Ayers Lake in the town of Barrington is surrounded by woods and summer cottages. Loons, snapping turtles and bass call it home.
At the southern end of the lake, there is a dam that state officials use to draw down water levels each fall.
On the northern end of the lake, where a gravel road runs practically right next to the lapping edge, there’s a break in the trees that has been the scene of a 74-year controversy.
Camp Fireside, a Christian summer camp founded in 1952, believes it has ownership rights over this sliver of shoreline. Town officials see it differently: they contend the proximity between the road and lake gives them rights over the area.
There are no other public launches at the lake. For decades, visitors have dragged in canoes, kayaks and small motorboats at this break in the woods, despite a lack of permission from the camp. Then last fall, over the objections of Camp Fireside and a local lake association, the town obtained a permit to widen the road and grade down the slope to the lake’s edge. That boat launch is now the subject of an appeal before the state regulatory agency that approved it. But the camp sees more at stake than just a clearing for canoes and pontoon boats.
“This is much larger than just a squabble amongst a bunch of people,” says Marcia Allison, chair of the board of trustees for Camp Fireside. “This is about property rights. This is about child safety. This is about environmental protection.”
A typical day at Camp Fireside — a non-denominational day camp that serves about 100 kids — includes archery and other activities, along with a visit to the chapel. If the weather is good, the campers then follow a trail in the woods from the lodge down to the shoreline of Ayers for swimming and boating.
But the layout of the lake and launch create a headache for camp officials: Boats, along with the occasional jet ski, launched at the site in question pass through the area where kids swim, a potential safety issue.
For Allison, who attended Camp Fireside, then worked as a counselor and is now the public face of the dispute with the town, the ramp Barrington officials built is an “injustice,” with deep roots.
Over the last several decades, the camp has tried sporadically to assert its ownership.
In the 1960s, concerned about the impact of non-campers who were using the beach, Camp Fireside restricted public access by installing a chain-link fence around a horn of land that juts out into the water, just to the south of the break in the trees. In response, the Town of Barrington voted in 1968 to spend $400 on a lawyer to review the legality of the camp’s claims to the shoreline. (The fence is still there, but Barrington residents can buy a $25 summer pass to use that beach area when kids aren’t present.)
In the 90s, the camp installed a large rock to block access to the access point.
“And then in the dead of night, someone came and took the large rock away,” Allison says.
The exact property lines remain a source of contention, made muddier by the dam which has regularly changed the high water mark for Ayers Lake. What was once dry land, according to Allison, is now wet.
In 2009, the camp installed landscaping and additional rocks to try and block off the break in the trees. Town officials including the local police chief, summoned Allison to the shoreline and demanded the camp remove the obstructions. The camp, on the advice of its attorney, relented.
On and on, it's gone. The town wants in. The camp wants them out.
‘As a matter of convenience’
From the town’s perspective, Ayers Lake is a public body of water, and the public should have access. Generations of boaters have used this launch to enter the lake, and it remains the only available point around the roughly 4.5 mile perimeter. (Visitors at a privately owned campground on the southeastern shore can also launch boats.)
In 2023, Barrington saw an opportunity to improve the launch. Then-Gov. Chris Sununu, flush with federal stimulus money, announced grant opportunities for towns to upgrade existing boat launches. Barrington jumped, submitted an application, and was awarded $100,000 to improve the “only Town-controlled access site” on the lake.
The camp alleges the grant was improperly awarded, since there was no permitted launch to begin with. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which holds a conservation easement over portions of Camp Fireside’s land including along the shoreline, agreed, writing to state officials that Barrington was “proposing impacts to private property outside of their control.”
When the town submitted its permit to the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services to pour a concrete ramp and install a dock, regulators rejected the proposal, citing, in part, the lack of proof that a formal launch ever existed on the site.
After a second rejected proposal, the town successfully applied to a different division of DES to widen the gravel road -- Daniel Cater Road -- and essentially grade the slope down to the water’s edge.
With a permit in hand, construction took place last fall. The town even installed a little wooden sign: Ayers Lake Boat Launch.
“We don't anticipate a tremendous increase in the volume of boats able to use this access site,” says Conner MacIver, Barrington’s town administrator. “It's not deeper there. The parking is just a little bit better, but there isn't more parking.”
There are only three designated spots for boat trailer parking, limiting the number of possible users. And MacIver’s point about depth is important: though the center of the lake is about 30 feet deep in sections, the area around the launch has just a few feet of water. Only relatively small motor boats can enter without scraping bottom.
It may not be ideal, but from the town’s perspective, the launch is now a better version of what’s always been there: access to this public jewel.
“There are a lot of nuances of this access point, right?” says MacIver. “This is something that is an access point that has existed for generations, as a matter of convenience.”
How private property works
On a recent weekday, Erin Walker is launching a kayak under perfect blue skies. She has friends arriving, as well, for a memorial service of sorts.
“Our friend died a year ago today, so we're getting together,” she explains.
Soon, seven other kayaks are dragged down the gravel ramp. This collection of girlfriends are honoring their friend Denise Brume who died from breast cancer.
“She loved kayaking this lake. So that's what we're doing here,” says Walker.
Their plan is to go out for a paddle in her honor. The new gravel ramp makes launching the boats a breeze.
“It's a lot better actually, because before it was rocky,” she says.
And this was the town’s ultimate goal: give people easier access to the lake. It isn’t clear if the new launch will inspire more people to come and use the waters of Ayers Lake. Camp Fireside, as well as the Ayers Lake Association, a group dedicated to preserving the lake’s ecological health, would prefer they didn’t. The lake association, in particular, is concerned about the spread of invasive species.
The camp has hired a lawyer to appeal the Department of Environmental Services approval of the permit for the launch. That challenge is playing out this summer, while campers make their daily walk from the lodge down to the shoreline for swimming.
“There is this belief in the town, and this is indicative of lots of small towns everywhere, that this is the way it's always been,” Allison says, looking out over the lake from the shoreline she believes the camp owns. “And, you can't shut us out because you purchased the property.”
“Well, yes, we can, because that's how private property works in America,” she says.
