2 Allerton Street

2 Allerton Street. [2011, Dunlap]


Ship’s Bell. Built around 1800 on Commercial Street, the house was moved to this site and opened in the late 1920s as the Ship’s Bell (“because of the gladness that was ringing in our hearts”) by Eleanor Bloomfield and Mary “Ivy” Ivins, who chronicled their efforts to beautify the place in The House That Is, or a Tale of the Ship’s Bell, published by the Lowe Brothers Company. They called themselves “independent women.” Contemporary eyes might see the Ship’s Bell as the town’s first lesbian-owned guest house. In Provincetown, Karen Christel Krahulik wrote that the couple “created a world at Land’s End that, for intimate and practical purposes, was independent of men.” It was later owned by Charles Hapgood, author of The Earth’s Shifting Crust, and his wife, Tamsin (Hughes) Hapgood, a real estate agent. Their son, William Hapgood, an inventor and musician, sold it in 2001 to the artist and photographer Marian Roth and the clothing designer Mary DeAngelis.


From The House That Is, or a Tale of the Ship’s Bell. [Courtesy of Marian Roth]


Mary DeAngelis and Marian Roth. [Courtesy of Marian Roth]


The book was a kind of infomercial for the Lowe Brothers Company, makers of paints and varnishes. [Courtesy of Marian Roth]


From The House That Is, or a Tale of the Ship’s Bell. [Courtesy of Marian Roth]


From The House That Is, or a Tale of the Ship’s Bell. [Courtesy of Marian Roth]


From The House That Is, or a Tale of the Ship’s Bell. [Courtesy of Marian Roth]


From The House That Is, or a Tale of the Ship’s Bell. [Courtesy of Marian Roth]


[2012, Dunlap]


[2012, Dunlap]


Marian Roth. [2012, Dunlap]


[2012, Dunlap]


[2012, Dunlap]


[2012, Dunlap]


[2012, Dunlap]


[2012, Dunlap]


[2012, Dunlap]


[2012, Dunlap]


2 Allerton Street on the Town Map, showing property lines.


¶ Last updated in 2015.


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