Twenty-six years ago my wife and I went looking for a summer place here on Cape Cod. A real-estate agent walked us through a series of land-locked ranch houses lining long streets and built up against dark sticky pines. There was no ocean that I could see, and the only sand was the build-up you get on the road after a stormy winter. As we drove off, disappointed, I said I don’t want to JUST be on Cape Cod. I want to feel like I’m here, really here, sand between my toes, waves crashing, gulls calling out for a meal.
That’s when we decided to take a drive closer to the water. I rolled down my window, took in the salt sea air and turned the car – by happenstance or was it fate? -- onto a tiny street in a cottage community on Nantucket Sound. Never heard of the place, still didn’t know its name in that moment of discovery. But there it was, among 274 other small beachside cottages, the tiny home of our dreams. Two rooms and a bath, not enough for overnight company, but just enough for us.
The literature of Cape Cod is replete with books by authors who experienced marvelous epiphanies inspired by their homes here. There’s The Outermost House, The Big House, The Salt House and others. Add to the list, our lucky find, The House That Almost Wasn’t.
We fell in love quickly. We imagined backyard barbecues after hours on the beach. A clothesline drying our dripping wet suits. Maybe a hammock. Pink and blue hydrangeas. A scene that Wyeth or Rockwell would surely want to capture. That was the dream. The reality? The cottage’s wastewater system was a cesspool, essentially a hole lined with cinder blocks and grandfathered in, and by today’s Title V, prohibited. The cedar shingles were the color of moldy midnight, and the backyard sloped down to the base of the cottage, inviting the runoff to create a standing pool of guck.
The home inspector took a spin around the grounds and said: Do not buy this place. He asked if I was handy because that was the only way we’d manage. Then the man got into his truck, drove away and we made our offer to buy anyway. Because there was something more at stake than shingles and cinderblocks. We’d be 150 yards from the Atlantic Ocean. We’d feel like we were here, I mean really here, on Cape Cod. 26 summers later, we are still here because we weren’t smart enough to take the advice of a man who knew better. I’m much handier now, thanks to neighbors who do know better about shingles and cinderblocks. My work is off a quarter inch and I hear about it. And I wouldn’t want it any other way. This spring I’m rebuilding the deck that winds around the side of the cottage to the backyard where I laid down a two-tier patio. The cedar shingles I replaced and the trim too. I built steps for a side entrance and helped a real carpenter remodel the inside. It’s gone from curmudgeonly, if such a thing can be said about a cottage, to charming.
This time of year brings me back to those early days when living in a house by the sea seemed out of reach. Now I’m right here, grateful to get outside on a sunny morning against a stiff ocean breeze, coffee in hand, the radio on and with the tools I’ve learned to use. By late afternoon, the tools are put away and I walk to the beach for a swim. I see a cormorant diving for its dinner or a seal off course from Monomoy or a fishing boat heading back from beyond the horizon.
These are the days of summer come ‘round at last, and I don’t want to miss a single one.
