With a focus on good vibrations, a stay at The Beachside on Nantucket is a transformative experience for mind, body and soul.

When we think of the 1960s, we imagine or recall a decade of rapid change, of turbulence, and of youth culture built around music, self-expression, and protest. It was also the decade of the beach. In 1962, the Beach Boys set the tone and fashion for the surf scene with the debut of their first album and their blue plaid Pendleton shirts. But the beach, as a societal concept, reached its apex in 1965, when Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello starred in a low-budget, independent movie called Beach Blanket Bingo. It received mixed reactions, with the New York Times’ Howard Thompson opining, “We simply can’t believe, no matter what the reports say, that the teen-agers buy such junk.” Or maybe he and the other critics were just too serious for the madcap romp. The story involved a surfer gang, the kidnapping of a pop star, skydiving, and a character named Bonehead. It was a massive hit. Filmed in Pathécolor to maximize the sunsoaked dreamland, American International Pictures shed the flannel of the early sixties and focused on an ice cream palette of pastel swimsuits, mostly bikinis. It was bright, silly and fun, and it represented an escape from the big questions of the day.

It was in this context that Nantucket’s Beachside Motel reveled when it first opened in 1966. Its parking lot would fill with open-roofed Broncos, CJ7s, and Fiat Jollies, and sun-baked guests would roll back from hours in the sand and waves to swig Mai Tais and Navy Grogs. It offered a relaxed, laidback scene perfect for a “Surfin’ Safari.” Ironically, though The Beachside sits on North Beach...