Homeport Condominium | Harbor Lights (Unit 6).
“Aside from repairing rot and repainting a few peeling spots, we are delighted with it,” Gerard Hayward of Essex told me in November 2018, six months after he and his husband, Thomas Beale, purchased Harbor Lights. “We have no plans for updates, renovations, gentrifications, or calling in a wrecking ball and rebuilding. No weekly rentals either. We intend to live in it.
“Given my past career in historic preservation, and a childhood spent on the Cape, I am rather enamored of ‘Cottage Colony’ architecture,” Hayward continued. “There are few such cottages left intact. (Even this place got the obligatory granite countertops and stainless steel appliances a few years ago.) But after a 30-plus-year search for a little cottage of our own, we are very pleased to have acquired it.” They sound like the ideal owners.
Harbor Lights was standing by 1939 and was part of the Home Port Housekeeping Cottages, developed by Anna Wilson “Nan” (Lyle) Hancock (1887-1962). She lived at 262 Bradford Street, which is now a separate property. At the time of the condo conversion in 1990 — by John V. Cunney Jr., Philip D. Scholl, and Jared A. Wollaston of Boston — there was a kitchen-living room, a bedroom, and a bathroom downstairs, and a sleeping loft upstairs. The unit had 515 square feet of space, making it the largest in the complex.
¶ Last updated on 23 November 2018.
262A Bradford Street on the Town Map.
Gerard Hayward wrote on 21 November 2018: My husband Tom Beale, and I bought it last May. Aside from repairing rot and repainting a few peeling spots, we are delighted with it. We have no plans for updates, renovations, gentrifications, or calling in a wrecking ball and rebuilding. No weekly rentals either. We intend to live in it. Given my past career in historic preservation, and a childhood spent on the Cape, I am rather enamored of ‘Cottage Colony’ architecture. There are few such cottages left intact. (Even this place got the obligatory granite countertops and stainless steel appliances a few years ago.) But after a 30-plus-year search for a little cottage of our own, we are very pleased to have acquired it. Your book is a wonder of research and documentation. I am reading about buildings I have admired for decades. (And mourning those lost.) It is an amazing resource. Thank you so much for your continuing efforts!
Homeport Condominium | Former Home Port Housekeeping Cottages, 262A Bradford Street.
Homeport Condominium | Pearl (Unit 1), 262A Bradford Street.
Homeport Condominium | Pilgrim (Unit 2), 262A Bradford Street.
Homeport Condominium | Sea Fox (Unit 3), 262A Bradford Street.
Homeport Condominium | The Nunz (Unit 4), 262A Bradford Street.
Homeport Condominium | Mayflower (Unit 5), 262A Bradford Street.
Thumbnail image: Photo, 2013, from the Town Assessor, Key 3399.