(2010)
Masthead Resort and Cottages.
From 31 to 41 Commercial Street are seven buildings on 450 feet of beachfront, collectively the Masthead Resort and Cottages, owned and operated since 1959 by John Joseph Ciluzzi (1923-2017) and Valerie V. Ciluzzi. What seems at first like a completely random group can actually be discerned as a symmetrical compound of three substantial houses at the ends and center — No. 31, the Old Furniture Shop; No. 37, a Long Point floater; and No. 41, the Helena Rubinstein summer home — with two cottages in each of the two interstices.
The assemblage was begun more than a century ago by the Hendrick family, which owned the lots that are now Nos. 31, 33 and 35. In 1911, Edith C. Hendrick acquired the lot at No. 39 from Jose Garalha. In the 1940s, Edith I. Hendrick operated an antiques store at No. 31 in partnership with Arthur E. Anderson, a native of Sweden and, like Miss Hendrick, a resident of Worcester. In 1943, Hendrick and Anderson together acquired No. 37, thereby unifying the assemblage all the way to — but not including — No. 41, which was owned at the time by Helena Rubinstein. Anderson was finally able to buy the Rubinstein house in 1945, by which time he alone was described as the operator of the Old Furniture Shop.
Anderson’s accommodations were known in the 1950s as the Masthead Cottages. He and his wife, Olive, sold the Masthead to John and Dorothy Ciluzzi of New Jersey in 1959. They improved the property, but not too much. ”Some people have criticized us for not modernizing here,” Ciluzzi told Pru Sowers of The Banner in 2009. “But this is authentic Cape Cod.” Besides running the Masthead, Ciluzzi was known as an avid and accomplished tennis player, and a familiar figure at the Provincetown Tennis Club.
Unifying the disparate collection of buildings is a seawall that has permitted construction of an unusually large garden, atop a loam infill behind the wall, and a 400-foot private boardwalk.
For a view of the Old Furniture Shop, please see 31 Commercial Street.
For a view of the Boathouse Cottage, please see 33 Commercial Street.
For a view of the Richards Cottage, please see 35 Commercial Street.
For a view of the Ciluzzi residence, please see 37 Commercial Street.
For a view of the Isabella Rossellini Cottage, please see 39 Commercial Street.
For a view of the Masthead A Condominium, please see 39A Commercial Street.
For a view of the Masthead B Condominium, please see 41 Commercial Street.
For a view of the Helena Rubinstein Cottage, please see 41A Commercial Street.
For a view of the Masthead dock, please see 41 Commercial Street.
¶ Adapted from Building Provincetown (2015).
John E. Ciluzzi wrote on 11 February 2015: The bell was part of the Boston Harbor system. [My father] doesn’t believe it came from Delft Haven. Arthur Anderson inherited the Masthead from Edith Hendricks; he worked for her and she taught him the antiques business. The fact that Anderson was a carpenter accounts for the fact of much of the fine carpentry at the Masthead. The wooden Indian statue stood at front door of 31 Commercial Street and was familiar to many tourists and residents of Cape Cod. Arthur Anderson offered it to John Ciluzzi, who was not interested in receiving. It was sold to an antique dealer in Orleans for over $1,000 in 1959.