41 Bradford Street

Bradford Guesthouse, Quarter Deck | Formerly Bradford House & Motel

Cottage of the Bradford House & Motel, 41 Bradford Street. [2009, Dunlap]

Main house at left, cottage at right. [2013, Dunlap]

[2012, Dunlap]

The new sign. [2019, Dunlap]

The cottage was known as the Quarter Deck, as of 2023. [thebradfordptown.com/quarter-deck.htm]

Two distinct forms of Provincetown hospitality, Victorian and motor age, were joined in one operation at the Bradford House & Motel, now called the Bradford Guesthouse.

The main house was said to have been constructed in 1888 by Reuben Francis Brown, a coal and lumber merchant, for Albina Farrington (Brooks) Brown, his intended wife. His firm, Lewis & Brown, was large enough to command its own wharf — a structure at 229R Commercial Street whose pilings remain to this day. It was originally Lancy’s Wharf, then Lewis & Brown’s Wharf. The firm’s office was in the Lancy Mansion at 230 Commercial Street, which was then denominated 225 Commercial Street.

Albina and Reuben’s son, Roy F. Brown, was a physician, educated at Tufts, Harvard, and the Sorbonne. During World War II, Dr. Brown set up a general hospital in Sydney, Australia, that served the South Pacific theater. It was also during the war that Dr. Brown and his wife, Lillian H. (Small) Brown, sold the Bradford Street house to Thomas F. Cote (1900-1982) and Anna M. (Crawley) Cote (1905-1985), whose father was Frank “Scarry Jack” Crawley.

The cottage behind the main house was constructed in 1950, according to Town records, though the structure is not shown on the 1959 Sanborn insurance map, suggesting a later construction date. Marilyn Joyce (Cote) Downey (1932-2012) sold the property in 1988 for $500,000 to John E. Brooks and Salvo G. Tringali, doing business as Tri-Brook Realty Trust. After three decades, Tri-Brook sold the property in 2018 for $2.6 million to Patrick J. Wilson, doing business as 43 Towne L.L.C.

Wilson’s husband, Stephen Walker, is a British actor and video anchor who studied at the Urdang Academy, a performing arts school that is now part of City, University of London. In the 2022 season, he won acclaim for his portrayal of the character Bert in Robert Chesley’s play Jerker (1985), directed by David Drake and produced at the Provincetown Theater.

“This small but mighty cottage has three rooms, two upstairs with vaulted ceilings and balconies, and one ground-level with private entrance,” Wilson and Walker say about the Quarter Deck. “Also great views of Provincetown’s Pilgrim Monument.”

¶ Last updated on 18 February 2022.