Grail | Dune Shack 12 (Wolfe)
[2009, Dunlap]
[2009, Dunlap]
[2010, Dunlap]
[2009, Dunlap]
Text last updated in 2015 | Grace Bessay was a fierce preservationist. Her venue was federal court, where she battled the government for years over its condemnation of the Grail, among the most distinctive of the shacks. It was built in the 1920s by Raymond Brown, a coast guardsman and carpenter. The property came to Bessay in 1981 from Andrew Fuller, with whom she had shared it since 1969, when it was purchased from Dorothy Fearing. In court, Bessay survived a challenge to her assertion of adverse possession, but she couldn’t persuade the judges that her shack was a bona-fide dwelling. On pain of immediate eviction, she signed a 25-year use and occupancy agreement in 1991, including her friends Peter Clemons and Marianne Benson in her stipulation. After her death in 1996, they were recognized as the Grail’s legitimate residents.
Elizabeth Clemons wrote on 7 January 2012: I love your site. I have actually been lucky enough to have grown up in one of these shacks. My family has put out a book titled Traditional Dune Dwellers: A Way of Life on the Backshore of Provincetown and Truro, available at Blurb. My family has devoted their lives to the preservation of the dune shacks and show their devotion through this book, with beautiful historic pictures, and also my father, Peter Clemons is an artist devoted to painting the dunes and shacks and all that is precious on the Back Shore.
Peter Clemons wrote on 20 November 2013: I agree with your “distinctive” comment but am not sure where the “largest” came from. People tend to think our dune shack is big, but at approximately 370 square feet, it is very much a little shack. Several years ago, the C.C.N.S. measured all of these places, so I think you will find data that backs me up when I say we are not one of the largest. Also, I might suggest using the government’s term for our semi-ownership, and the correct word is “stipulation.” Grace Bessay included us in her stipulation, which is very different from putting us in her will when it comes to how we are treated down the road. Both these issues will seem small to readers of your text, but we have reasons for wanting the words to reflect the accurate nature of our standing with the federal government. Thanks; your project is amazingly good.
About the shacks
Along the Back Shore, settlement meets sea, and the built environment is humbled. The Pilgrim Monument looks distant, almost inconsequential. There is no place for human-engineered grandeur against the mighty Atlantic Ocean, the treacherous Peaked Hill Bars, and the towering, ever-shifting dunes. Instead, snugness, modesty, and adaptability are rewarded. Structures perform the most elementary services of salvation and shelter.
From the Old Harbor station to the Truro line are Provincetown’s 15 renowned dune shacks. (Three more — the Wells, Jones and Armstrong shacks — are slightly east of the Truro line. They’re included in the Peaked Hill Bars Historic District, but not in Provincetown Encyclopedia.)
The very notion of these shacks is happily inimical to precision. Dates, occupants, and anecdotes will inevitably differ among sources. There isn’t even an agreed-upon naming convention. Provincetown Encyclopedia borrows the west-to-east numbering system used by Robert J. Wolfe in his seminal 2005 study for the Park Service, “Dwelling in the Dunes.”
The shacks are a source of identity to the town and a half-century of tension between residents and the National Park Service. The definition of cultural landmarks has expanded to embrace such eccentric structures, which once would have been swept away to render the seashore as pristine as possible. Indeed, some shacks were razed, leaving the dune community especially wary of the park service’s intentions. It wasn’t until 2010 that a comprehensive management plan was advanced for all 18 shacks.
In 2023, the dune shack community — whose members trace their occupancy back as far as the 1940s, long before the creation of the national seashore — was convulsed by an ominous new threat. The service announced that it would evict most current residents and re-lease the structures, apparently putting a premium on getting top dollar. When the rangers came for 94-year-old Salvatore Del Deo, as they did, the story drew the attention of the national press (including The New York Times) and of Senators Edward Markey and Elizabeth Warren. The park service was compelled by political pressure, bad press, and local outrage to relent — just a bit. As I write this summary in November 2023, however, the situation remains fluid. (This was the most recent development: “2 of 8 Leases May Go to Local Applicants; But One Previous Dune Family Gives Up, Worn Down by the Process,” by Paul Benson, The Provincetown Independent, 21 November 2023.)
If you want to see the shacks for yourself, the best way is on foot, but this can be arduous. It makes sense for a newcomer to get the lay of the land in one of the SUVs operated by Art’s Dune Tours. The business was founded in 1946 by Arthur J. Costa as Art’s Beach Taxi and is continued by his son, Robert Costa.
Important dune etiquette: If you go out to see the shacks, please maintain a respectful distance from them. Dune residents are out there for solitude, tranquillity and privacy, not to entertain strangers or answer questions.
¶ Republished on 3 December 2023.
