(2011)
Talk about paintings lining the walls! After Louis Lima and Jerome Crepeau bought this house in 2002, they discovered 130 works on Upton board — many of them impressionistic “mudhead” portrait studies — nailed in the wall cavities as insulation. They underscored the building’s use by Henry Hensche, whose Cape School of Art was quartered at 44-48 Pearl; then by James Kirk Merrick, a student of Hensche’s; then by Lois Griffel, a Hensche student who continued the school until 2000. Lima and Crepeau salvaged all but six paintings, which they left in situ as artistic Easter eggs, for the pleasure of a future owner to discover. The owners since 2009 have been Paul Kelly and Edward Dusek, principals in Manitou Architects, whose renovations uncovered evidence that the building started as a farm outbuilding, then was converted into north-facing studios.
The painter George Morrison (1919-2000), who was honored in 2022 by commemorative stamps featuring five of his canvases, was here at least one summer, in 1958.1
¶ Adapted from Building Provincetown (2015).
Rosemary Hillard wrote on 7 July 2011: I love the fact that Jerome and Louis left some “artistic Easter eggs” for future owners to discover … how perfectly Provincetown.
1 Provincetown Advocate, 19 June 1958, Page 2.