86R Atkins Mayo Road

The approach to John Eder’s house. [2011, Dunlap]

Because fatal fires are a rarity in Provincetown these days, they are especially shocking when they occur. Adding to the anguish over the fire at 86R Atkins Mayo Road on 21 November 2019 was that it took the life of the craftsman John Eder (1945-2019), one of those people who give the town its special cultural character — even when they are as reclusive as Eder was in his later decades. His gift to anyone who ventured far out on Atkins Mayo (almost as far as the Old Colony Railroad right-of-way) was a compound with fantastically fanciful palisades and signposts. Never mind that they all said, “Keep out.” You could still enjoy an abundance of improvised artwork around the fence, and if you were lucky, get a tantalizing glimpse of the artwork within the compound, including a composition of crutches that was almost worthy of Louise Nevelson.

[2011, Dunlap]

The property was owned until 1972 by Mary Spencer Nay Block (1913-1993), a painter from Kentucky who studied with Boris Margo in Provincetown. In 1971, she was named distinguished professor of art education at the University of Louisville. The following year, she divested herself of several tracts of property along Atkins Mayo Road, which were acquired by Margo, Murray Zimiles, and Josephine Del Deo. This two-lot parcel was acquired by John L. Frank, an important artist who — like Mary Spencer Nay — is not nearly as well remembered today as he should be.

Frank, a Kentucky native, attended Columbia University as an undergraduate in the 1950s. For his master’s degree, he studied with Robert Motherwell, a master of Abstract Expressionism who was then an associate professor of art at Hunter College. Besides Motherwell, Frank was also greatly inspired by time spent living and studying in India, Korea, and Japan. In Provincetown, Frank directed Gallery 256, which opened in 1956 at 256 Commercial Street, and taught at the Seong Moy School of Painting and Graphic Arts, 7 Brewster Street. He served on the board of the Provincetown Art Association and directed the association’s school. Frank also seems to have been instrumental in helping the 21-year-old artist Bob Thompson (1937-1966) get a scholarship to attend Moy’s school and in overcoming the hurdles faced by African-Americans looking for housing in Provincetown at the time. Frank put Thompson in touch with Nathan Roach, whose family owned and operated a cottage colony at 24 Conwell Street.¹

Frank’s own home on Atkins Mayo Road was the scene of a physical altercation between the painter Adele (Morales) Mailer and the writer Harriet Sohmers Zwerling, urged on to combat by Adele’s husband, Norman.² Frank was appointed a professor at the State University of New York at New Paltz and, in 1986, sold this property to Eder.

[2011, Dunlap]

Though not known widely around town in recent decades, Eder had been the proprietor of a sandal store called Renaissance Leather, at 447 Commercial Street, in the 1970s and early 1980s, Kaolin Davis told me. He had moved to town in 1970. “He did become so private and a hermit in his later years, but he was a sweet, funny, and wonderful guy,” Marie Pace recalled to K. C. Myers of The Provincetown Independent. “I’ll always think of him with this twinkle in his eye,” Pace said. “He had a Santa Claus type of face.”⁴

“A big part of his love for Cape Cod came from summer days at the beach, beachcombing for driftwood and other washed-ashore materials with which he constructed strange and beautiful structures.”

“John was the ultimate collector and picker, making daily trips to the dump and swap shack where he could put his values of living simply with what was available into practice,” said a tribute published on Wicked Local in February 2020. “He built a true-to-form geodesic dome on his property from a kit found in Mother Earth magazine in the early ’70s. He also built an elaborate fence, which completely surrounded his property, from found wood and other objects. The artist in him also arranged pieces he collected in humorous and often surreal juxtapositions creating a wondrous walk through his property. Some might remember John for the bikes he sold from salvaged and rebuilt parts, humorous and fantastical, never to be reproduced in the same way twice. A big part of his love for Cape Cod came from summer days at the beach, beachcombing for driftwood and other washed-ashore materials with which he constructed strange and beautiful structures.

“His love of nature and values of living simply and true also led him to becoming an incredible gardener. For most of his life he was a vegetarian and spent time learning the most earth-friendly ways of growing fruits and vegetables and a vast array of flowers that filled the landscape around his home.”

[2011, Dunlap]

Eder had a son, David, from a marriage that ended in divorce. Three years after meeting Jill Richter in 1972, Eder began living with her and her young sons, Sacha and Mischa.

In 2010, Eder adopted the adult Richters as his children. David unsuccessfully challenged the arrangement, as it meant that Sacha and Mischa would become beneficiaries — with David — of a trust Eder had established for his children. In testimony, John Eder explained: “When I realize that I had the opportunity to adopt Sacha and Mischa, who were more or less my kids the way they grew up, I thought why not include them in this if I could. Why not share my estate with them? Why not make our relationship legal?”³

The final decision in the case, favoring the Richters, came down from the Appellate Court of Connecticut in 2017. Judge Douglas Lavine noted in his opinion that John Eder was a “father figure” to young Mischa and Sacha who made “substantial” financial contributions to support them. “He did homework with them, taught them how to ride a bicycle, and engaged in other age-appropriate parent-child activities. [Eder] took the Richter brothers to and from school and attended parent-teacher conferences. They ‘would draw together’ and create objects out of different material, which were activities not foreign to their future careers; Sacha Richter is an artist and Mischa Richter is a photographer.” That support extended to paying for “books, rent, and parking tickets when they were in college”³

The fire, which was ruled not suspicious, began on the afternoon of Thursday, 21 November. Laura Ludwig, whose stepson Nathaniel C. Mayo owns the nearest house, 74 Atkins Mayo Road, was the first to notice. “The only signs were a wood fire smell and wee wisps of smoke emanating gently from cracks around the base of the chimney and the roofline,” she recalled in a comment below. “The next sign was window panes popping from the interior heat; and that is when the flames erupted on the outside of the home.”

“It was bright orange-yellow flames like you’d see in a kid’s drawing,” Ludwig told Alex Darus of the Provincetown Banner.⁵ More than 40 firefighters responded. In time, a black plume disfigured the skyline, easily visible from MacMillan Wharf, as shown in Jamie Demetriou’s dramatic photo for The Provincetown Independent. Amazingly, the firefighters confined the blaze to the house, even though it was 1,400 feet from the nearest hydrant and deep in the woods.

“The verticality of the plume testifies to the amazingly auspicious conditions that day,” Ludwig said. “The lack of wind and the quick response by the volunteer fire department saved the woods, and the home next door.”

But that was the only good news. Eder’s body was found in a rear bedroom.

He is to be honored in a permanent open space that is to be created from his abutting properties at 86R-88 Atkins Mayo Road.

Laura Ludwig wrote on 8 January 2020: I really love your thoroughgoing Provincetown building explorations, and this one is no exception. As the person who discovered the Eder fire on 11/21/19, I just wanted to correct one implication made in the narrative above: the black plume of smoke was not present or visible until approximately 45 minutes after the fire began, I would guess. When I encountered the house afire, the only signs were a wood fire smell and wee wisps of smoke emanating gently from cracks around the base of the chimney and the roofline. The next sign was window panes popping from the interior heat; and that is when the flames erupted on the outside of the home, as described above. The black plume came later, and was visible for miles in every direction, as well as at the scene. The verticality of the plume testifies to the amazingly auspicious conditions that day — the lack of wind and the quick response by the volunteer fire department saved the woods, and the home next door. [This helpful correction was incorporated in a revised narrative. — DWD]