#116 - The Homestead at North Beach, Hampton, NH, c1830 (08/08/93)

200 years at the beach: House has gone with the flow

This postcard of The Homestead on Hampton’s North Beach seems easy to decipher – a Greek Revival farm house built around 1830, its gable detailed as a pediment, facing the sun and High Street. Its barns to the left, it seems to be a farm that became an inn, as the beach became a tourist destination. Then I talked to the current owners, who are only the fifth family to own the house, and read Joseph Dow’s 1892 book, History of Hampton. They told me that the house was built by John Elkins on the knoll called Nut Island, just off North Beach, around 1800. Moses Leavitt bought it in 1802, just before the birth of the fifth of his twelve children.

The 1806 map of Hampton notes M. Leavitt’s tavern at the edge of the beach, so this house has in fact been a hotel for almost 200 years. That surprised me. I expected farms and fishing shacks at the beach in the early 1800s, but why a hotel? Who stayed here? The answer is that fishermen and fishmongers from Vermont came in the winter, and bought frozen fish to sell back in Vermont and Canada. While they were there, the barn housed their wagons and horses. Leavitt’s tavern had a summer trade as well – houses at the beach are listed as taking summer boarders as early as 1826. Dow’s History calls the Homestead ‘famous’ and notes that it is currently (in 1892) being run by Leavitt’s grandson, Jacob.

Over the years the house has grown from its original one story size. The corner pilasters, the square moldings at the windows and doors, and the tall stately chimneys probably all date from an expansion in the 1830s. Today, the house has balconies all around, and is called The Windjammer. The stone outcropping seen to the left in the postcard is now the edge of the town parking lot.

(aerial photo taken in 1929, and is from the Lane Memorial Library's excellent online archives -ed)

#114 - The Stone Cottage, Hampton Beach, 1894 (07/18/93)

Stone Cottage beats sun, sand near the seashore; postcard courtesy of Hampton Historical Society

Sun, sand and sea! The perfect summer combination, the reason for a house at the beach! Unfortunately, they are also the reason why beach houses look weather beaten. The salt air, the beating sun, and the blown sand are not easy on wood construction, to say nothing of the destructive power of blizzards and hurricanes. But look here, a stone bungalow, impervious to wind and sun, with a low roof and wide porch protecting the inhabitants within, as well as inviting the summer guests to relax and enjoy the weather and view. The stone columns at the porch are solid, their cornerstones and those of the chimneys neatly placed. The arches below are carefully laid up. These stones will only… ( missing text)…house will still be standing. (Missing text)…be etched a little smoother, articulated a little more finely by blown sand and salt water. In a storm the ocean will wash over and past the house, into the marsh behind.

The Stone Cottage, as this bungalow is referred to, was built by Mrs. Mary Aiken in 1894, as her summer house. She lived in Franklin, NH, but had grown up locally – the mill stones above the second floor windows came from her family home in Hampton Falls. The bungalow style focused on natural materials . Stone piers were common, with deep mortar joints that emphasized and articulated each stone’s shape and size. Here you can see that each stone was placed so it could be noticed and appreciated by the idle lounger on the veranda.

This photo came from the postcard collection of the Hampton Historical Society, which has an excellent collection of maps and object dating back to the 1600s, and postcards from the late 1800s and early 1900s, including relics from the trolley line that ran in front of the Stone Cottage from 1897 to 1926.