Ruling discounts a Cape legacy
Provincetown shacks denied special status
PROVINCETOWN -- For close to a century, artists, writers, and solitude-seekers have retreated to the rustic, wind-battered shacks nestled in the sand dunes of Provincetown's back shore. Living in the remote dunes for days or weeks, with no roads, running water, or electricity, the shack-dwellers find inspiration. When they hand their shacks down to the next generation, stories and traditions pass on with the ramshackle buildings.
Yesterday, the keeper of the National Register of Historic Places found that the dune shacks do not qualify for an enhanced federal status that the dwellers say would have strengthened their standing as they try to retain access to the simple wooden structures on behalf of their families.
The decision by Janet Snyder Matthews will give the Cape Cod National Seashore broader leeway to decide how the structures are used.
The ruling follows decades of bitter dispute between the families who use and care for the 18 cottages and the federal government, which took ownership of the dunes after the Cape Cod National Seashore was created in the 1960s.
Matthews wrote in her decision that the dune shacks, which were deemed eligible for the National Register in 1989, do not merit the enhanced status because the group that uses them changes from year to year.
Shack dwellers said yesterday they will not stop trying to retain their dune traditions, which they say will be lost if the park evicts them and takes the shacks for public use.
"What ties us all together inextricably is this sense of place, something that is being lost in America at such an enormous pace," said Josephine Del Deo , a Provincetown writer who has visited the dune shacks since the 1950s. "Our being out there has meaning."
Past park leaders sought to demolish the buildings, in order to return the dunes to their natural state. Today, park leaders say they are committed to preserving the surviving shacks, now protected as the Peaked Hill Bars Historic District. Families with long ties to the structures are allowed to use them under individual agreements with the park. But park officials held that the seasonal shack society should not receive special federal status as a "Traditional Cultural Property," because it does not fit the definition of "community" in federal guidelines.
The superintendent of the National Seashore, George E. Price Jr. , said yesterday he will work closely with the shack dwellers to develop a plan for the future of the structures. A committee that includes several shack-dwellers is set to begin the planning process.
"Whether it's a Traditional Cultural Property or not, it's considered a very important property," Price said. "We will consult with folks, and the hope is that we're able to move forward."
Shack-dwellers worry that, despite official assurances, the decision means the park will not have to listen to them -- and could take away their access to the shacks.
Life at the dunes is marked by solitude, reflection, and retreat from modern conveniences, they said, but is also steeped in the passed-along stories of individual characters who summered there over the years. If the shacks are taken over by the park when user agreements expire, those links to history will be broken, shack users argue.
The dwellers expressed frustration that park officials rejected the recommendations of an expert the park service hired, ethnographer Robert J. Wolfe , who documented the culture of the dune shacks in a detailed study two years ago and concluded that the settlement deserved the special standing.
With one of New England's most dramatic landscapes as its backdrop, the shacks also boast a romantic history, rich with shipwrecks and poetry. Some may have been fashioned out of driftwood by fishermen for shelter or storage; others were built by rescuers assigned to keep watch at Peaked Hill for shipwrecks.
The dune shacks were probably used most by friends and family who came to visit the men there, but they were also left open as shelters for shipwrecked sailors who landed on the shore.
At least one surviving shack is still left unlocked for those who might need it, shack dwellers said.
The shack dwellers supported the establishment of the national seashore as essential to saving the Cape from overdevelopment, said Del Deo. But tensions developed after the Provincetown dunes were handed over to the park. The park took ownership of the shacks, but worked out temporary agreements with the shack-dwellers, who were granted 25-year or lifetime user rights.
But after the park bulldozed a shack one week after the death of its longtime caretaker, the other dwellers began the push that led to the shacks being eligible for the National Register.
Jenna Russell can be reached at jrussell@globe.com. 