Waterford's quiet coast drew artists as well as gardeners. In 1964 the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center opened here, named for the Nobel-laureate playwright who had grown up just down the shore in New London. Its summer playwriting workshops — the National Playwrights Conference — have launched a remarkable share of the American stage, and the O'Neill is now woven into the town's identity as deeply as its beaches. Nearby, the landmark buildings of Seaside State Park stand on their own green point, a striking piece of early-twentieth-century shoreline architecture preserved as open space.
Today Waterford keeps the balance it has always kept — a shoreline town that is half history, half easy coastal living. Its beaches and coves draw summer crowds: Waterford Beach Park, Jordan Cove, Alewife Cove, the marinas at Mago Point on the Niantic. Harkness and Seaside hold long stretches of the coast as open parkland, and the O'Neill keeps the lights on for new plays each summer. It is a town of villages and greens and granite walls, looking out across Long Island Sound, comfortable in its own quiet. Waterford has never needed to be loud to be itself.
Why People Visit Waterford
Visitors come to Waterford for an unspoiled stretch of the Connecticut coast: the gardens and mansion at Harkness, a famous playwriting center, granite-walled woods, and rocky beaches on Long Island Sound. It sits minutes from New London and the Mystic shoreline, with two state parks holding long reaches of open coast. Equal parts heritage and easy beach time, Waterford rewards anyone who likes the shore quiet and the history close at hand.
