From Cigarette Butts to the Top of the Inn.

Stephen Coston's path to Innkeeper of the Year began in a motel basement, with a stack of CDs and a job many people outside the industry don’t think about. BAR HARBOR — Before Stephen Coston was named Innkeeper of the Year, before the 13 properties and the renovations and the business accolades, before the recognition that comes with building something that lasts, there were a whole lot of cigarette butts. He wasn’t smoking them. The cigarette butts were a staple when Coston was a kid working at the Villager Motel on Main Street. His first work assignment was picking up what guests had left behind and a lot of what they left behind were cigarette butts. After that came the work of folding towels, cleaning rooms, scrubbing the swimming pool and, for years, washing laundry in a basement. There was a boombox down there in the Villager’s basement and a stack of CDs. Coston spent much of the money he earned doing laundry buying more of those CDs. They were rap albums, almost exclusively.

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