Province Lands Visitor Center
The deck of the Visitor Center takes full advantage of its remarkable siting atop Ocean View Hill. [2009, Dunlap]
[2009, Dunlap]
[2009, Dunlap]
On exhibition in 2009, over the label: “Points for spears to catch fish or small animals.” [Dunlap]
[2009, Dunlap]
[2009, Dunlap]
Text last updated on 31 December 2023 | The signature National Seashore building is the hexagonal Province Lands Visitor Center of 1967-69, which replaced the Grand View Tower of 1955, a rudimentary but well-loved viewing platform.
The center was designed by Benjamin Biderman of the National Park Service’s Eastern Office of Design and Construction. F. Clifford Pearce Jr., who designed the Race Point bathhouse and Beech Forest comfort station, also worked on this job.
Plate-glass windows on the main level and a wrap-around upper deck take great advantage of the siting. The low-slung, shingled roof seems a perfect Cape Cod expression of the Park Service’s Mission 66 construction program.
The name of the site, “Ocean View Hill,” is recognized by the Board on Geographic Names, which places its elevation at 92 feet. It was known in the 19th and early 20th centuries as “Negro Head Hill,” “N….. Head Hill,” or “N…..head Hill,” for reasons I have yet to uncover. The Dictionary of American Regional English contains 11 definitions for the repellent term, one of which may be pertinent: “A rock, stone, or boulder, esp one dark in color.”
¶ Republished on 31 December 2023.