GRAY GABLES — In 1890, future U.S. President Grover Cleveland purchased a home on this Buzzards Bay peninsula, renovated it and called it Gray Gables. The home served as the summer White House from 1893-1896, and it is from this historic property that the unique Bourne neighborhood of Gray Gables takes its name. It’s a special place, right at the mouth of the Cape Cod Canal, with Massachusetts Maritime Academy right around the corner.
This week’s featured three-bedroom home sits right on picturesque Gray Gables Beach, encircled by Gray Gables Cove, and includes many new updates plus large picture and bay windows for breathtaking views — relax and enjoy. The kitchen features cherry cabinetry, granite countertops and new stainless steel appliances. The living room, besides offering beach views from all new windows, features mahogany hardwood floors and a wood-burning fireplace.
Photo courtesy of Kinlin Grover Real Estate.
Set up for complete first-floor living, the master bedroom offer stellar views like the living room, and a sliding glass door that opens out to the backyard is outfitted with remote control blinds. A wood-burning fireplace adds to the cozy vibe in this master.
Heading downstairs, you have a spectacularly finished, full lower-level walk-out basement with all new windows and woodwork, upscale laminate floors and a gas fireplace — it doesn’t even feel like a basement. It walks out to a patio of blue Goshen stone imported from the Berkshires, and features an outside shower with foot bath, and a large outdoor soapstone sink — great for the gardener or the fisherman.
The backyard also features some fine elements, including zen gardens, stone sculptures that light up at night, and a beautiful fire pit — hang out here with friends and family and watch the sunset over the beach — the home faces directly west. The back patio features a sunset awning with perimeter lights, and nine zones for irrigation means your lawn will always be green. This property has it all: attention to detail, high end upgrades and the perfect location. A shell driveway completes the quintessential Cape Cod look.
‘The most-used playground in all of the Town of Barnstable’
CENTERVILLE — Over the course of the past few months, workers with the Barnstable Department of Public Works have been putting their carpentry skills to use, making improvements to the Centerville Recreation Building.
The historic building at 524 Main St. has hardwood floors throughout, which will all be refurbished, tall ceilings and huge windows. Patti Machado, the town’s recreation director, also pointed out the new, gray wainscoting along the entrance hallway walls, which continues throughout the large open rooms and into the newly redesigned bathrooms.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” asked Machado of the classic-looking gray wall décor. “It not only looks nice, but the wainscoting will help with long-term maintenance.”
Brand-new doors have recently been installed, as well as new floor tiles in the public restrooms.
The multifunctional building gets an upgrade
“They also made all new covers for the radiators,” Machado said, pointing out the streamlined covers, painted in the same gray.
The work is being funded through the town’s capital improvement budget and Community Preservation Act funds, with some additional funding from the Centerville Historical Society.
The multifunctional building is host to a Summer Leisure Program for students going into first through fifth grade. The program, which runs for eight weeks, features activities such as arts and crafts, games and outings such as mini golf and bowling. The building can also be rented out for use as a venue.
During the annual Centerville Christmas Stroll, one room has been traditionally used by balloon twisters who make balloon animals for kids. Historically, the building was used as a post office and an elementary school.
Historic painting will be restored
The inside of the building sprawls from one historic room to the next. Upstairs houses perhaps the biggest surprise, a still intact mural of two fishermen out on the sea. The mural was painted in 1935 by Vernon Coleman (1946-1978), a prominent artist of the day who taught art in the Barnstable Public Schools before retiring in the mid-1960s.
With the help of the Community Preservation Committee and the Centerville Historical Society, the historic painting will be restored, Machado said.
But improvements don’t stop with the building itself. There are big plans for the playground.
The playground outside the Centerville Recreation Building will be replaced with one that is compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act. (Marina Davalos/Barnstable Patriot)
Playground plans
“This is the most-used playground in all of the town of Barnstable,” Machado said of the playground outside.
The playground hustles and bustles with kids on swings, sliding down the slide and running around, creating childhood memories, especially during the Summer Leisure Program.
“It looks intact, but it’s no longer up to code,” Machado said, looking from the building’s parking lot to the playground. She cites an out-of-code handicap ramp, tires that kids climb on that over time fill up with water or collect bees’ nests, and a slide that broke and had to be removed. Tops on wooden pilings need to be rounded so kids can’t climb up on them.
Machado said earlier this month Town Architect Mark Marinaccio went before the CPC to request funding for improvements to the playground.
“The new improvements will have to meet guidelines as set by the (Americans with Disabilities Act),” Machado said.
The existing playground will be demolished, and the ground will be raised 3 feet to make the space compliant. Machado said that over $800,000 in funds were approved by the CPC for the project, which next goes before the Town Council to be voted on. If approved, the project will be put out to bid.
“If all goes well, I would bet that by the end of the summer we’d be able to start,” Machado said. “It all should fall in line — we’ll finish the building, so the kids will be in there for the summer program, and we want the kids to have a playground for the summer, then it can be demolished and built anew.”
EASTHAM – You know that feeling when you walk into a home and it just feels perfect? That’s how we feel about this Eastham vacation home.
It’s one of those 1950s Cape Cod vacation homes reminiscent of yesteryear, with those old, solid hardwood floors, paneling on the walls (painted white) and a great hearty fireplace right in the middle of the open floor plan. The entire floor plan flows around it, creating perfect gathering spaces.
You walk into a living room with wide floor boards and lots of windows. A silhouette of a tree is painted on the walls, giving a fun modern vibe. This is actually one of two living room areas that open to each other. The kitchen from here flows to the right, boasting a cathedral ceiling and granite countertops, and we love the solid feel of painted white brickwork – this would be the back of the chimney, with the fireplace around the corner in that second living room space.
The kitchen first opens into a dining area, featuring sliding glass doors that lead out to a sizable back deck. Then, we circle around to the other living room, anchored by that fireplace. Though a vacation home, it can be lived in year-round, and this fireplace would be so cozy with a roaring fire. Three bedrooms – two smaller and one primary – line the living room areas. One features fabulous painted white paneling and a lovely window seat.
We love this home, and it sits in a quiet vacation enclave less than a half-mile from Thumpertown Beach.
This once was one of the Cape’s thriving “revival” enclaves in the mid-1800s, a Methodist community where people would come from as far as Boston to camp and worship. According to coastalneighborhoods.com, the “thumping and hollering” of these visitors led to the coining of the name Thumpertown.
ituated between Sunken Meadow and First Encounter beaches, Thumpertown features a long, steep staircase leading down to the beach, and you can walk seemingly for miles in either direction, taking in the sunset.
Lobbies and other hotel public spaces have become more than their generic counterparts of decades past, often with spaces deliberately designed for guests to be able to hang out and work on their devices. Today’s trends revolve around technology and mobility, says Matt Davis, founding partner of DesignAgency, designers of Toronto’s Broadview Hotel. “It’s also about community, creating socially engaging spaces,” he adds.
Hotelier highlights how trends in the design of hotel public spaces are being implemented across the country — from historic properties to the latest new builds.
THE WALPER HOTEL, KITCHENER, ONT. The Walper Hotel, built in 1893, completed a full renovation in 2016, updated with an aesthetically pleasing, ultra-modern flair.
Bennett Lo, principal at Dialogue 38 — one of the design firms that worked on the project — points out just a couple of decades ago, when people wanted a workspace away from home or the office, they’d go to a library. Now, people gravitate to coffee shops, lounging with laptops and other devices. Lo says, regionally, many new projects are being designed to accommodate tech-savvy, Internet-age clientele, as Kitchener and the surrounding area is home to tech giants such as Blackberry and Google’s new R&D office.
Instead of providing guests with straight-up lobby space, hotel spaces are being designed with a “coffee-shop” feel, with plenty of places to sit and plug in. “The overall trend is people working with technology and they seem to be working in a lot of different spaces,” he says.
The 92-room boutique hotel is outfitted with not just a first-floor lobby, but a second-floor one as well and both are striking, airy white spaces brightened with splashes of colour and modernist, abstract artwork on the walls. Thoughtfully designed lighting highlights elements of the decor and lends an energy to the space — creating an intriguing, inviting atmosphere for guests.
The second-floor lobby features a bar and a variety of seating areas — tables, the bar, couches — offering a range of spaces where guests can sit with their devices. “We wanted to activate the [second-floor] lobby. We kept the similar look and feel of the first-floor lobby, but it has a different function, with separate but interconnected spaces,” says Lo.
JW MARRIOTT ICE DISTRICT, EDMONTON In the spring of 2019, the brand-new JW Marriott Ice District will open its doors within Canada’s largest mixed-use sports-and-entertainment district. Located on the first 22 floors of a mixed-use project that has become Edmonton’s tallest building, floors 23 to 56 will house high-end residential condos. The front of the building features a glass façade for an entirely modern vibe. The lobby is huge and features a bar and plenty of options for those on the go with their devices.
The project’s coordinating design architect, Michael Sugarman, says trends are changing the way in which business people use lobbies. “There is a general trend toward the expectation of being able to use the space — ‘this-should-work-for-me’ attitude,” he says.
Sugarman also notes table and desk sizes are becoming smaller, the focus being on immediate resources, ripping away from formality and deference. “A meeting in a JW lobby will be face-to-face with a drink — you don’t need a big table, for example,” he says.
The design of hotel public spaces also needs to transition from daytime to nighttime, says Sugarman, and not become an empty space at night. “We’re trying to activate the space,” he says, “The lobby becomes the place to be. We like to think of the lobby at the JW Marriott as the living room of the district.”
THE BROADVIEW HOTEL, TORONTO Prior to becoming The Broadview Hotel,this historic building in Toronto’s east end went through several incarnations. Built as a retail space in 1891, it was intermittently used as a hotel, but its most well-known stint was as a boarding house and the notorious Jilly’s Strip Club, which closed in 2014. The Romanesque building was in such rough shape, it almost fell down due to structural damage. When Streetcar Developments and Dream Unlimited purchased the property in 2014, they opted to turn the property into a 58-room boutique hotel.
DesignAgency’s Matt Davis wanted the project’s design to reflect the narrative of the building, which is layered with many experiences. “It’s not about appearances alone — it has a story. The design ties back to the narrative,” he says, adding hotels are embracing the older paradigm of guests being in the community at large. “Classically, it used to be this way,” says Davis. “The post office would be in the hotel, for example, and then that all went away. Today, there’s been a resurgence in community.”
In the Broadview Café & Bar, pink neon rods, curved to abstractly resemble the curve of a woman’s face, hang overhead at the horseshoe-shaped bar, harkening back to a more notorious time in the hotel’s history. The bar itself is, by its nature, more socially engaging than a traditional bar. “It puts the mixologist on display. It activates a social experience,” notes Davis.
Among the property’s notable new features is its Rooftop Restaurant — from the street, it’s a modern, giant glass box placed on top of the roof, contrasting with the hotel’s 1800s architecture. From inside, the glass walls give striking 360° views of the city and hanging plants create a greenhouse vibe. Tables are also positioned close
FAIRMONT EMPRESS, VICTORIA Originally opened in 1908, the elegant Fairmont Empress sits on Victoria’s Inner Harbour and is recognized as one of the world’s most iconic buildings. In 2017, the property underwent a major redesign, featuring a curated art program by Eaton Fine Art.
“When it comes to curating art for a property, what’s important is that it represents the locale, without being too literal,” says Terry Eaton, who co-owns the company along with partner Robert Williams. “In the lobby mezzanine, for example, the artwork mimics the interior design’s elegance with motifs of brocade patterns and floral bouquets,” he notes, adding pieces of art here show paint spilling over the canvas — a dramatic expression meant to mimic the grand staircase spilling out into the lobby.
Several framed pieces in the lobby — a combination of abstract photography and paintings in both warm and cool tones — celebrate the gardens surrounding the property and the manicured landscapes of Victoria. “Golds and greys are reminiscent of a foggy morning,” says Eaton, adding he prefers to curate art that captures a vibe on an abstract level, rather than a literal one.
Eaton Fine Art also curated 10 framed pieces in the fitness area and 21 in the Willow Stream Spa, which reflect the harbour the property sits on.
At least twice a week, Inaho’s owner/chef Yuji Watanabe makes an early morning trip to Boston’s fish markets—where he shops for the freshest local seafood. He’ll purchase a whole salmon, tuna or whitefish to serve in the restaurant that night. “He’s a fanatic about freshness,” says his wife, Alda Watanabe. “If it’s not in season, it just doesn’t taste right.”
The Watanabes opened Inaho on April 28, 1989, originally on Main Street in Hyannis. Alda says that while sushi was embraced by some, it was a difficult start. “People were like, ‘Raw fish? No thank you,’” laughs Alda. She says that when they moved their restaurant to Yarmouth Port in 1992, people would say, “You’re crazy, opening a Japanese restaurant in little Yarmouth Port!”
The Watanabes met in 1988 in Newport, Rhode Island, where Yuji was a sushi chef. “I’d gone out for sushi and he was the one who made my food,” Alda says fondly. Before then, Yuji had been a sushi chef in New York City for more than 10 years. Originally from Miyagi Prefecture, about 100 miles north of Tokyo, Yuji has done his share of traveling, including, in his 20s, bicycling around Australia for a year. After he and Alda met, they decided to quit their jobs—his as a sushi chef in Newport, hers at a car dealership—move to Cape Cod and open a Japanese restaurant. Alda says it took a couple of years to build a clientele. But little by little, people would try sushi.
Today, Inaho flourishes, with a waiting list for a table nearly every night. It’s been a family affair. The Watanabes have two sons—Hayato, now 26 and studying to be a lawyer at the University of Michigan; and Hiroto, 20, a pre-med student at Tufts University. They grew up with Inaho. “For them, there was school and a lot of Inaho time.” It was tough work, Alda says. “Sometimes we’d work six days a week throughout the year. We’d be lucky to squeeze in the beach for 15 minutes.”
According to Alda, one of the most popular dinner items, is scallops and lemon. A whole lemon or lime is hollowed out and cut in half. Scallops are mixed in spicy mayo sauce with roe and placed inside the hollowed-out lemon cup. For appetizers, customers love the eggplant with sweet, hot miso on top. “It bubbles up and it’s served piping hot,” says Alda, adding that traditionally Japanese cuisine is ordered for the table, like ordering a bunch of appetizers and sharing. “We bring it out as it’s made, so it’s not just sitting around.”
Popular sushi rolls are the dragon rolls—orange, red or double dragon. The Sophia roll has a seafood mix topped with sliced maguro and crispy fried onions with a spicy garlic ponzu sauce. Another customer favorite is shrimp and veggie tempura. The word Inaho means “ear of rice.” Alda explains: “Each kernel, as it bends over, and it’s heavy, means a good harvest, abundance. If there’s no rice in the house, you can’t do anything.”
![The Centerville Recreation Building is undergoing renovations and restoration. [Marina Davalos/Barnstable Patriot]](https://www.gannett-cdn.com/presto/2021/03/24/NBAR/d124b5ec-09c5-4bf8-9fa1-2e60d1488603-Centerville_Rec_bldg.jpg?width=660&height=495&fit=crop&format=pjpg&auto=webp)
![The playground outside the Centerville Recreation Building will be replaced with one that is compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act. [Marina Davalos/Barnstable Patriot]](https://www.gannett-cdn.com/presto/2021/03/24/NBAR/e6161d21-a00a-4503-92ea-4a7848c851da-Centerville_Rec_w_Swings.jpg?width=660&height=495&fit=crop&format=pjpg&auto=webp)
