PROVINCETOWN — A property where a lively part of the East End’s commercial and cultural life has long unfolded is up for sale, generating interest from developers and concern from neighbors.
John Ciluzzi, president of Premier Commercial, a real estate brokerage, called 467 Commercial St. a “one of a kind” offering in a March 6 interview, shortly after the 16,000-square-foot lot, which includes the Angel Foods market, was listed for $6.4 million. It’s one of the last remaining open sites on Provincetown’s waterfront, and “it’s generating a lot of interest,” said Ciluzzi.
The real estate listing states: “The parcel has many potential uses including mixed use, residential, commercial and land development options.”
The property, owned by three generations of Bryants since 1945, has had a market on it for the last 120 years serving the close-knit East End neighborhood. An undeveloped part of the lot has provided parking for Angel Foods since 1997.
The land at 467 Commercial is owned by relatives of the town’s late local historian George Bryant, who lived next door at 471 Commercial. George’s brother, Eugene Bryant, who lives in Maine, has a 50-percent ownership share, while George’s two sons, Hale and Eric Bryant, each have 25-percent shares.
In mid-February, the family submitted a request to the planning board to divide the parcel into three lots, which would give prospective buyers the opportunity to purchase a portion of the property rather than the whole.
It might also allow Eugene to retain ownership of a share of the property. He would prefer not to sell. “It’s been in my family for 100 years,” he said in a phone interview on March 6.
Because each of the three new lots would have road frontage, dividing the property can be accomplished under an “approval not required” subdivision procedure that doesn’t trigger a public hearing. Town Planner Thaddeus Soulé has recommended that the planning board endorse the subdivision at its March 13 work session.
The lot with the market on it would have 6,000 square feet, and the two other lots, one that is now the market’s parking lot and the other an adjacent open area with a blacksmith’s shed put there by George Bryant, would each have 5,000 square feet.
According to Eugene Bryant, a developer made an offer of $2.8 million on the two undeveloped lots even before the property was put on the market.
A Market With History
Liz Lovati and her then-business partner, Alan Cullinane, leased the market building from Eugene Bryant in 1993 and opened Angel Foods there in 1997. One of the store’s early promotional slogans was “Shop at Angel Foods and Go to Heaven.”
Lovati continued running the market after the partnership ended in 2006. The rent has remained reasonable, she told the Independent on March 8, and over the years she has paid for several repairs and upgrades. According to Lovati, rumors of the property’s sale have been circulating since fall. If the parking area is developed, she said, it would no longer make sense for her to run her market there.
She doesn’t want that to happen. “I’m attached to the East End and my customers,” Lovati said. “I raised my family there. I’ve had long-term employees for decades. Countless memories and firsts happened there.” Lovati said the parking lot, filled with pieces of broken crockery scattered there by George, is a place where people gather. Customers can buy a sandwich and eat it in the parking area, enjoying the view of the harbor.
Lovati also owns Liz’s Cafe on Bradford Street, so for her the market is not about money, she said. It’s about carrying on the legacy. “Marie Louise ran that store into her 80s,” Lovati said, referring to George Bryant’s mother, who ran Bryant’s Market starting in 1945.
“I was proud to pick up her watch, and it allowed me to live in this beautiful community and raise two children,” Lovati said. “I can’t imagine Angel Foods not being there.”
According to David W. Dunlap’s Building Provincetown, in the 19th century the Cook brothers ran a thriving whaling and fishing business at 467 Commercial, where they built a 900-foot-long wharf and maintained a shipyard. A chandlery, selling ship equipment and supplies, operated in what is now Angel Foods. In 1879, failing fortunes of the whaling and fishing industries caused the Cooks to go bankrupt, and the property went to the Consolidated Weir Company.
In 1904, Clarence Burch rented the building and opened Burch’s Market. He later bought the property. In 1945, Burch’s nephew, Duncan Bryant, and his wife, Marie Louise, bought the building and renamed the store Bryant’s Market. The couple had three sons: George, Eugene, and Stuart. Duncan died in 1967, but Marie Louise continued to run the store into the 1990s, frequently with George’s help.
Provincetown Arts Society founder Ken Fulk and his husband, Kurt Wootton, own 471 Commercial, adjacent to Angel Foods. They bought the house, which had belonged to Marie Louise Bryant, in 2012. George Bryant had lived in the house for many years, filling both the interior and the yard with all sorts of items he collected, much to the consternation of town health officials. Eugene Bryant sold the property to pay the $800,000 owed in taxes on his mother’s estate.
Fulk, a San Francisco-based designer, and Wootton, who split their time between Provincetown and the West Coast, kept the Bryants’ legacy in mind as they restored the house, Fulk said. “We became stewards of what we call the Bryant house,” Fulk said. A large Mischa Richter photograph of George and a picture of Marie Louise in her wedding dress that was left there are both on display in the house.
In 2018, Fulk and Wootton bought the Mary Heaton Vorse house, at 466 Commercial, which they have restored, and created the Provincetown Arts Society, supporting “artists of all genres,” according to its website, and offering programs and residencies year-round.
The Neighbors Unite
“I think all of us were caught a little off guard when the family decided they were going to sell it,” said Fulk of the property across the street from the Vorse house. That possibility has brought the neighbors together.
“There is a group of us who have talked about how we could rally together and save it,” Fulk said. “The fantasy would be that the store would be preserved, and Liz would be the caretaker of it, and the lots would be preserved, and there would be public space there and some arts programming.”
The group may raise enough for the whole parcel or may only be able to purchase a piece of it. Any purchase would be subject to what “fits” in with the family’s plans, Fulk said. His relationship with the Bryants is cordial, he said.
Fulk said he is optimistic. “We’ll do something to save it,” he said. “I recognize all the challenges of it, but there are always opportunities for better outcomes, and I feel hopeful.”
