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KBIA has learned a thing or two about winter storms and playgrounds. 

It was unusually strong back-to-back storms that devastated the equipment at Mother’s Beach in January 2024, so each and every element in the new KBIA playground is intentional.

”It’s great to see and hear it being used again! The favorite so far? Kids love going to the top of the lighthouse,” said Mimi Fox, executive director of KBIA and a mother of two young girls who were sounding boards for many decisions there. “I love the look of it.”

Kennebunk Beach Improvement Association at Mother’s Beach cut the ribbon July 2, 2025, on its new community playground for all ages there, complete with a lighthouse, a lobster shack playhouse, a lobster boat, a rope walk, monkey bar rings, a climbing tower with slides, and a swing set. The $450,000 price tag was funded through private donors, with a $100,000 grant from the Maine Department of Economic and Community Development specifically for the environmental resiliency work following the January 2024 storms that hit Maine in general, and KBIA in particular.

Much of that cost paid for extensive engineering and structural work underneath the sand that holds the landmark wooden structures. For example, large stones are encased and attached to the sea wall there to reduce the velocity of the waves crashing there, which then reduces the impact of waves and water on the equipment. Instead of simply having individual cemented footings on each support structure buried like a traditional structure, the footings are set six feet under the sand — far deeper than before — to hold each piece in place. The lobster shack and the slide and climb tower are built on sand sleds to move as one unit in case of waves, and they can be removed, if needed. The lighthouse is built like any permanent lighthouse, to withstand an onslaught of water and waves.

“Two pieces are built on sand sleds, so if the water rocks the foundation there, it will move as one piece,” said Fox. “They learned from the last storm that pieces with individual foundations on each leg each experience more torsion and rock more in the turbulent water, destroying the equipment much faster.”

”There are fewer structures there now, with more space in between them, and that was intentional,” said Fox, who grew up in Kennebunk playing on previous iterations of the playgrounds there through the years. “I love the aspect of creative play, which is an important element for kids in a beach environment.”

Getting the new playground to this point was a team effort, Fox is quick to point out. Led by board members Natasha Lawler, Matt Ward and Mark Riley, the environmental resiliency work was designed by Walsh Engineering of Westbrook, resiliency efforts were excavated and implemented by George Burr and Son of Kennebunk, the playground structures were designed and installed by Environment Design LLC of Connecticut, and overseen by Andrew and Patrick Rimmer of Rimmer Construction.

“The KBIA board was pretty adamant we put something back there, with intention. But we had to mitigate the potential instability and long-term risk from future storms. We looked at the whole large-scale project,” said Fox. 

Building the foundation this spring was necessary before we could put any structures there,” said Fox. 

The dunes close off two walking points from the beach. “With a path there, during storms the receding water would pull the topsoil and sand from there. The new concrete curbs close off the playground.”

This new playground is built to withstand a damaging storm, but not a catastrophic storm. The previous playground was installed in 2013; typical lifespan of a commercial playground is 10-20 years, and a playground like KBIA’s near the salt and winds by the ocean is typically only 10 years.

“The structures are made from sustainable wood and that aligned with the general style around KBIA as well as our ability to maintain the structures with our contractors and staff,” said Fox, noting in the past few years she had been having problems finding replacement parts for the blue and tan plastic structures from the previous playground.

Along with the new playground, KBIA has replaced its docks with metal planking, while raising the pilings as part of a $2.3 million capital campaign “KBIA 120: Keeping the Legacy Alive.” They also replaced and raised the crow’s nest part of the docks that washed out to sea last year, and made the walkway to the crow’s nest removable as well. A new “Tiger Dam” tubing system around the campus last winter also helped keep water and sand away from Smith House and the pool; in the 2024 storm there was over four feet of sand in the pool and two feet of sand in Smith House. Redesigning Smith House to ward against flooding dangers is the next project for the KBIA 120: Keeping the Legacy Alive campaign.

While no one can guarantee the future of the structures there, we are confident they are built with the greatest minds and engineering available.