Today much of the coasts of the United States are a mix of public and private beaches. The rich own strips of sand in front of their property while cities and towns purchase plots of land for the average everyday people to use.
The coastlines were not created as public or private. Many steps go into creating a public beach. Things like legal ownership, planning, regulations, zoning, and meetings are parts of what takes an area from an inconspicuous stretch of sand to a beach packed with people in summertime.
Though no two are exactly the same one example of land going from private to public resides on Cape Cod. At the mouth of Bass River, a waterway running in between the towns of Yarmouth and Dennis, there are popular beaches on both sides.
They both went from private to public. On the Dennis(east) side of Bass River sits Davis Beach. Known more commonly as West Dennis Beach this stretch of sand nearly a mile and a half in length was owned for decades by Charles Henry Davis. He had deep connections to Cape Cod including the creation of America’s first traffic circle at the meeting of River and Pleasant Streets in the Bass River section of South Yarmouth.
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| America's first traffic circle in South Yarmouth. |
Davis at one point it was said could walk from Nantucket Sound on the south coast of Cape Cod all the way to Cape Cod Bay on the north side and never leave the property he owned. This included all of what is today West Dennis Beach. The acquisition of this pristine set of sand was simple and straightforward. Davis sold the property to the Town of Dennis shortly before he died in 1951 for the cool sum of $50,000($589,900 in 2024).
West Dennis Beach has a story that is for all intents and purposes simple and clear-cut. Across Bass River in Yarmouth, the beach has a slightly more complex story. It includes bootlegging, giant resort hotels, and more transfers of ownership than one might expect.
Present-day Bass River Beach began as the property of Joseph P. Phelan. Born in Ireland in 1888 Phelan came to America and settled in Fall River, Massachusetts. He was a successful businessman making significant money with his popular Cape Cod Shirt Company that he established in 1926.
Phelan purchased a triangular-shaped plot of land on the western side of the mouth of Bass River in an area known as The Point from Edward Gleason in April 1926. There he had a summer home constructed. In total, it was ten rooms including five bedrooms along with a wooden pier that stretched out into the ocean. The family’s arrival at the beginning of the summer was headline news in the local newspapers. When they weren’t at the home it was rented out with those renters also making the local news.
The beach at The Point grew substantially in size when in the early 1950s efforts were made to dredge Bass River. The spoils were piled onto either side of the mouth of the river.
For a few years, the piles of dredged sediment sat there. They were used as picnic areas, or for kids to play on. Eventually, Yarmouth used their spoils to fill in the marshland abutting the Phelan property. This also served to fill in the creek leading from nearby Run Pond to Nantucket Sound which was a bone of contention with some locals. In total, the Phelan property was thirteen acres of waterfront land.
During the early 1950’s the Town of Yarmouth had begun buying up beachfront property to be designated for public use. This included buying present-day Sea Gull Beach in 1951 for $25,000($300,000 in 2024), as well as the far smaller Englewood Beach for $9,000($106,000 in 2024) in 1952. As the Phelan property was only in use for a few months of the year rumblings began locally about the town buying that as well.
Bass River looking south toward the former Phelan property
In 1958 Joseph Phelan offered to sell the coveted property to the town for $150,000($1.62 million in 2024). Despite there being support for a new public beach the offer was deemed too high and the town passed. Talks of taking the property by eminent domain were voted down at the time. This left Harwich Port real estate broker John J. Taylor to swoop in and buy the land in September 1959 from Phelan for a far more affordable price of $80,000($858,600 in 2024).
The Town of Yarmouth had balked at the high price of the Phelan property. However when confronted with Taylor’s proposal for what to do with the land the town had wished they’d paid the price.
The plan was to subdivide part of the land for houses and leave a large tract of it to be used for a three-story, 180-room, waterfront resort hotel. This was rejected by the town which left the property in limbo.
Besieged with hurdles and roadblocks surrounding the thirteen acres of waterfront property Taylor sold the land to Sidney Tucker and Paul Lampros in August 1961 for $140,000($1.46 million in 2024). Only a few months later in March 1962 the Town of Yarmouth stepped in and took 10.5 of the thirteen acres of land by eminent domain. The Phelan summer home and a few lots of land surrounding it were left private. Tucker and Lampros sued the town in September 1962, arguing the land's value.
The proceedings dragged on in court until May 1964. However, once the jury got the case it took a mere twenty-eight minutes to award Tucker and Lampros a whopping $270,000($2.76 million in 2024) for the former Phelan property. This meant that essentially the Town of Yarmouth had paid nearly double the original asking price Joseph Phelan had offered which was seen as exorbitant.
Despite the long road and extra money paid, Yarmouth had its newest public beach. To cover the cost of the new beach as well as the new parking lot needed the town ultimately decided to start charging for parking during the tourist season. This was the start of buying beach stickers in Yarmouth.
Next up was the important task of naming the stretch of sand. In the local newspapers, it had been referred to as Phelan Beach since it was first offered for purchase in 1958. The name chosen was the on-the-nose name of Bass River Beach. However, locals rarely call it by that name.
In the six decades since Phelan Beach became Bass River Beach the area at the mouth of the river has been known more frequently as Smuggler’s Beach. But why? It is due to the stories of rum-running or bootlegging that took place in the area during Prohibition.
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| Did bootlegging take place at Smuggler's Beach? |
The Smuggler’s Beach name becomes even more appropriate when coupled with the story of the Casa Madrid establishment. Located a few hundred yards from the beach on Run Pond Road the Casa Madrid opened in 1933 as a dancing and eating establishment. Only six weeks into its existence though it was raided by law enforcement and exposed as a speakeasy.
Did the liquor seized from Casa Madrid come from the nearby beach? One cannot say for sure, but the legend of Smuggler’s Beach draws heavily on that possibility.
From
a summer home abutted by marshland to a hugely popular public beach
the area formerly known as The Point in Yarmouth has taken a long
road to get to where it is in the present day. It is an interesting
dichotomy between the straightforward route of Charles Henry Davis’
property becoming West Dennis Beach and Joseph Phelan’s property
becoming Bass River Smuggler’s Beach.
