Nantasket Beach has one public bathhouse – the Art Deco structure built after embers from the 1929 Thanksgiving fire at the steamboat pier heavily damaged the old building – but at one time, the shore was dotted with several businesses that catered to tourists looking to spend a day at the beach.
One Hull Historical Society member’s collection contains several artifacts of that era: Key tags from bathhouses at the Ocean Gardens, Hurley’s, and Buttimer’s at Nantasket Point. The numbered metal tokens were attached to key rings and given to patrons to secure lockers to store their “street clothes” while they rented “bathing costumes,” towels, chairs, and umbrellas for their day at the beach.
These businesses served a need at the turn of the last century, as plumbing and wastewater disposal systems were not yet standard in people’s homes. In response, private bathhouses, some built by the hotel companies and some independent, sprung up on the shore.
In July 1891, The Boston Globe’s description of a typical beach scene illustrated how complex bathing suits were at that time: “At Nantasket on a Sunday, fair girls promenade for some time upon the beach in bathing costumes before the big crowds arrive. They look as trim and neat as pretty girls well can in the sensational bathing costumes they adopt. Brightly contrasted blue and white are the favorite color; all the women affect black hose for bathing this summer. A little white canvas bathing slipper, strapped or tied fast, completes the costume down. The girls tie fancy handkerchiefs over oilskin caps to keep their hair dry, and they have some kind of scarf tied in a sailor knot under a broad collar at the neck. … The pretty girls promenade the sands about the bath houses in their bathing costumes, and sometimes get their photographs taken in them.”
One of the older, lesser-known bathhouses was Buttimer’s, located along the Weir River at Nantasket Point. In 1901, two years after the state took control of the first mile of Nantasket Beach and four years before the opening of Paragon Park, a group of Hull town officials opened a resort at the tip of what we now call Sunset Point. They wanted to escape the state regulation of liquor sales that was imposed at the main beach, and disliked losing control of the amusement district. The group built a steamboat pier on the Weir River and eventually convinced the trolley company to run streetcars along the “Nantasket Road” out to the point.
The new amusement area had all the attractions of the beachfront – a roller coaster, merry-go-round, theater, clambake pavilion, hotel, and a 40-room bathhouse to serve beachgoers. The resort survived only until the 1908 season, facing competition from Paragon Park at the main beach. Most of the buildings, including the old bathhouse, were removed by the new owners, who renamed the area Sunset Point and divided the land into house lots.
Another business that operated a bathhouse was the Ocean Gardens, a huge complex located in what is now the center building of the Nantasket Beach Resort. Opened in 1916, the Ocean Gardens featured a second-floor ballroom, bowling alley, and ground-level stores, as well as a bathhouse with 2,000 lockers. The business advertised woolen swimsuit rentals and a direct path over the railroad tracks to the ocean. The Ocean Gardens became the Surf Ballroom in 1957, but not before hosting amateur boxing and wrestling matches, class reunions, weddings, and charity events for decades. In August 1952, future President John F. Kennedy held a “homecoming rally” in its function room during his campaign for the U.S. Senate. Kennedy and his sister, Jean, were led into town by a torchlight parade to the event, which was attended by nearly 500 people.
In the 1920s, the brisk business at the Ocean Gardens inspired another local entrepreneur, John J. Hurley, to open Hurley’s Bathhouse in 1928 at the foot of Atlantic Hill. This private business rented umbrellas, beach chairs, bathing suits, towels, and clothing lockers to daytrippers, who could shower and change clothes before heading home or out to eat at one of Hull’s restaurants.
After Hurley’s death, his son, Arthur Louis (known around Hull as “Louie”), operated the bathhouse and lived on site with his family. One by one, Hurley’s competitors closed as public bathhouses became less popular – in fact, the current Mary Jeanette Murray Bathhouse sat empty for years before being rebuilt two decades ago.
In 1968, Hurley proposed building a five-story, 94-unit apartment building on the hill behind his business. Area residents objected, and in September 1971 he sold the bathhouse and several vacant lots atop Atlantic Rocks to the newly formed Atlantic Aquarium Trust. The old bathhouse was taken down and replaced by the boxy concrete-block building that now occupies the site.
Today, a sign outside the former aquarium at the Nantasket Avenue edge of the property marks a small square dedicated to Arthur Louis Hurley, a veteran of World War II, a small reminder of the many private bathhouses that once served Nantasket Beach.
