Brass Key Guesthouse | Shipwreck Lounge
Brass Key Carriage House, 67 Bradford Street, at Halloween. [2009, Dunlap]
67 Bradford Street. [2008, Dunlap]
Brass Key Captain’s House, 9 Court Street. [2011, Dunlap]
Brass Key Queen Anne House, 8 Carver Street. [2008, Dunlap]
Left: Brass Key Victorian House, 10 Carver Street. [2014, Dunlap] Right: Gus McCleod at George’s Inn, 9 Court Street. [1971, David Jarrett]
Text last updated on 23 July 2016 | The deluxe Brass Key Guesthouse has grown by accretion into a large compound. Its principal address is 67 Bradford, but its most significant buildings face Carver and Court Streets, where they will be found on the Building Provincetown 2020 website. The expansion of the property was the work of Michael MacIntyre and his husband, Bob Anderson, who died in 2004. They also refurbished Lands End Inn, 22 Commercial Street. Thomas Walter, Kenneth Masi, and David Sanford, the owners of Crowne Pointe, acquired the property in 2007.
The constituents of the Brass Key are:
Carriage House, 67 Bradford Street.
The Queen Anne House, 8 Carver Street. This eclectic confection was the Cottage Inn in the 19th century. It was later home to Moses Nickerson Gifford, president of the First National Bank and son of James Gifford, namesake of the hotel up the street. Andrew Turocy III bought the house in 1981 and operated it as Roomers.
Victorian House, 10 Carver Street, was built around 1865 in Second Empire style. It belonged to William Henry Young, the first president of the Provincetown Art Association and founder of what is now the Benson Young & Downs Insurance Agency. His wife, Anna (Hughes) Young, was a founder of the Research Club. It is for their son, Lewis A. Young, who died in World War I, that the Veterans of Foreign Wars post was named. Subsequent owners included Arthur and Martha (Alves) Roderick, who raised four children here before selling it in 1978.
Gatehouse and Shipwreck Lounge, 12 Carver Street, was home in the 1960s to Joseph and Virginia (Souza) Lewis, proprietors of the Pilgrim House. Lewis was a founder of the Portuguese-American Civic League. This building and 10 Carver were known together in the 1970s and ’80s as Haven House, run by Don Robertson.
Captain’s House, 9 Court Street, was built in 1830 in the Federal style and is the most imposing building in the complex. It played an important role in the development of the gay and lesbian business community as George’s Inn, opened in 1964 by George Littrell. In the late ‘70s, it explicitly sought gay patrons only. Littrell was an early leader in the Provincetown Business Guild; in effect, the gay Chamber of Commerce. The inn closed in 1982. Littrell died in 2000.
¶ Republished on 9 September 2023.
67 Bradford Street on the Town Map, showing property lines.