Fairhaven Architecture, Part 1

Fairhaven is an architecture lover's dream.  When Diane, the kids & I went to Fort Phoenix, we passed by this huge cathedral and I couldn't wait to take pics of it!!  It's the Unitarian church and I wish it had been open so I could see the inside.  

That's my car parked in front of it, for scale purposes.

 The stonework is breathtaking

Flying buttresses!

I assume this is a copper door.  The patina is lovely and the detail is exquisite.

This is next door and I think serves as the church's offices.

This whole neighbourhood is full of old homes and almost all of them have plaques on them showing the approximate or exact date of construction with the historical family name on them.  A lot of them were the homes of ship captains and built in the mid 1800s.

This is a private residence!

Dennis & Yarmouth

After leaving Scargo Tower, I got back on Rte. 6A and drove west through Dennis & Yarmouth.  In all the time I lived there growing up, if my parents did this drive I was bored to tears and it felt interminable.  It's not a drive I made as a teen or in my early 20s either.  Except once, and I'll get to that below.  I sure appreciate the beauty and quaintness now though!

First stop in the main part of Dennis was Nancy's Candy.  I only bought a bright blue glass bottle here. There were surprisingly no good magnets or postcards but it had the best selection of penny candy that I've seen in a real long time.  Really brought me back. Plus she also makes chocolate candy and she works on it in the store so you can watch too.

Out of curiosity, I wandered behind the store to find a few artisans and shops.

I'm sure you can imagine my reaction when I spotted this bottle tree....have I mentioned how much I love cobalt glass????  

I thought this was brilliant.  Pottery shards embedded in the cement foundation all the way around the pottery shop.

Bunting is very popular in this region and it looks striking on the old buildings, bandstands and wrap around porches of the oldest homes. 

I only took a few steps in to check out the dates on those graves.  They were very worn but I saw some from the 1700s. 

OK....so I may have made a trip or two out here in the late 80s, when I was immersed in all things Grateful Dead and had an all consuming crush on Bob Weir.  I wanted this sign.  Reeeeeeally bad.  One night in the fall of 1988, Holly & I decided to take a drive up here under the cover of darkness and try to steal it.  We went in her Dodge Dart because it was so much bigger than my Toyota, in case we had to steal the whole pole.  So we get here and we rocked the shit out of the pole to get it out of the ground so that we could work on the bolts.  Unfortunately, about 5' of pole came out of the ground, making what we thought was a  fairly short pole, twice as long. Those bolts are rusted on good and we couldn't budge them.  We decided there was no way we'd get back to Sandwich w/o being pulled over by the cops due to a 12' street sign pole sticking out of her car, so we abandoned our quest.  

Aaanywho, continuing on our tour down Rte. 6A, the next town west of Dennis is Yarmouth.  And incidentally, I could easily have kept pulling over to take pictures of the homes & shops, but I didn't.  The next stop for me was the Edward Gorey House, but I'll cover that in a post of it's own.  This church is across from the Gorey House.

And this old Inn is next to the Gorey House.  

I was trying to find a really cool tree I saw in a photo, out behind the Yarmouth Port post office and found this cobbler's shop/museum instead, ca. 1850.

 A good example of the kinds of old homes along Rte 6A.  The date on the chimney is 1680.  

After leaving Yarmouth, I went through Barnstable Village previously featured, and then got on the highway at Exit 6 to head home.  

Still so much more to see!!