Napi Van Dereck Archives - The Provincetown Independent

Napi Van Dereck

EVICTION DEADLINE

Former Napi’s Workers Still Have Nowhere to Go

Manager Sabuda said he wanted no Black employees, Jamaicans charge

By Cam Blair Aug 25, 2021

PROVINCETOWN — With seven days remaining before the Aug. 31 deadline on their eviction notices, five former employees of Napi’s Restaurant still had nowhere to go as of Tuesday this week.

Delroy Brennan and Ellis Wilson said that in the preceding week the general manager at Napi’s, Dan Sabuda, has tried to get them to leave even before the 31st, telling them that their apartments were already supposed to be vacated. Wilson said that Sabuda had showed up one night after midnight “banging on the door,” and that his family is “afraid.”

One of the renters, former Napi’s dishwasher Kay Spence, told the Independent, “It’s not like we want to stay here — it’s just that we can’t find anywhere else.”

Spence and Dwight Sangster have looked for housing as far away as Brewster. Another renter, Eileen Spence, said she inquired at Nauset Green, which offers affordable units in Eastham, and was told to check back in the winter.

The renters, all Jamaican, received eviction letters at the end of July. Bernard McEneaney, executor of the Van Dereck estate, said the five are being evicted because they no longer work at the restaurant. McEneaney, Napi Van Dereck’s longtime financial adviser, stated that the housing, owned by the estate, has always been contingent on employment at Napi’s. The renters dispute McEneaney’s contention that their housing was conditional on working at Napi’s.

Marie Boni, a former office employee at Napi’s Restaurant who worked under both Van Dereck and McEneaney, also contradicts McEneaney’s assertion. “That was never conditional,” she said. “It was never implied you had to work there.” Boni was fired by McEneaney in 2020.

McEneaney said that the five former employees quit their jobs. But the Jamaicans all said they were fired, and two of them said it was done in an explicitly discriminatory way. Dwight Sangster and Craig Parks, another former employee, each said that Sabuda had told them he wanted no Black people working in the restaurant.

McEneaney and Sabuda did not respond to the Independent’s requests for comment this week on the charges made by the Jamaican tenants. Anthony Alva, the Hyannis attorney whose office delivered the eviction notices for McEneaney, was contacted by phone but declined to comment.

After Aug. 31, if the tenants are still occupying the apartments, McEneaney may file a complaint in Orleans District Court. A judge could then order the tenants to vacate by a certain date. In instances where there is a verbal lease agreement, or at least no evidence of a written lease, as in this case, there are “not a whole lot of defenses” for tenants, said Hyannis attorney Michael Pierce.

Pierce, who lists landlord-tenant disputes among his specialties, said that the federal eviction moratorium, renewed earlier this month by the Centers for Disease Control, offers protection to most tenants, but that “there’s a lot of interpretation as to its scope.”

The Supreme Court will likely soon hear a case brought by a group of landlords in Alabama and Georgia asking to strike down the moratorium. On Aug. 20, a federal appeals court upheld it, but since that ruling the landlords have asked the Supreme Court to step in to block it.

Although the Supreme Court upheld the last moratorium in a 5-4 ruling in June, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who voted with the majority then, has recently said he believed the CDC overstepped its jurisdiction.

The current CDC moratorium replaced the earlier eviction ban, which lapsed in July. The current one covers areas of the country experiencing “substantial and high levels” of Covid transmission, including Barnstable County.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 3.5 million people say they face eviction in the next two months.

PROBATE

They Worked for Napi for Years; Now They’re Being Evicted

After being fired by new management, they say, Jamaican workers must leave longtime homes

By Ben Glickman and Cam Blair Aug 18, 2021

PROVINCETOWN — Anton “Napi” Van Dereck Haunstrup, the late art collector and owner of Napi’s Restaurant, had no children. But Ellis Wilson, he often told friends, was “the son he never had.”

Wilson, 46, came to Provincetown from Jamaica for the first time in 2006 to work at Angel Foods. He got a second job as a dishwasher at Napi’s, and Van Dereck provided him with a place to live. Summer after summer, Wilson returned, eventually bringing his family with him in 2016.

In 2011, Napi helped Wilson apply for a green card, granted two years later, allowing him and his family to live permanently in Provincetown. Wilson worked his way up at the restaurant, eventually taking over maintenance of Napi’s dozen or more properties across town.

For decades, Napi helped many other Jamaicans establish lives in Provincetown. Now, less than two years after his death, those lives are being uprooted.

In May, Wilson said, he was fired by those in charge of Napi’s estate because he had taken a second job during the pandemic. He was told he would have to leave his apartment, where he lives with his wife and three sons.

Four other Jamaican employees, including three who worked for Napi for almost 20 years, say they also were fired.

Dan Sabuda, the current manager at Napi’s, refused multiple requests to be interviewed for this article. But Berni McEneaney of Marstons Mills, Napi’s longtime financial adviser and the executor of his estate, has denied that anyone was fired. In a phone call on Monday, McEneaney said, “Nobody was let go from Napi’s. Period.”

Instead, he said, the former employees voluntarily stopped working at the restaurant when it reopened in May. “In all cases, they were not available to come back,” he said.

The former employees all contradict McEneaney’s denial.

“We did not quit,” said Tony Cleary, the former kitchen manager and a tenant of Napi’s for 19 years. “We did not leave the restaurant. We were all fired and evicted.”

An Aug. 31 Deadline

Ellis Wilson began looking for new housing but found nothing. At the end of July, he received an eviction notice from McEneaney’s lawyer. He has until Aug. 31 to vacate his apartment at 5 Freeman St.

“I just want to protect my family and get out of there,” said Wilson. He said he doesn’t know what he will do if he can’t find housing.

Wilson is one of seven Jamaican employees who told the Independent they had already been or are currently being evicted from housing provided by Van Dereck. Of those, five say they were fired around the time the restaurant reopened last spring.

A part of “Napi-ville,” the complex of units at 25-27A Bradford St. where Napi Van Dereck provided housing for his restaurant workers. (Photo Ben Glickman)

Napi and his wife, Helen Haunstrup, founded Napi’s in 1978. They built it from the remains of garages where the two ran a flea market on Freeman Street.

Napi was known for bringing Jamaican workers to Provincetown. He provided rental housing in more than a dozen properties he owned, including ones on Bradford and Freeman streets, next to the restaurant.

Napi died on Christmas Day 2019. His will specified that Helen assume control of all his property, including the restaurant, apartments, and a sizable art collection. A 2021 court document valued the Van Dereck estate at over $18 million.

Shortly after Napi’s death, a legal battle began over control of the estate, and over his wife’s care. Helen, 81, was diagnosed with dementia in 2018, according to court documents. In January 2020, her primary care physician stated that she was no longer able to manage the business or her finances. Judy Saffron, Napi’s half-sister, and McEneaney both sought legal control in probate court.

McEneaney won and was appointed conservator of the estate by Judge Arthur C. Ryley. The case regarding the guardianship of Helen Haunstrup, however, is ongoing.

Documents from the conservatorship case show that McEneaney argued that he understood and would adhere to Helen’s wishes better than anyone else. His representative made the case that McEneaney could run the restaurant in the same way that Napi and Helen had done for decades, in order to support Helen’s well-being as well as Napi’s legacy.

“It was important to them to provide folks in the community year-round employment and housing…. This is evident by the number of long-term employees they have,” reads one letter submitted in the conservatorship case. “They did not have children; their employees and customers are their family and community.”

‘Everything Is Lies’

The former employees were evicted because their housing was provided only as long as they worked at the restaurant, McEneaney said this week. That has always been the way it worked, he added, including when Van Dereck was alive.

McEneaney declined to comment on individual cases, citing the legal implications of divulging workers’ information and the fact that he is not involved with the “day-to-day operations” at the restaurant.

Responding to a phone call attempting to reach Sabuda, office assistant Lisa Meads said of the Jamaicans, “I don’t want to waste our time on those people. Everything is lies.” Anthony Alva, the attorney retained by McEneaney to carry out the evictions, did not respond to requests for comment.

The Independent spoke to nine former employees at Napi’s Restaurant who had recently left their housing or are now under threat of eviction, including Dwight Sangster, who worked in the kitchen. Wilson and Sangster both received letters ordering them to vacate their properties and stating that “your occupancy … was entirely arranged and contingent upon your employment by Napi’s Restaurant.”

The Independent also obtained eviction notices and other letters from four of the former employees. Only one — sent to Delroy Brennan, who worked in the kitchen for 19 years — cites a cause. Brennan’s notice stated that he was $1,200 behind on rent and that he had 14 days to vacate his apartment at 7 Standish St.

A June 17 cease-and-desist letter sent by attorney Alva to Sangster alleges that he was illegally subletting his unit without permission and living with Kay Spence, who had worked as a dishwasher since 2016 and is in a relationship with Sangster. Spence disputes this: she says that Sangster had allowed several family members to stay with him briefly, and occasionally stayed with her.

An eviction notice sent to Sangster, dated July 30, does not mention this allegation or any other cause.

Eviction Moratorium Could Help

A new federal eviction moratorium announced by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Aug. 3, replacing the previous moratorium that expired Aug. 1, protects renters living in communities experiencing substantial or high transmission of Covid-19. That includes the Outer Cape.

According to attorney Michael Pierce of Hyannis, who specializes in landlord-tenant disputes, the moratorium should protect tenants from eviction in almost all cases, unless “they endanger the health and safety of other tenants.” But “the moratorium is new and open to interpretation, and so there is a lot up in the air,” he said.

Several long-tenured employees say they were informed in May, when Napi’s reopened after being closed since December 2020, that they were being let go. Brennan was informed by phone in May that he was no longer on the schedule. Spence was asked about her availability in May but was never contacted again.

Kevin Linsey learned he had been fired from a notice left on his car, which was parked at Napi’s. It read: “Private Parking. After today You will be towed.”

Linsey, who had worked and rented from Van Dereck for 19 years, said neither Sabuda nor Meads would admit to leaving the notice, but that neither questioned its implication: he was no longer an employee. Other employees said they had similar notices placed on their vehicles.

Of the seven who face eviction, five have not found new places to live.

Eileen Spence, who worked at Napi’s for several months in 2020 but rented her Freeman Street apartment from Van Dereck since 2009, received an eviction notice on July 31. She must vacate her apartment by the end of August. “I don’t know where to turn right now,” she said. “Maybe I’m going to be on the street.”

Spence said her apartment was never tied to employment at the restaurant. “Napi would never do something like this,” she said. “They’re just using brute force and trying to manipulate people.”

Tony Cleary, the former kitchen manager, showed the Independent a text he received from Lisa Meads during an exchange following his termination: “Good luck to you and your minions!” she wrote. “Why don’t you all move to an island with the thief Judy!”

“Judy” is Napi’s half-sister, Judy Saffron, who said she also was ordered out of the apartment Napi had provided for her when he asked her to come to Provincetown to help care for Helen in 2018, more than a year before he died.

Cleary said, “We all feel like we’ve been betrayed.”

MUSEUM TOUR

Napi Van Dereck Exhibit Sequel Opens at PAAM

Works by noteworthy women artists are featured

By Saskia Maxwell Keller Jan 27, 2021

napi1 — Commercial Street, Provincetown (1911), by Margery Austen Ryerson. (Photos Saskia Maxwell Keller)

An exhibition of artworks from the collection of Napi and Helen Van Dereck opened last Friday at the Provincetown Art Association and Museum. The first installment of this show took place in March of last year, a few months after Napi, the beloved restaurateur and art collector, died. Because of the Covid lockdown, the exhibit was viewable only online before opening to the public for the summer.

This second installment (“Part II”) proves that Napi’s extensive collection of classic Provincetown art, which is on extended loan to the museum, is far from exhausted. It’s full of gems by Ross Moffett, George Yater, and others. But most notable is the representation of women artists.

Out of 32 artworks, 10 are by women. That’s not equal representation, but it’s pretty good, especially considering that much of the work dates from the early 20th century. The exhibition last March was even better in this regard — about half of the works were by women artists.

In the introduction to last March’s show, curator and PAAM CEO Christine McCarthy wrote that Napi was a “champion of women artists.” She also conferred with James Bakker, a local art dealer, historian, and PAAM board member, who is a strong advocate for the women artists who have been largely absent from the Provincetown art colony historical narrative.

napi2 — Street Scene, Provincetown, undated, by Pauline Palmer.

One small disappointment, however, is that the extraordinary Blanche Lazzell, though mentioned in the introduction, is not included in Part II.

Margery Austen Ryerson’s Commercial Street, Provincetown, dated 1911, is small and easy to miss but a highlight of the exhibit. Ryerson lived to be 102 — she even witnessed her centennial show, according to a catalogue by Avis Berman — but she was only in her mid 20s when she painted Commercial Street.

She studied with Charles Webster Hawthorne in Provincetown in the summers from 1911 to 1920. She was, clearly, a good student — Hawthorne’s influence can be seen in the way that the headlights of a vintage automobile are suggested with two swirls of white. A gentleman’s overalls are rendered with two crisscrossed strokes of blue. Ryerson used a lot of paint — evidenced in the way the painting has caked and cracked — and loose, fluid brushstrokes.

Ryerson’s notebooks were the source for the majority of the art text Hawthorne on Painting, which she edited. In New York City, she studied with Robert Henri — she compiled his book The Art Spirit — and painted children in settlement houses.

Though the subjects and vantage point of Ryerson’s Commercial Street and Street Scene, Provincetown, by Pauline Palmer, are nearly identical, the two paintings couldn’t be more different. Palmer was a Chicago-based artist who studied with William Merritt Chase, then came to Provincetown to study with Hawthorne, one of Chase’s students.

She won numerous awards throughout her life. “Palmer was often one of the few women to serve on exhibition juries that were still largely dominated by male artists,” writes Ruth L. Bohan as part of the Illinois Historical Art Project.

Despite the growing dominance of modernism, Palmer maintained a conservative style as long as she painted. In Street Scene, she outlines buildings, trees, and figures in black. One can almost make out the colorful signs outside the striped storefront awnings.

Another interesting backstory from the exhibit is that of Alice Y. Hirsh, who painted Untitled (Pier at Low Tide), a rather unassuming oil on panel from 1916. The tall pilings are reflected in the pale blue water, as are the two people sitting on the pier. The impressionist influence is manifest.

napi3 — West End Looking Southwest from St. Peter’s (circa 1920s), by Nancy Maybin Ferguson.

Hirsch studied at the Art Students League of New York. By 1917, she had established her own studio at 51 West 10th St., in Greenwich Village. “She directly marketed her own works from this location and through shows,” which was “quite uncommon,” according to the exhibition label.

The focal points of the Napi show, however, are four paintings from the 1920s by Nancy Maybin Ferguson: East End View, West End Looking Southwest from St. Peter’s, and two untitled oils of the Wren Tower and North Truro Center.

Ferguson, a member of the “Philadelphia Ten,” a group of women artists who showed together, also studied with Hawthorne and Chase.

These bird’s-eye views, slightly oblique, are reminiscent of old map prints, such as Jacopo de’ Barbari’s View of Venice. Indeed, there is something Italian about West End Looking Southwest — St. Peter the Apostle Church, captured here before it was rebuilt after a 2005 fire, could almost be a Renaissance chiesa.

Classic Provincetown

The event: “The Napi and Helen Van Dereck Collection: Part II”

The time: Hourlong time slots from Thursday through Sunday, noon to 5 p.m. Space is limited; reservations at paam.org/tickets

The place: Provincetown Art Association and Museum, 460 Commercial St.

The cost: Museum admission is $12.50; members free

OBITUARY

Anton ‘Napi’ Van Dereck Haunstrup Is Dead at 87

The restaurateur, art collector, and nature lover was larger than life

By K.C. Myers Jan 2, 2020

PROVINCETOWN — Anton “Napi” Van Dereck Haunstrup, 87, who held onto the town’s rustic, bohemian past with his vast art collection, his stock of employee housing, and his 45-year-old restaurant, died at Cape Cod Hospital on Christmas Day due to complications from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and pneumonia.

In one of Provincetown’s two “Napi-villes,” a warren of humble dwellings with stunning views of the Long Point lighthouse, his tenants last week were mourning the loss of the man and worrying about their future. Van Dereck, who was rarely called by either his actual first or last names, created Napi’s restaurant in 1975 and acquired over a dozen properties in town, including clusters at 25 to 27A Bradford Street and around his restaurant on Freeman Street. The buildings house his employees and others and are mostly occupied year-round.

“They are more affordable than affordable housing in this town,” said Frances Cutter, a Bradford Street tenant.

Van Dereck was known as a landlord who provided safe harbors for Provincetown workers and dreamers who are not millionaires, Cutter said. She met Van Dereck when she worked on a whale-watch boat. A lover of nature and animals, he was a major supporter of the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies.

Down at the restaurant, one can trace the organic way in which the talented and visionary Van Dereck grew his empire from found objects, old wood, stained glass, handmade lights of scallop shells, and a brick wall jutting at strange angles near the bar. The restaurant itself was built from old garages where Van Dereck and his wife, Helen Haunstrup, had run a flea market on Freeman Street. The brick wall was made by the late artist Conrad Malicoat.

The restaurant’s décor owes a debt to one of Van Dereck’s best friends, the late artist Jackson Lambert, said Jim Bakker, an art dealer who fed Van Dereck’s voracious appetite for old Provincetown art.

Above the bar is a handmade model dragger called the Panther. It was built by another of Van Dereck’s best friends, Richard “Dickie” Oldenquist, who went down with the Patricia Marie, a scalloper, in 1976. The Panther was the model for a boat that Oldenquist dreamed of having one day.

“Very few times did Napi shed copious tears in public, but he could do so at the thought of Dickie” was a notable line in his official obituary, produced by the Gately Funeral Home.

During his long stewardship of the restaurant, Van Dereck stayed open year-round when most of his competitors shut down for the off season. He even added lunch in winter only, from October through Mother’s Day.

“It was kind of wonderful,” Bakker said. “The winter was not a money-maker. But he was good to his staff and they were good to him. He wanted to have a year-round place and he was fortunate to buy places for his employees.” Despite multiple attempts to contact his staff, the Independent was unable to interview them.

The properties making up the Napi-ville on Bradford Street are assessed by the town of Provincetown at $2 million and include eight buildings with 15 bedrooms. The dwellings, which still have cesspools, are about as pre-existing nonconforming as you can get.

The property includes what was once the Barnstormers’ Theater, an oddly shaped 1915 venue where a version of the Provincetown Players performed. A tower that must have been the stage still shoots up from an otherwise ordinary house. The building is part of the history of the town that Van Dereck spent his life recapturing in art.

Van Dereck wanted to show his art collection and so his restaurant became a personal museum.

One of Napi’s favorite pieces, of men working on a fishing net, hangs over the dining room’s cozy wood stove, Bakker said. It’s a Ross Moffett, one of many Van Dereck owned.

He did not collect to acquire the works of particular artists, Bakker said. He collected art that reminded him of his childhood. He’d buy multiple paintings of the same tree, home, ice house, or wharf, because every artist had a different take on the subjects that he loved.

The Gately obituary adds that his deep reverence for art was a way to celebrate his father, the artist Anton “Tony” Van Dereck Haunstrup.

Napi was born in Des Plaines, Ill., on March 12, 1932, but was conceived in Provincetown at Captain Jack’s Wharf, Bakker said. His mother, Catherine Murphy, known as “Pat,” and his father moved back and forth between New York City and Provincetown until Tony died when Napi was 11.

His mother then married Jay Saffron, a cameraman, and in 1947 MGM/Metro News sent Saffron and the family to Egypt and Israel. The Eye of Horus symbol, which is a relic that appears in various forms in Napi’s restaurant, harks back to that time.

Napi attended the Governor Bradford School in Provincetown, Friends Academy and Manumit Academy in New York City, and Rhodes Preparatory School, and eventually graduated from Johns Hopkins University in Maryland after a three-year stint in Alaska with the U.S. Coast Guard.

Stories vary as to when he was given his nickname, but all agree that it was short for “Napoleon.” He was opinionated. His love for history, for nature, for art, and for his Provincetown made him a fierce protector and passionate storyteller.

One of Napi’s favorite sayings: “The way it used to was.”

Bakker, who met the Van Derecks in 1985 when they came to one of his auctions in Cambridge, moved to Provincetown because of Napi’s insistence that he run the annual benefit auction for the Provincetown Art Association and Museum (PAAM).

They shared a love and deep knowledge of Provincetown art. Van Dereck amassed hundreds of works. At auctions, if Napi wanted something, he got it.

“He kept his hand up,” Bakker said.

Buying art was Van Dereck’s one vice, Bakker said. Napi and Helen lived across the street from the restaurant. They did not own fancy cars. Napi ate at Napi’s every day, Bakker said.

He never sold his art.

For years, the two art lovers concocted plans for displaying Van Dereck’s collection. They had a draft of a book with over 80 works and plans for a permanent exhibit at the Pilgrim Monument and Provincetown Museum. None of this came to fruition. The plan now, Bakker said, is that Van Dereck’s collection will be given to PAAM.

Art, sailing, and animals aside, probably his greatest passion was reading. “He was a voracious reader consuming book after book and never letting a day go by without reading the New York Times and doing the crossword puzzle,” noted Gately’s obituary. “He could tell you the histories of the world but could also expound in infinite detail the life of a termite.”

In addition to his wife of 57 years, Helen Haunstrup, and a sister, Judith B. Saffron, he is survived by a brother, Moe Van Dereck.

Family and friends are invited to call at the Gately Funeral Home, 94 Harry Kemp Way, Provincetown on Friday, Jan. 3 from 4 to 7 p.m. A graveside service will take place Saturday, Jan. 4^,at 10 a.m. at Provincetown Cemetery, 24 Cemetery Road.

Donations in Napi’s memory may be made to the Center for Coastal Studies, 5 Holway Ave., Provincetown 02657.

REMEMBERING NAPI

Friends Reflect On Napi Van Dereck

By The Independent Jan 2, 2020

Napi Van Dereck’s Single-Minded Pursuit

Peppery, garrulous, ebullient, discerning, resourceful, crafty, steeped in local lore, and deeply rooted on the Outer Cape, Napi Van Dereck may have looked like an ornery eccentric, but he had the instincts of a master. He, his wife, Helen, and a crew of imaginative artists and artisans — Jackson Lambert, Conrad Malicoat, Frank Milby, and Bob Baker among them — turned a bunch of dilapidated garages off Freeman Street into a restaurant that has been in business since 1975.

More than a restaurant, however, Napi’s is also a rich showcase of Provincetown artwork. The Van Derecks’ unmatched collection is the product of his single-minded pursuit over the decades of figurative paintings that speak directly to the history of the town, especially its wharves and boatyards.
You can’t survive in Provincetown as long as Napi did without ruffling some feathers, or getting a few of your own trimmed.

But as a host, he was utterly beguiling and generous. If he caught you perusing a canvas, he might amble over to tell you its story; identifying the schooner or pier or cottage you were looking at, explaining why the structure took the form it did, telling tales about the people whose lives intersected it, and fitting it all into the greater Provincetown panorama.

And, thanks to Napi, there was always a story. —David W. Dunlap

Never to Be Equaled

It was such a treat to discover a unique painting, show it to Napi, then learn all about the story behind the subject. Whenever I found something special, I’d give him a call and his booming voice would soon appear at the door. Recently I called him about a small painting by Vollian Rann of Chesco’s Restaurant, which used to be right across from my gallery on Bradford Street.

I’ve known Napi since he returned to town and built Napi’s with his wife, Helen, his brother, Moe, the artist and musician, and my brother-in-law, the artist Bill Fitts. (Bill and Moe built many bulkheads along the waterfront.) According to Josephine Del Deo, Napi’s mother, the artist “Pat” Van Dereck Saffron, was the first to suggest an artist’s residency that led to the formation of the Fine Arts Work Center, with founders including Salvatore and Josephine Del Deo and my parents, Hudson and Ione Walker.

It is true that any time a guest known to Napi visited the restaurant, Napi would join them, talking about his latest painting acquisition or town story. Sometimes he stayed through the entire meal.

Napi’s enthusiastic, yes, often bombastic, rambling observations and stories will be missed and will never be equaled. —Berta Walker

THE YEAR-ROUNDER

Napi: An Appreciation

By Dennis Minsky Jan 2, 2020

Back in 1969 we acquired a street dog named Napi. He was a real son of a bitch. I wanted to call him Walt (Whitman), but the name just wouldn’t stick for some reason. After being abandoned by some heartless soul, the dog had taken up temporary residence on Helen and Napi Van Dereck’s recently arrived sailboat, so we called him Napi. (We couldn’t very well call him Helen.)

Napi the dog was a most independent soul, an outlaw, a lover, a fighter, and a roamer. I spent many days searching the town for him, trying to bring him home before Philly Alexander, the town’s dogcatcher, apprehended him. I remember one late winter afternoon going down Alden Street (I think it was) shouting, “Napi! Napi! Napi!” when a window suddenly flew open and the estimable Pat Saffron leaned out and called, “What do you want with my son?” A small town experience. Pat Saffron died on Christmas Day in 1993.

Her son, that son, Napi Van Dereck, died on Christmas Day 2019. He joins many other good people who left this town this year. He will probably garner a bigger obituary, not because he was better than others, but because he was bigger:outsized, larger than life, a force to be reckoned with, in your face. Napi: whatever he was, he was ours.

Napi Van Dereck at his restaurant — Napi could often be found at the back table near the bar of his restaurant. (Photo courtesy Jim Bakker)

People are saying it is the end of an era, and it is true. Napi’s life spanned an important segment of Provincetown’s history, and he was a major player in that history. Imagine: Harry Kemp (1883-1960) would buy little Napi an occasional cookie at Tillie’s Market. How many people alive today go back to those days, when an eccentric poet was a town mainstay? Napi told me once that he remembered the town road that became Route 6 being staked out.

Napi was a real boatman. He knew his boats. He was a constant presence on the wharf. He was a staunch supporter of the Center for Coastal Studies from the very beginning. Its mission was his mission. He was a major collector of art and a patron of artists, none more than Jackson Lambert: Napi saw the genius in him, and in so many others. Napi’s renowned collection of local art now outlives him as an entity unto itself.

Napi was a Beachcomber in good standing (there is no other kind). Napi was a businessman who created a restaurant that, like his art, will outlive him and serve this town. The place is indescribable: a hodge-podge of art and artifact and unusual features that tell you at once that you are not in a usual restaurant.

When I say “Napi” I mean Napi and Helen: no better example of a couple complementing each other exists. He was the front man, and she the strong woman behind the scenes. They accomplished it all together.

Adjectives for Napi: cantankerous, over the top, solipsistic, obstinate; he had a healthy ego; he was a competitive talker. He had to make his point and he had to win every argument. (“You’re not listening to me!”) Ever wonder how he got his name? It was bestowed on him, he told me, as a very young child by his stepfather, and is short for Napoleon — in recognition, even then, of these qualities.

These same qualities, which (mostly) endeared him to us all, did not work in every circumstance. Napi remembered working as a dishwasher at Ciro and Sal’s in the early ’70s, but I remember him on the floor, as a busboy — and not a very good one. My then-girlfriend-now-wife Deborah was the hostess, and she would say something like, “Napi, take those two deuces and make a four-top, and set the home table for a party of eight…,” or something like that, whereupon Napi would pause, reflect, and say, “No, I think it would be better to use the four-top at the corner table and keep the two deuces and use the family table for the party of eight.” And so the debate went on, as the people waited to be seated.

Ah, Napi: seat them any which way. You were ours, and this town is the better for it and will truly never be the same.