Derelict, this 200-year-old Federal house is a three-dimensional lesson in construction technique, showing how broad vertical planks were used to enclose the house, with horizontal clapboarding on top to weatherproof the walls. At least three generations of the Gaspar family lived here: Antone Gaspar, a fisherman born in Fayal, Azores; his sons Manuel J. Gaspar and Joseph Gaspar; and Joseph’s son, Warren E. Gaspar. The house has been empty at least six years.
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Building Provincetown 
The house was sold to Joseph and Jane Notaro in October 1970 and sold to Victor DePaolo in August 2011. Through a special demolition permit, DePaolo razed the structure and built three condominiums, provided the building looked similar to the original structure.
Thank you very much for this update.
This house, in dreadful shape even in the mid-1970s, is a major loss to the architectural history of Provincetown, Massachusetts. The term “similar to the original structure” made me erupt in laughter. In this poster’s opinion, the “special permit” demolition of this irreplaceable house has “money passing from one hand to the next” all over it. What a crying shame.
I am the grandson of Joseph Gaspar, the last member of our family to own this house. I lived in this house with him and my grandmother, Elizabeth, during my high school years, graduating in 1969. He absolutely loved this house. It was in near-perfect condition when he sold it.
There was a trellis full of roses surrounding the front door. On the back of the house was an outdoor staircase leading up to a screened room that was my summer bedroom. The only “update” my grandfather ever did was a beautiful butterfly knotty-pine kitchen. It’s the room we spent most of our time in. My great uncle Manuel passed away sitting at the table.
An artist — I don’t know who — appreciated the architecture so much that he put it on canvas and gave it to my grandparents. It now hangs on my father’s wall in Texas. It will someday hang on my wall.
I love you, Grandpa and Grandma. I miss you so much.
Thank you for this poignant, evocative reminiscence. It adds so much to what can now, sadly, never be recovered.
I remember summers at this, my grandparents’, house. It was used as a boarding house before my time. We (my siblings and I) would spend summer vacations at 170 Bradford Street with our dad. It was a beautiful, well-kept house. I close my eyes and can picture the small garage in the back yard that held my uncle’s Vespa. I can smell the salt air. I can remember the holly bush in the back. And I can remember the care and love shown by my grandparents, Joe and Elizabeth. It broke my heart to see the shape the house had gotten to. So many memories there.
Thank you for this lovely reminiscence. It adds so much to what can now, sadly, never be recovered.
My heart breaks at reading the Gaspars’ accounts. It’s perfectly criminal that this house is no longer there. Let us all take a lesson in preservation from its destruction.
I spoke with my dad this weekend. My great-grandfather took possession of the house in 1896. The house had been floated across the bay on a log raft from Wellfleet. Dad didn’t know when it came across, but it was a schoolhouse at one point in time.
Steve Gaspar, thank you for those details. What a fascinating history this house had.