Mission Bell | “Professors Row” | Dune Shack 5 (Wolfe)
[2021, Dunlap]
[2022, Dunlap]
A ceramic model made by Andrea Champlin in 2019. [2022, Dunlap]
Mission Bell in 1953, when it was for sale as firewood. [Nathaniel L. Champlin; courtesy of Mildred Champlin and Andrea Champlin]
In the 1990s, after years of constant renovation, rehabilitation, and repair. [Nathaniel L. Champlin; courtesy of Mildred and Andrea Champlin]
When contrasted with the 1950s view above, a 2009 photo shows the dramatic deposition of sand around Mission Bell. [Dunlap]
Left: The bell being raised for the first time? Right: Mildred Champlin’s parents, Verna and Elmer Kautto, on a visit from Michigan? [Courtesy of Mildred Champlin and Andrea Champlin]
The bell today. [2022, Dunlap]
Nathaniel L. Champlin in the torturous task of raising the building in the early 1950s. [Courtesy of Mildred Champlin and Andrea Champlin]
A recent repair job by Don Beal exposed parts of the original wall, with boards more than 18 inches wide. [2022, Dunlap]
What are they doing? Who are they? Is that a Province Lands bound marker in the foreground? [Courtesy of Mildred Champlin and Andrea Champlin]
Do we know who the boys are? Do we know what kind of shark this is? [Courtesy of Mildred Champlin and Andrea Champlin]
Left: In the early days, water for the kitchen had to be hand-pumped? Right: Is this Andrea and Maia? [Courtesy of Mildred Champlin and Andrea Champlin]
Mildred Champlin in the 1950s. Taken by Nat? [Courtesy of Mildred Champlin and Andrea Champlin]
Mildred Champlin and Andrea Champlin. [2021, Dunlap]
Under the deck. [2022, Dunlap]
View from the porch. [2021, Dunlap]
On the porch. [2009, Dunlap]
On the porch. [2009, Dunlap]
On the porch. [2009, Dunlap]
View from the porch. [2009, Dunlap]
The Atlantic Ocean. [2021, Dunlap]
Living room. [2022, Dunlap]
Kitchen. [2022, Dunlap]
Kitchen. [2022, Dunlap]
Kitchen. [2022, Dunlap]
Transom from the rowboat Dilly. [2022, Dunlap]
Beach detritus? Ornamental pipe bowl? [2022, Dunlap]
Anything to be said about all the clay pipes? [2022, Dunlap]
That Hint of Spring (2016), a house gift from Alan Watson. [2022, Dunlap]
Buoy for the family lobster pot, positioned in front of the house. Nat handcarved the letters and numbers. [2021, Dunlap; Nathaniel L. Champlin]
[2022, Dunlap]
[2022, Dunlap]
[2022, Dunlap]
Kato, an Abyssinian, slinking on the stairway. [2021, Dunlap]
Upstairs. [2022, Dunlap]
Andrea painted this seascape in October 2019 as she observed a nor’easter outside the dormer windows of Mission Bell. [2022, Dunlap]
Sleeping loft. [2022, Dunlap]
[2022, Dunlap]
A snug nook upstairs. [2022, Dunlap]
Andrea Champlin, watching her mother. [2022, Dunlap]
Mildred Champlin. [2022, Dunlap]
Updated on 3 September 2026 | Mission Bell is the popular name for this house on Professors Row, though the bell — a useful navigational landmark out in the dunes — was salvaged in 1955 not from a mission but from a one-room schoolhouse in Michigan.
The shack was built in 1936 by the brothers Dominic S. “Dom” Avila (1901-1959) and Joseph Avila, possibly with the assistance of Jake Loring. Dom was a native of Provincetown, a graduate of P.H.S., and a carpenter by trade. He lived at 34 Pearl Street and was married to Almeida Taves (1910-1994). Both of Dom’s parents had come here from the Açores.
In 1953, Dom sold the shack to Nathaniel L. Champlin (1919-2015), a professor at Wayne State University in Detroit and a lecturer at the Cranbrook Academy of Art. “The shack was for sale as firewood, and Dominic was thrilled to know he intended to restore it,” one of Nat’s daughters, Andrea, recalled. “Dom came out frequently to help with the restoration, and Almeida sent out delicious Portuguese food with Dom — her way of supporting the work.” Their efforts helped transform the structure into something more worthy of being called a house. Dom died in 1959 after he fell while working on the roof of 31 Pearl Street.
Mildred Kautto met Champlin in 1956. Andrea picks up the story:
“Her first visit to Mission Bell was in late December 1956 (brr!). They slept in the unheated shack overnight — she remembers the coffee grounds frozen solid in the pot the next morning. (My mother had spent childhood summers on her grandparents’ farm in the Upper Peninsula before rural electrification, so rustic conditions, like gas lamps and outhouses, did not faze her.) Despite a winter storm that blew in overnight, she loved it and couldn’t wait to come back! My dad proposed in the car on the way back.”1
Unlike most shoreline buildings, Mission Bell has managed to stay in one place over the years; as did the Champlin family, which has continuously occupied the cottage for six decades, now under a stipulation of settlement with the government running for the lifetime of the Champlins’ children: Maia Peck, Paul Champlin, and Andrea.
Mission Bell is the shack closest to the wreck of H.M.S. Somerset.
Gail Cohen wrote on 15 February 2019: The Champlins were in court 18 years. They proved their property rights. They were suppose to be paid $200,000, the same amount the Adams in court 16 years received. Their dune shacks were appraised as ocean front property. The Cape Cod National Seashore/National Park Service claimed no money, so they gave Mildred and Nat the dune shack for the lifetime of their children. The others were given 25 years or for their lifetime. Frenchie (Jeanne Chanel) would not sign the stipulation. The Feds gave in and gave her lifetime for her daughter Shatzi [Adrienne Schnell]. She got the same deal as the Champlins without going to court!
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.
1 Andrea Champlin email to the author, 1 September 2026.