Alcoholic Bart Hunter (Arthur Kennedy), his long-suffering wife Sylvia (Dorothy McGuire), and their teenaged son Johnny (Troy Donahue) operate a crumbling inn on Pine Island off the Maine coast. The inn was previously Bart's elegant family mansion in an exclusive resort, but as his family fortunes have dwindled, the Hunters are forced to rent rooms to paying guests. Bart receives a reservation request from an old acquaintance, Ken Jorgenson (Egan), who was a lowly lifeguard on the island 20 years ago, but is now a successful research chemist and millionaire. Ken wants to bring his wife and daughter to the island for the summer. Bart suggests that Ken is just coming to lord his new wealth over Bart, who is no longer rich. Bart wants to refuse the reservation, but Sylvia insists that he accept because they badly need the money, even going so far as to move themselves into the small guest house so their own master bedroom suite can be rented to Ken and his family.