lighthouses and state parks, The Well at Jordan's Farm at 21 Wells Road offers a genuinely different side of Cape Elizabeth — a working farm-to-table dining destination rather than a coastal landmark. It gives the town a second, inland-facing character distinct from the headland cluster that Two Lights and Fort Williams Park anchor, and it is worth knowing about for anyone picturing Cape Elizabeth as nothing but lighthouses and shoreline.
Cape Elizabeth's Character: A Small, Affluent Town Without a Long Village List
Cape Elizabeth was incorporated on November 1, 1765, after separating from Falmouth, and today borders South Portland to the north and Scarborough to the west, within the Portland-South Portland-Biddeford metropolitan area. It has long been one of the highest-earning towns in the Portland area — 74.1% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, and 88% of homes are owner-occupied — though a January 2025 report found that neighboring Cumberland, Maine had newly overtaken it as the region's single highest-earning suburb. That combination of a small footprint, a handful of landmark clusters instead of a long roster of named villages, and a historically top-earning, highly educated population is what actually defines Cape Elizabeth's neighborhoods, more than any single beach or lighthouse does.
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Get a Free Agent Referral →Independent research. No ads. No sponsored listings. This page describes Cape Elizabeth, Maine, in Cumberland County — not Cape Elizabeth, Alaska, and not the unrelated Cape Elizabeth on Sakhalin Island, Russia, both of which share only the name. Two Lights State Park, the Cape Elizabeth Light towers, and The Lobster Shack at Two Lights are three separate, distinctly owned properties on the same headland; this page does not describe the park as containing either the lighthouses or the restaurant. Portland Head Light sits at 1000 Shore Road inside Fort Williams Park in the Town of Cape Elizabeth, owned and managed by the town itself, with the U.S. Coast Guard maintaining only the light and fog signal — it is not a City of Portland landmark, and it is a different lighthouse from Portland Breakwater Light ("Bug Light"), which sits in South Portland. The Spurwink River forms part of the shared Cape Elizabeth/Scarborough town line and is described here as a shared feature, not an exclusive Cape Elizabeth landmark. Higgins Beach, Pine Point, Prouts Neck, and Scarborough Marsh belong to neighboring Scarborough's own neighborhoods page, not to Cape Elizabeth. Population, land/water area, incorporation date, education rate, and homeownership rate are per the U.S. Census Bureau and Wikipedia's "Cape Elizabeth, Maine" entry; the 2025 Cumberland, Maine income comparison is per Portland Press Herald reporting. Current status of the Kettle Cove boat-launch relocation project was last documented at a 2021 public meeting and has not been independently reconfirmed for 2026. Nothing on this page is real estate, legal, or financial advice; confirm current park access, business hours, and any landmark-specific details directly with the Town of Cape Elizabeth before making a purchase decision.