Baddeck had a strong relationship with its most famous resident, Alexander Graham Bell.
In 1885 the Bell family had a vacation in Baddeck. Returning in 1886, Bell started building an estate on a point across from Baddeck, overlooking Bras d'Or Lake.
By 1889, a large house, christened The Lodge was completed and two years later, a larger complex of buildings, including a new laboratory, were begun that the Bells would name Beinn Bhreagh (Gaelic: beautiful mountain) after Bell's ancestral Scottish highlands.
Bell would spend his final, and some of his most productive, years in residence in both Washington, D.C., where he and his family initially resided for most of the year, and at Beinn Bhreagh.

Until the end of his life, Bell and his family would alternate between the two homes, but Beinn Bhreagh would, over the next 30 years, become more than a summer home as Bell became so absorbed in his experiments that his annual stays lengthened.
Both Mabel and Alec became immersed in the Baddeck community and were accepted by the villagers as "their own"

On 23 February 1909, Bell's AEA Silver Dart was the first airplane to take flight in the British Empire, taking off from the frozen Baddeck Bay piloted by John Alexander Douglas McCurdy. This flight was recreated with replicas of the Silver Dart for both the 50th and 100th anniversaries of the flight.

Bell's estate also included the Bell Boatyard which made both experimental and traditional boats.
Notable examples included the pioneering hydrofoil HD-4 and the yacht Elsie.
The boatyard employed up to 40 people at its peak and was notable in employing many women in World War One when it made lifeboats for the Royal Canadian Navy.

Bell died at his Beinn Bhreagh estate on 2 August 1922.
Bell's coffin was constructed of pine from the estate by his laboratory staff and lined with the same red silk fabric used in his tetrahedral kite experiments; he was buried atop the mountain at Beinn Bhreagh.

Today, Bell's work is commemorated with the Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site in Baddeck, which houses a museum showcasing his work.