Helen G. Brown, 31 Pearl Street.
Social history was made in 1983 when Anthony Lema Jr. sold his parents’ house to Helen G. Caddie-Larcenia (then Helen G. Brown), co-owner of the Aspasia Guesthouse at 98 Bradford, which moved here. “I felt I could at least offer up to my sisters of color a little reprieve … away from their usual bombardment of racism, discrimination, being marginalized — if only for a weekend,” she said. Patrons included the writer and critic Barbara Smith. Caddie-Larcenia was among the original Women Innkeepers of Provincetown and believes she is the only woman of African ancestry to have owned and run a women’s guest house in town. “Very proud of that.” She sold it in 1990 to Nancy Ross and Jacqueline Sperry, longtime partners. In 2004, as they weighed legal marriage, they acknowledged to The Boston Globe that they’d already bought wedding rings for one another at Tiffany’s. In 1963.
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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