Jonathan Williams Salon and Spa | 139A Bradford Street Condominium (Unit 1).
The one-story retail addition to the main house at 139A Bradford Street was added some time between 1938 (when it does not appear on the street atlas) and 1948 (when it does). I’d guess it was built after World War II, rather than during the Depression. Peter J. Tompkins bought the property in 1986 and moved his salon, Peter Tompkins Hair Deezines, from 8 Freeman Street. It was here that Roberta (Sawyer) “Bubbles” McKay of the Governor Bradford earned her memorable nickname. “He had a nickname for everybody,” she said of Tompkins during our chat in 2011. “And I used to do the shampooing — so I was ‘Bubbles.’” The business was still thriving in the early 1990s, year-round, when Gillian Drake wrote about it in The Complete Guide to Provincetown: “Provincetown’s longest-established hair salon, and still the most entertaining.” McKay told me that Tompkins had died of a heart attack while dancing at his niece’s wedding (a story I haven’t yet corroborated, I must add). In the early 2000s, the business was known as the Bradford Hair Shop.
Photo of 139A Bradford Street in 2018 by David W. Dunlap.
Jonathan Williams and his husband, Scott Caldwell, incorporated the Jonathan Williams Salon in 2005. Williams, an alumnus of the Savannah College of Art and Design, had come to Provincetown’s attention in the 1990s when Michael Lussier tapped him — or, rather, tapped his uncanny Celine Dion — for Legends, featuring “America’s Top Celebrity Look-Alikes,” at the Crown & Anchor. He and Caldwell bought Unit 1 in the newly created 139A Bradford Street Condominium in 2006 for $410,000. Today, the Jonathan Williams Salon and Spa offers manicures and pedicures from $25 up, hair styling from $40 up, massages from $70 up, and spa treatments from $205 up, as well as other services.
The landing page of Jonathan Williams’s website, as it appeared in 2019.
¶ Last updated on 6 October 2019.
139A Bradford Street on the Town Map.
Also at 139A Bradford Street:
Thumbnail image: Photo, 2011, by David W. Dunlap.
For further research online:
• Jonathan Williams
Jonathan Williams Salon and Spa website.
“The Many Faces of Jonathan Williams,” by Ann Wood, The Provincetown Banner/Wicked Local, 27 November 2015.