WELLFLEET — The town’s historical commission has imposed an 18-month delay on the proposed demolition of the Capt. Joseph Hatch house.
After a Nov. 6 hearing, the commission determined that it would be preferable to preserve the 240-year-old full Cape at 90 Coles Neck Road because its loss would be detrimental to the town’s historical and cultural heritage.
The proposed demolition had drawn the attention of the Wellfleet Historical Society and the Chatham-based nonprofit Protect Our Past, with both organizations vigorously urging a delay to allow the owners more time to explore options for preserving the house.
Matthew Walker and Sally McCarthy, the Washington D.C. residents who own the house, argued that they have already spent three years looking into alternatives to demolition without success. The couple had asked to demolish the historic house, which was built around 1780, along with a series of additions that are not considered historically important so they can go forward with building a new home in its place.
But at its Oct. 9 meeting, the historical commission unanimously voted that the house was historically significant. That’s the first step in the review process under the town’s demolition delay bylaw. The Nov. 6 hearing was the next step. Under the local bylaw, the town can delay demolition, but it does not have the authority to prohibit the property owner from razing a structure after the 18-month delay period expires.
‘A Matter of Time and Money’
The commission had urged the homeowners in October to hire a structural engineer to determine the condition of the house, but Walker said they had not done so. Several builders had already looked at the house, he said, as had an inspector who identified damage from powder-post beetles.
Cregg Sweeney, a builder from Orleans who has been working with Walker and McCarthy on plans and possible alternatives, said he was experienced in the restoration of old houses. “I’m not one of those builders who says ‘rip it down,’ ” Sweeney said. “I understand almost anything can be done. It’s a matter of time and money.”
But the alternatives were cost-prohibitive, Walker said.
Commissioners Alfred Kraft and Stephen Douglass suggested that to help control costs, the owners could put modern upgrades like the kitchen and bathrooms in an addition while locating bedrooms and a living room in the old house after some restoration.
Walker said he had considered that idea and dismissed it because it would pass along some of the problems with the old structure to future generations.
Commission co-chair Merrill Mead-Fox read aloud a letter from Frederick Ecker II, vice president of Protect Our Past, who urged a delay of the proposed demolition. “Pest control contractors, typical new construction contractors, excavators, etc. are not experienced or qualified to recommend the demolition of a house of this vintage,” Ecker wrote. Most engineers would not be qualified unless they had experience and understanding of early timber frame construction, he continued.
A delay would allow time to get “qualified opinions on the options of saving this significant antique structure,” wrote Ecker.
In a letter evaluating the current condition of the house, Wellfleet Building Commissioner Victor Staley said the roof line was slightly bowed on one side and moderately bowed on the other. The original first floor log joists, viewed from the basement, showed loss of structural integrity from the powder-post beetle infestation. They had been “haphazardly” reinforced, said Staley. The first and second floors were “sloped in all directions,” and the ceilings on the second floor had some stress cracks that did not appear to be recent.
But while Staley characterized the building as “in a slow state of failure,” he did not see it posing an imminent danger to its occupants. “At this time, I would not entertain a building permit application for an emergency demolition, unless supported by a structural engineer’s report,” he wrote.
Commission co-chair Tim Curley-Egan, who has his own drafting and design firm, said the old house was a rarity. “We have just under 4,000 house units and only 22 are as old as yours or older,” he told Walker and McCarthy. “We’re not trying to badger you with questions, but I feel like there has to be some solution here.”
Mead-Fox agreed. “This is one of the oldest houses in Wellfleet,” she said. Coles Neck is also among the town’s earliest settlements, she added.
A Move, Maybe
Walker had said in October that he and McCarthy were open to allowing someone to take the house away at no charge, as long as the party taking it covered all expenses related to the move.
At the Nov. 6 hearing, Sarah Kain, a teacher in the Provincetown Schools, said she was interested in moving the old house. After reading last month’s story in the Independent, she told the commission, she had contacted longtime builder Bill Phillips of Truro, who has experience in restoration of 18th- and 19th-century houses. She said she had also discussed the cost of moving the house with Mike Winkler, who has moved other old homes in the area. Kain said she wanted to preserve the house “as is.”
In a phone interview this week, Kain said she does not currently have a place to move the house to but is discussing one with a property owner who would have the historic house serve as an accessory dwelling unit.
Kain and her builder were planning to meet with Sweeney this week to look at the interior of the Coles Neck house.
Kain is not new to historic home ownership. She owned a three-story home that was 120 years old when she lived on Long Island. “It was one block from Great South Bay,” Kain said. The whole area was inundated in salt water during Hurricane Sandy. The house was repaired, but Kain said she decided not to live that close to the water again.
Jane Murray, who lives in Truro, also expressed interest in restoring the house, although she had not yet gone as far as Kain in exploring its feasibility or the necessary move.
In 2020, the Wellfleet Historical Commission imposed an 18-month delay on the demolition of a 19th-century house at 20 Briar Lane. Built in 1879, that house’s past owners included Capt. Wells E. Kemp and Edwin Tobin, a keeper of the Cahoon Hollow Life-Saving Station in the early 1900s. As reported in the Independent at the time, the new owners had no interest in preserving the house and were simply waiting out the expiration of the delay order.
Local businessman Mac Hay purchased the Briar Lane property a few months before the delay period ended and after some renovation continued its previous use as year-round apartments.
