This website, begun in 2009, is being phased out. All articles arranged alphabetically before the Cape Cod National Seashore (including every building on Bradford Street) have been deleted. They can be found on the new Provincetown Encyclopedia. Articles up to 189 Commercial Street can still be found on Building Provincetown 2020. Later articles remain on the Building Provincetown site for the time being.
CCNS Race Point | Life-Saving Station Museum
The Old Harbor Life-Saving Station was built in Chatham in 1897, based on the handsome “Duluth” prototype designed by George R. Tolman, examples of which proliferated along the Atlantic coast and Lake Superior. More pictures and history»
Cape Cod National Seashore | Race Point
Old Harbor Museum
Old Harbor Life-Saving Station Museum, by David W. Dunlap (2009).
Old Harbor station being transported to Provincetown, by Josephine Del Deo (1977), courtesy of the Provinceton Public Library.
The Old Harbor Life-Saving Station was built in Chatham in 1897, based on the Duluth-style prototype of 1893 by George Tolman. It was decommissioned in 1944. The Park Service bought it in 1973 and moved the building down cape, by barge, in 1977. (Paradoxically, the Duluth-style Wood End station was razed in the 1960s.) In Seashore Sentinel, Richard Ryder told of an old salt who said, as he watched the spectacle, “I’ve cruised by a lot of Coast Guard stations during my lifetime, but this is the first time I’ve ever seen a Coast Guard station cruise by me.” An extensive renovation began in 2008. Old Harbor is now a museum where the staff demonstrates the breeches buoy, a gun-launched lifeline used to pluck sailors off foundering vessels when it was too rough even for the surfboats.
More than 2,000 buildings and vessels are searchable on buildingprovincetown.com. The Building Provincetown book is available for purchase ($20) at Town Hall, Office of the Town Clerk, 260 Commercial Street, Provincetown 02657.
CCNS Race Point | Bath House
The hexagonal Race Point Beach Bath House of 1963 looks like a smaller cousin of the Province Lands Visitor Center — not surprisingly, since the architect F. Clifford Pearce Jr. worked on both.
CCNS Race Point | First Race Point Station
Integral with the lighthouse was the Race Point Life-Saving Station, built in 1872. The main boat building looked very much like that at Peaked Hill Bars. More pictures and history»
CCNS Race Point | Second Race Point Station
The Coast Guard built its own Station Race Point from 1930 to 1931 on the site of the old Life-Saving Station, reusing a number of out buildings. The imposing three-and-a-half story main building has a hipped roof and a neo-Classical portico. More pictures and history»
Cape Cod National Seashore | Race Point
Race Point Station
Race Point Station, by David W. Dunlap (2009).
The Race Point Life-Saving Station was built in 1872. What is now the Oversand Station was built in 1888 as a stable. The nearby garage served as a barn. Capt. Samuel Fisher, the keeper from 1888 to 1915, helplessly heard the last signal of the Portland in the 1898 gale, before she sank with 192 aboard. In 1922, two years into Prohibition, the schooner Annie L. Spindler, out of Nova Scotia, ran aground with a cargo of Haig & Haig whiskey. It took no time for word to reach town, even before her captain could ask the station to put the hooch in protective custody. The Coast Guard added a main building with a hipped roof and neo-Classical portico in the early ’30s. The watch tower, designed by Julian Latham, looked like a dune shack on 25-foot-high stilts. After the Coast Guard moved into town in 1979, the station was taken over by the National Park Service. It is used today by the Rangers.
Race Point Station, by David W. Dunlap (2009).
More than 2,000 buildings and vessels are searchable on buildingprovincetown.com. The Building Provincetown book is available for purchase ($20) at Town Hall, Office of the Town Clerk, 260 Commercial Street, Provincetown 02657.
CCNS Race Point | First Race Point Light
The sight of it can indeed make the pulse or heart race. But the “race” in Race Point refers to the strong currents around the small peninsula on which first lighthouse was built in 1816. The Race Point Light Station was originally a 20-foot rubblestone tower with a revolving light. Joshua Dyer was the first keeper.
CCNS Race Point | Second Race Point Light
The lighthouse that stands today, flashing white every 10 seconds, was built in 1876. It is a 40-foot-high cylindrical tower of cast iron and brick. More pictures and history»
Cape Cod National Seashore | Race Point
Race Point Light
Race Point Light, by David W. Dunlap (2010).
“Race” refers to the strong currents around the peninsula on which the first lighthouse was built in 1816. The lighthouse that stands today, flashing white every 10 seconds, was built in 1876. It is a 40-foot-high cylindrical tower of cast iron and brick. The complex around it includes the keeper’s house of 1874-76, the fog signal building of 1888 (originally a whistle, but converted in 1962 to a horn), and the oil house. Before electrification in 1957, the lamp burned kerosene oil. It was automated in 1972. The Cape Cod Chapter of the American Lighthouse Foundation leased the station in 1995. Volunteers under Jim Walker began a restoration project in 1996 that has rejuvenated the landmark. Solar panels were installed in 2003 and a wind turbine was added in 2007. The keeper’s house was opened to paying guests in 1997, yielding needed revenue. The whistle house, too, has been opened to guests.
More than 2,000 buildings and vessels are searchable on buildingprovincetown.com. The Building Provincetown book is available for purchase ($20) at Town Hall, Office of the Town Clerk, 260 Commercial Street, Provincetown 02657.
Cape Cod National Seashore | Race Point
Race Point settlement
Race Point, by R. Smith (1900), courtesy of the Provincetown History Preservation Project.
Race Point on “A Map of the Extremity of Cape Cod “(1835), courtesy of John Dowd.
A fishing community developed on the bay side of Race Point; small but substantial enough to warrant its own school district in 1835, by which time Race Point had a dozen or more fishermen’s and pilots’ huts, as well as the salt works of Elisha Dyer and Nathaniel Covill. It was, however, separated from the Cape Cod mainland by Hatches Harbor and the long Race Run, a body of water that made the point hard to reach until the construction of a bridge in 1839. At least one Race Point cottage, Wild Goose, seems to have survived in town, at 14 Schueler Boulevard. There must surely be others.
More than 2,000 buildings and vessels are searchable on buildingprovincetown.com. The Building Provincetown book is available for purchase ($20) at Town Hall, Office of the Town Clerk, 260 Commercial Street, Provincetown 02657.
CCNS Race Point | Settlement
A fishing community developed on the bay side of Race Point; small but substantial enough to warrant its own school district in 1835, by which time Race Point had a dozen or more fishermen’s and pilots’ huts, as well as the salt works of Elisha Dyer and Nathaniel Covill. More history»
CCNS Wood End | House Point Island
CCNS Wood End | Measured Mile
Maritime trials continued for decades off Provincetown, which — ideally for such purposes — offered deep seas close to shore. A measured mile course ran from Wood End to Long Point: three pairs of “target” towers which, when visually aligned, offered navigators a fix on the beginning, middle and end of a nautical mile. More pictures and history»
Cape Cod National Seashore | Wood End
U.S.S. S-4 crash site
Torpedo room of the U.S.S. S-4 (1919), courtesy of the U.S. Naval Historical Center.
Thirty-four sailors, four officers, and two visitors were aboard the U.S.S. S-4 submarine for a trial run on 17 December 1927, when it was hit by the U.S.C.G. Paulding off Wood End. The sub sank more than 100 feet. A day later, a Navy diver pounded out Morse code on the hull: How many survivors? “There are six; please hurry.” Gale-force winds hindered the rescue. The Navy rebuffed assistance from local fishermen. “Please send us oxygen, food and water,” said a coded message on the 19th. The Navy could not. The rescue was abandoned on the 22nd. “There is a special terror in the memory of those men waiting, tapping their patient messages, and dying,” Mary Heaton Vorse wrote. “Everyone in Provincetown had a feeling that it was their individual task to save these men and no one could do anything.”
More than 2,000 buildings and vessels are searchable on buildingprovincetown.com. The Building Provincetown book is available for purchase ($20) at Town Hall, Office of the Town Clerk, 260 Commercial Street, Provincetown 02657.
CCNS Wood End | S-4 Crash Site
On 17 December 1927, 34 sailors, four officers and two visitors were aboard the U.S.S. S-4, which was on a trial run when it surfaced unexpectedly in the path of the oncoming destroyer, U.S.C.G. Paulding, on rum-running patrol. The sub quickly sank more than 100 feet, unable to surface on its own. More pictures and history»
CCNS Wood End | West End Breakwater
The approach to Wood End is simply unrivaled. With the scale and majesty of a natural feature, the mile-and-a-quarter-long West End Breakwater — more properly called a dike — easily qualifies as the most imposing architecture in town. More pictures and history»
Cape Cod National Seashore | Wood End
West End Breakwater
West End Breakwater, by David W. Dunlap (2008).
With the scale and majesty of a natural feature, the mile-and-a-quarter-long West End Breakwater — more properly called a dike — easily qualifies as the most imposing structure in town. A walk across is a bracing journey, for the sure-footed. The granite boulders stretch out like a highway to the sea. Look closely and you can see blasting holes bored into the rock. You’ll find plenty of shell remnants from seagull meals. If you’re lucky, a cormorant may alight. In the distance is a splendid panorama of town. Below are jade green pools, especially at high tide, deep enough to dive into. If you listen closely, you can hear the water singing in the rocks. And all of it is utilitarian, to prevent a permanent breach that would isolate Long Point and fill the western end of the harbor with sand. The Navy’s interest in protecting this deep-water harbor of refuge prompted the construction of a timber dike in 1871-72 to block the flow of sand from Lancy’s Harbor (present-day Herring Cove). By the 1880s, engineers envisioned a dike from Stevens Point to House Point Island, and from there to Wood End; enclosing the whole tidal marsh. Construction ran from 1910 to 1915. The 1,200 granite blocks were quarried in Quincy, Mass., and brought by scow. More than 30,000 tons of stone were deposited annually. The first bend in the dike marks the location of the long-vanished House Point Island.
It is now thought that the structure may have done as much harm as good, by restricting the ebb and flow of the salt marsh, a vital breeding ground for fish. Questions have even been raised as to how well it protects the beaches. So the next major repair may involve putting holes into the dike.
More than 2,000 buildings and vessels are searchable on buildingprovincetown.com. The Building Provincetown book is available for purchase ($20) at Town Hall, Office of the Town Clerk, 260 Commercial Street, Provincetown 02657.
Cape Cod National Seashore | Wood End
Wood End Station
Wood End Life-Saving Station, from “The Life Savers of Cape Cod” (1902).
Almost dead ahead from the West End Breakwater once stood the Wood End Life-Saving Station. This Duluth-style structure (a prototype designed by George Tolman), built in 1896, was similar to the Old Harbor station that’s now at Race Point. Perhaps the best known commander was Capt. George Bickers, who joined the Life-Saving Service at 33 after a career of coasting and whaling. In The Life Savers of Cape Cod, Bickers was credited with having saved many mariners’ lives in wrecks off Wood End. After his time, Wood End was witness to an awfully protracted maritime disaster: the sinking of the submarine U.S.S. S-4 in 1927. The station was demolished in the 1960s.
More than 2,000 buildings and vessels are searchable on buildingprovincetown.com. The Building Provincetown book is available for purchase ($20) at Town Hall, Office of the Town Clerk, 260 Commercial Street, Provincetown 02657.
† CCNS Wood End | Wood End Station
Almost dead ahead from the breakwater once stood the Wood End Life-Saving Station of 1896. This “Duluth”-style structure was similar to the Old Harbor station from Chatham that’s now at Race Point. Perhaps the best known commander at Wood End was Capt. George H. Bickers (b 1858), who joined the Life-Saving Service at 33 after a career of coasting and whaling. In The Life Savers of Cape Cod, Bickers was credited with having ensured that numerous wrecks off Wood End occurred without fatalities. (Bickers is pictured here in a painting by Alice C. Bevin.) After his time, Wood End was witness to the most awfully protracted maritime disaster off Provincetown in the 20th century: the sinking of the submarine U.S.S. S-4 on Dec. 17, 1927. The station was demolished by the federal government in 1961.
CCNS Wood End | Wood End Light
The breakwater offers lovely views of the Wood End Light Station on a seemingly endless horizon, with marsh grass and tidal ponds in the foreground. This stout, squared, 39-foot-tall lighthouse was constructed in 1872. More pictures and history»
Cape Cod National Seashore | Wood End
Wood End Light
Wood End Light, by David W. Dunlap (2008).
Wood End Light emerges from a seemingly endless horizon, with marsh grass and tidal ponds in the foreground. This stout, squared, 39-foot-tall lighthouse was constructed in 1872. It looks like Long Point Light and, like Long Point, it’s under the care of the American Lighthouse Foundation. But where Long Point flashes green, Wood End flashes red, every 10 seconds. Its fog horn is especially chatty. The keeper’s house was torn down after the light was automated in 1961, but an oil house remains. Among the naval officers who have seen duty in the submarine proving grounds off Wood End was a future president, Lieut. Jimmy Carter, aboard the U.S.S. K-1, in 1951.
More than 2,000 buildings and vessels are searchable on buildingprovincetown.com. The Building Provincetown book is available for purchase ($20) at Town Hall, Office of the Town Clerk, 260 Commercial Street, Provincetown 02657.
7 Captain Bertie’s Way
7 Captain Bertie’s Way, Winslow Street Water Tanks, by David W. Dunlap (2008).
That elephant in the living room that nobody talks about? It is Winslow Street Water Tank No. 2, the tallest thing in Provincetown, apart from the Monument. It plays a critical role in the town’s well-being, as a reservoir and gravity pump for the water system, providing the pressure needed to move water through the system. It keeps the skyline looking functional, rather than too quaintly picturesque. It’s also a reminder how precious water is, even when it surrounds a community. The first standpipe on this site stood until 1932. The second (later designated No. 1) was built in 1931 and demolished in 2011. It was 115 feet tall and held 1.1 million gallons. In the photo, it’s in the foreground. It was designed by Whitman & Howard of Boston, which also designed the 108-foot remaining tower (No. 2), built in 1977-1978 with a capacity of 3.8 million gallons.
More than 2,000 buildings and vessels are searchable on buildingprovincetown.com. The Building Provincetown book is available for purchase ($20) at Town Hall, Office of the Town Clerk, 260 Commercial Street, Provincetown 02657.
7 Captain Bertie’s Way
Winslow Street Water Tanks
[Update: The 80-year-old tower No. 1 was dismantled in the summer of 2011.]
That 2,000-pound elephant in the middle of the living room that nobody talks about? There are two of them in Provincetown and they are called the Winslow Street Water Tanks, No. 1 and No. 2. Apart from the Pilgrim Monument itself, the tanks are the most prominent feature of the town’s skyline, but we always seem to elide over them, as if by ignoring their great bulk, we could wish them away. Of course, they play a critical role in the town’s well-being. And you could also argue that their presence keeps the town’s visible profile — appealingly and appropriately — on the side of the functional, rather than the quaintly picturesque. They also serve as a reminder how precious water is, even when it surrounds a community. More pictures and history»
24 Captain Bertie’s Way
Lookout Bay Condominiums
Prominently situated, the 20-unit Lookout Bay condo complex of 2000-02 occupies a portion of the old Provincetown Golf Range property. Though the units evidently enjoy good views — as these roof deck pictures show — there is little about the exterior design of the buildings and the awkward site plan to recommend Lookout Bay from a civic or aesthetic standpoint. To their credit, as part of the approval process, the developers set aside five two-bedroom duplex condos as affordable housing. More pictures and history»
45-55 Captain Bertie’s Way
45-55 Captain Bertie’s Way, display of William Boogar plaques, by David W. Dunlap (2010).
Paul Mendes, by David W. Dunlap (2010).
If Provincetown has a maritime museum, it’s spread across the yards of these abutting homes, owned by Paul Mendes and Victoria (Andrews) Mendes, where a collection of memorabilia is on display. Paul served in Vietnam as a Marine and was a Provincetown police officer for 30 years. Since 1995, he has cleaned out houses, basements, attics, and yards, preparing properties for disposition. Victoria’s father, Joseph Andrews, is one of the town’s leading boatwrights. With that heritage, and an interest in town history, Mendes has collected anchors and chains, mooring buoys, bollards, cannons, ship’s wheels, portholes, lobster traps, and at least one yard arm. He also found a pair of bronze plaques by William Boogar Jr. for an enclosure around the Pilgrims’ landing marker. They are no longer on display. He donated them in 2010 to the Pilgrim Monument and Provincetown Museum.
45-55 Captain Bertie’s Way, by David W. Dunlap (2010).
More than 2,000 buildings and vessels are searchable on buildingprovincetown.com. The Building Provincetown book is available for purchase ($20) at Town Hall, Office of the Town Clerk, 260 Commercial Street, Provincetown 02657.
45-55 Captain Bertie’s Way
If Provincetown has a maritime museum, it’s probably spread across the front yards of these abutting homes, owned by Paul C. Mendes and Victoria (Andrews) Mendes, where a remarkable collection of maritime and historical memorabilia is on permanent display. Paul Mendes’s mother, Leona L. (Corea) Mendes, lived at No. 45 until her death in 2009. She and her husband, John Deus Mendes, operated the Long Point View Guesthouse at 6 Johnson Street for an astonishing 55 years, from 1946 to 2001. After it closed, Leona Mendes moved here, where she lived with her brother, John C. Corea, the former commander of Station Wood End and Station Race Point, and the town assessor for 18 years. More pictures and history»
3 Carnes Lane
The writer and politically active stand-up comic Kate Clinton (b 1947), whose audiences are nationwide but who can be found each summer at the Crown & Anchor, owns a building on Carnes Lane that used to be the shed for No. 3. Her partner, Urvashi Vaid (b 1958), is a longtime human rights activist and a former foundation executive. “In newer neighborhoods,” Clinton wrote in Don’t Get Me Started (1998), “roads cut into fragile sand dunes are named Pilgrim Heights, Standish Way and We Were Here First Lane. We, in the old Portuguese section, call ourselves Linguiça Gardens, and unlike other transient, rental sections of town, we are here to stay.” More history»
7 Carnes Lane
Quiet Carnes Lane is home to the indomitable, inimitable, irrepressible Jay Critchley (b 1947), an artist, political activist, civic advocate and all-around sui generic figure; one of those people whom you almost cannot imagine thriving anywhere else. His works have included imaginatively stinging rebukes to the gentrification and commodification of the town; and his anger is evident that A-list arrivistes seem so eager to turn their backs on any references to the town’s transgressive past. But Critchley is no cynical bomb-tosser. His devotion to Provincetown is especially evident in the event with which he’s now most closely associated: the annual Provincetown Harbor Swim for Life & Paddler Flotilla, which has raised over two million dollars for local AIDS services, women’s health providers and youth organizations. More pictures and history»
7 Carnes Lane
7 Carnes Lane, Jay Critchley’s “Just Visiting for the Weekend,” by David W. Dunlap (2009).
Jay Critchley, by David W. Dunlap (2009).
Quiet Carnes Lane is home to the indomitable, inimitable, irrepressible Jay Critchley — artist, political activist, civic advocate, and all-around sui generic figure. His works have included imaginatively stinging rebukes to gentrification and commodification. His devotion to Provincetown is evident in the annual Harbor Swim for Life & Paddler Flotilla benefit, which has raised over $3 million for health and social services since 1988. He bought this property in 1978. In 1997, he turned an old cesspool in the yard into the Septic Summer Rental, complete with a bed, nightstand, and TV, as a commentary on the living conditions facing artists and old-time residents as real estate values escalated. The yard also includes one of his best-known works: the sand-encrusted station wagon (bottom) that he parked in the MacMillan Wharf lot and titled Just Visiting for the Weekend.
7 Carnes Lane, looking straight up from the cesspool, by David W. Dunlap (2009).
More than 2,000 buildings and vessels are searchable on buildingprovincetown.com. The Building Provincetown book is available for purchase ($20) at Town Hall, Office of the Town Clerk, 260 Commercial Street, Provincetown 02657.
3 Carver Court
3 Carver Court, from the Assessor’s Office (2013).
Carver Court, a little midblock passage formerly known as Court Place, is very close to the Gifford House. In fact, the Gifford family was connected with this property until 1913, when it was acquired by Margaret J. Ramos, who owned it until 1929. She and her husband sold the house that year to Betty Lockett Spencer, the wife of the prominent precisionist painter Niles Spencer (1893-1952). To my eyes, anyway, Spencer’s enormously appealing work combines Stuart Davis’s joyful cubism with Charles Sheeler’s sharp focus on industrial landscapes. His rendition of the Unitarian-Universalist Meeting House is an enduringly fresh take on that beautiful — but clichéd — icon. Even more delightful a surprise is Spencer’s take on the scrolled bracket over a doorway. Both Universalist Church, Provincetown and Provincetown Corner are in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Spencer had a studio in the former shirt factory at 26 Court Street, but he was using this house in the 1930s and perhaps until the early ’40s, when he and Betty were divorced. His death merited an obituary in The New York Times.
By 1946, Betty’s new husband, Ernest L. Perry, a native of São Miguel in the Azores, had set up his public accountancy practice at 3 Carver Court, offering bookkeeping, auditing, and income tax preparation; as well as help with Social Security, withholding and unemployment claims. He died six months after Spencer, in November 1952. His business telephone number, 31, was perpetuated as her home phone number, 487-0031, after Provincetown switched to automated dialing.
In 1982, following Betty Perry’s death, the property passed to the couple’s two daughters, Doris and Muriel, and their husbands, Ralph J. Westnedge and Charles Veloza. Veloza’s estate sold 3 Carver Street in 2013 to Scott Watters and Richard D. Porreca, a residential and commercial construction project manager and an illustrator whose pen-and-ink line drawings of Provincetown architecture can seen on the Facebook page, Inked Well Illustrations.
Porreca told me in 2015 that he and Watters had found pieces of Spencer’s artwork in the attic of the home and, during a renovation, evidence that the house had been constructed on a foundation of ship’s masts.
3 Carver Court | Images
3 Carver Court | Documents
3 Carver Street
The best vantage from which to appreciate 3 Carver Street is outside the old aquarium. It rises on a small bluff over the jumbled business street, looking like a great white Greek Revival ghost, understated but imposing. For much of the early 20th century, this was the home of Frank Knowles Atkins, a Provincetown native whose grandfather, Samuel Knowles, ran the stage coach service to Orleans. More pictures and history»
3 Carver Street
3 Carver Street, by David W. Dunlap (2008).
The best vantage from which to appreciate 3 Carver is outside the old aquarium. The house rises on a small bluff over Commercial Street, looking like a great Greek Revival ghost, understated but imposing. This was once home to Frank Knowles Atkins, whose grandfather Samuel Knowles ran the stage coach to Orleans. Atkins was bequeathed his grandfather’s livery business, at what is now 293 Commercial, where he built the Pilgrim Theater. He was also credited with having started the first motorized “accommodation” service; an omnibus that made its way up along and down along through town, picking up and discharging passengers. In the 1940s, No. 3 was run as Grays guest house. It was acquired in 1967 by Barbara Baker and her husband, Robert Baker, who designed and built furniture that he displayed in a shop at Kiley Court.
More than 2,000 buildings and vessels are searchable on buildingprovincetown.com. The Building Provincetown book is available for purchase ($20) at Town Hall, Office of the Town Clerk, 260 Commercial Street, Provincetown 02657.
4 Carver Street
6 Carver Street
Undulating balusters on the front porch of 6 Carver Street set off this well-maintained Italianate house from the 1850s, the longtime home of the Costas. Warren E. Costa is an honorary trustee of the Seamen’s Bank. Warren Costa is an assistant harbormaster. More pictures»
8 Carver Street
Brass Key Guesthouse
The Queen Anne House, a unit of the Brass Key Guesthouse compound, is a wondrously eclectic confection of many gables, Carpenter Gothic detailing and gorgeous Ionic columns. As transient lodging, the house has returned to its role in the 19th century, when it was the Cottage Inn, a boarding house run by Caleb Cook. It is also strongly associated with both the nearby Gifford House and the old First National Bank of Provincetown. That connection was first embodied in the person of Moses Nickerson Gifford, whose home this was until his death in 1918. Gifford was the son of James Gifford, namesake of the hotel up the street. He went into the banking business, beginning in 1866 as a cashier at the national bank. Twenty-two years later, in 1888, Gifford assumed the presidency of the bank, which he held for three full decades. But that alone greatly understates his civic role. More history and pictures»
8 Carver Street
See 67 Bradford Street.
9-11 Carver Street
Gifford House Inn
In a resort town where accommodations come and go by the year — and by the dozens — the Gifford House Inn is an astonishing stalwart. It is more than 140 years old. With 77 Bradford Street, it occupies the crest of Mill Hill, from which surprisingly generous vistas of the town and harbor can be enjoyed. Beautiful, it is not. Grand, it is not. But with 26 guest rooms and the Club Purgatory, Porchside Lounge and Thai Sushi Café by Ying, it’s certainly lively. And that’s saying a lot for a hotel of its age — whatever that age may be. More pictures and history»
9-11 Carver Street
9-11 Carver Street, the Gifford House, courtesy of the Pilgrim Monument and Provincetown Museum.
9-11 Carver Street, the Gifford House, by G. H. Nickerson (ca 1898), courtesy of the Provincetown History Preservation Project.
The Gifford House Inn is an astonishing stalwart — at least 145 years old — and a hub of gay life, in Club Purgatory and at the Porchside Lounge. Commanding the crest of Mill Hill, and generous vistas of town and harbor, it may have been open as early as 1858 and was surely running by 1870. The oldest section is the wing behind the parking court, with its deep porch and Greek Revival-style pilasters. James Gifford owned his namesake hotel until 1903. George Merrill and his son Daniel Merrill ran it for the next 60 years, adding the big wing along Bradford in 1910. They sold it in 1963 to a group including Francis and Ruth Rogers, of the Norse Wall House.
9-11 Carver Street, the Porchside Lounge, by David Jarrett (1989).
The Gifford’s cultural apogee was in the late ’60s, when the Act IV Café Experimental Theater operated in the cellar (where Club Purgatory is now), under Robert Costa, Doug Ross, and Eric Krebs. Its 1966 production of Dutchman by Amiri Baraka (then known as LeRoi Jones) starred Beverly Bentley, who was married to Norman Mailer, and Charles Gordone, an actor and playwright who won a Pulitzer for No Place to be Somebody. Next year, the 27-year-old Al Pacino appeared in The Indian Wants the Bronx. Jean Frottier, who perished at sea in 2012, owned the hotel from 1976 to 1988. The Gifford’s current proprietor, James Foss, also owns the Watership Inn. Its Thai Sushi Café closed not long ago.
More than 2,000 buildings and vessels are searchable on buildingprovincetown.com. The Building Provincetown book is available for purchase ($20) at Town Hall, Office of the Town Clerk, 260 Commercial Street, Provincetown 02657.
10 Carver Street
See 67 Bradford Street.
10 Carver Street
Brass Key Guesthouse
As part of the Brass Key Guesthouse compound, 10 Carver Street is designated the Victorian House. But it could just as well be called the “Second Empire House,” since that’s the style in which it was built, probably around 1865. At the turn of the 20th century, it was the home of H. P. Hughes, who operated a staple and fancy dry goods store under his own name on the ground floor of King Hiram’s Lodge. For many years, this house or the abutter at 12 Carver Street were home to William Henry Young and his family. Like his next-door neighbor, Moses N. Gifford, Young was a man whose presence was felt in many fields; so many, in fact, it’s hard to know where to start. More pictures and history»
12 Carver Street
See 67 Bradford Street.
12 Carver Street
Brass Key Guesthouse
Now designated the Gatehouse as part of the large and eclectic Brass Key Guesthouse compound, 12 Carver Street was built in the 1850s. William H. Young and his family lived here and next door, 10 Carver Street, where their lives are discussed more fully. The Rev. James F. Albion of the Universalist church lived here in the late 1920s. In the 1930s, Mrs. Fred H. Graham [?] held weekly duplicate bridge contests here, the results of which she would chronicle for The Advocate in a column called “Tops and Bottoms.” (This seems the perfect point on which not to comment.) More pictures and history»
4 Cemetery Road
24 Cemetery Road
Town Cemetery
Not to be morbid about it, but the dead easily outnumber the living in Provincetown. That’s all right, though. They’re a very interesting lot — some of the town’s most prominent citizens, in fact — and well worth visiting. Apart from the old Winthrop Street burial ground, the town’s cemeteries are contiguous, so it’s easy to walk among them without being conscious of boundaries. The largest, with the official street address of 24 Cemetery Road, has been known variously as Town Cemetery, Old Cemetery (to distinguish it from the burial grounds on the east side of the road) or Cemetery No. 2 (to distinguish it from No. 1, at Winthrop Street). This big cemetery is further divided into old and new sections. The new section of the Old Cemetery is where you’ll find the greatest concentration of world-renowned luminaries, where Norman Mailer and Robert Motherwell are neighbors — just as they were in life. It’s rather like the Forest Lawn of Provincetown. Below is a list, very partial (in both senses), of the most interesting graves, stones, memorials and mausoleums.
24 Cemetery Street
24 Cemetery Road, Town Cemetery, Robert Motherwell grave site, by David W. Dunlap (2010).
24 Cemetery Street, Town Cemetery, Nanno de Groot grave site, by David W. Dunlap (2008).
A tranquil way to visit some of the town’s most prominent citizens is to wander along Cemetery Road. The largest burial ground, at No. 24, has been known variously as Town Cemetery, Old Cemetery (to distinguish it from the burial ground on the east side of the road) or Cemetery No. 2 (to distinguish it from No. 1, at Winthrop Street). This cemetery is further divided into old and new sections. The new section is where you’ll find the greatest concentration of luminaries, where Norman Mailer and Robert Motherwell are neighbors — just as they were in life. It’s like the Forest Lawn of Provincetown.
24 Cemetery Road, Town Cemetery, Norman and Norris Church Mailer grave site, by David W. Dunlap (2010).
Rest in peace: ¶ Elise Asher, painter, and Stanley Kunitz, poet. ¶ Gwen Bloomingdale, aviator. ¶ Max Bohm, painter. ¶ Neith Boyce and Hutchins Hapgood, founders of the Provincetown Players. ¶ Nanno De Groot, painter, whose headstone is an abstract sculpture by his wife, the artist Pat De Groot. ¶ William Freed and Lillian Orlowsky, painters. ¶ John Gaspie, clam digger. ¶ Dorothy Lake Gregory and Ross Moffett, painters. ¶ Edwin Atkins Grozier, publisher. ¶ Rear Adm. Donald MacMillan and Miriam Look MacMillan, explorers. ¶ Norman Mailer, writer, and Norris Church Mailer, writer and painter. ¶ Irving Marantz, sculptor. ¶ Robert Motherwell, painter, whose headstone is a boulder with his signature cast on a bronze plate. ¶ James Wingate Parr, painter. ¶ Ilya and Resia Schor, artists. ¶ Avrom “Arlie” Sinaiko and Suzanne Sinaiko, artists. ¶ Kenneth Stubbs, painter. ¶ Dr. Clara Thompson, psychoanalyst. ¶ Jack Tworkov, painter. ¶ Mary Heaton Vorse, progressive activist and author of Time and the Town. ¶ Hudson Walker, art collector and patron, and Ione Gaul Walker, painter. ¶ John Whorf, painter, and his daughter, Nancy Whorf, painter. ¶ Donald Witherstine, artist and gallerist.
More than 2,000 buildings and vessels are searchable on buildingprovincetown.com. The Building Provincetown book is available for purchase ($20) at Town Hall, Office of the Town Clerk, 260 Commercial Street, Provincetown 02657.
25 Cemetery Road
New Cemetery
On the east side of Cemetery Road, opposite — and virtually indistinguishable from — Town Cemetery, there are two burial grounds that were once privately owned. They are now municipally run and sometimes referred to collectively as the New Cemetery. The former Hamilton Cemetery, toward the north end of the road, has only 92 lots. (And no Hamiltons). Much larger, the former Gifford Cemetery surrounds Hamilton like a fat L. It has 251 lots and at least 27 Giffords, including the namesake of the Gifford House. By far the most important monument in either commemorates Provincetown’s fallen in the Civil War. More pictures and history»
25 Cemetery Road
25 Cemetery Road, Gifford Cemetery, memorial to the Great Rebellion, by David W. Dunlap (2010).
Two burial grounds that were once privately owned are now municipally run and sometimes referred to collectively as the New Cemetery. The old Hamilton Cemetery has only 92 lots. The Gifford Cemetery, which surrounds Hamilton like a fat L, has 251 lots and at least 27 Giffords, including the namesake of the Gifford House, James Gifford. Its most important monument commemorates those who fell in the “Great Rebellion.” Three hundred men from hereabouts went to fight the Confederacy. Eighteen did not return. Their memorial obelisk depicts interlocking emblems: a square-rigged sail, an anchor, crossed swords, rifles, cannons and cannon balls. The names of the dead are inscribed, including Josiah Cutter Freeman, son of the keeper of Long Point Light, who was aboard the wooden sloop Cumberland in 1862 when it was sunk by the Confederate ironclad Virginia, a milestone in naval warfare.
More than 2,000 buildings and vessels are searchable on buildingprovincetown.com. The Building Provincetown book is available for purchase ($20) at Town Hall, Office of the Town Clerk, 260 Commercial Street, Provincetown 02657.
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