Family says goodbye to Westhampton Beach cabana

Members of an extended family are mourning the loss of a Westhampton Beach bathhouse that they have used for generations.

Every one of the 253 members of five local families—the O’Brians, the DeYoes, the Peterkins, the Smiths and the Balfes—has shared the Westhampton Beach cabana at one point or another over the past 65 years, said John Peterkin, 81, of Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida.

The small structure located at 85 Dune Road in Westhampton Beach, just a few houses east of Rogers Beach and an adjacent property at 83 Dune Road, were sold on Tuesday, September 8. The cabana will eventually be demolished and replaced by a new structure, according to former owner Elise Brouilette, 48, the cousin of Mr. Peterkin.

“I can’t think of anyone who didn’t use the cabana,” Mr. Peterkin said. “No family within the radius of 20 miles, no one had as much fun as we did at that cabana.”

The white cabana features a large, open window and is one of the last bathhouses—a small cabin with no bedrooms—on Dune Road. Most of the traditional cabanas typically featured a single large room on the top floor and changing rooms and bathrooms on the ground floor.

Ms. Brouilette, formerly a DeYoe, said skyrocketing property taxes forced her family’s hand in deciding to sell the 800-square-foot cabana. She couldn’t say exactly how much the property taxes had increased, only that they have quadrupled over the years. She also declined to name the buyer or the selling price.

“No one lives there,” she said. “We can’t maintain a house that gets used for two months out of the year.”

The properties at 83 Dune Road and 85 Dune Road have been in Ms. Brouilette’s family since 1892, when her and Mr. Peterkin’s ancestors used that land to cultivate seaweed that they would bring back to their farm near Turkey Bridge in Westhampton Beach, Mr. Peterkin said. They used the seaweed as fertilizer. The small bathhouse was built on the property in 1945.

Ms. Brouilette said the cabana is near and dear to her family, and members are very emotional over this week’s sale. In fact, some were too upset to talk about it.

“It’s very sad,” Mr. Peterkin added.

He recalled the summers when he and his family gathered on the beach near the cabana for barbecues and so they could watch fishermen pull bluefish out of the ocean.

Ms. Brouilette recalled family gatherings during which three generations of family members gathered together to cook.

“Five thousand lobsters have been consumed at that cabana,” Mr. Peterkin said. “That’s not an exaggeration.”

Ms. Brouilette, who now lives in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, said the small cabana is a rare structure indicative of the lifestyle of Dune Road when people started vacationing there in the 1940s. She lamented the loss of a structure with such historical significance.

“The face of Westhampton has changed a hundredfold,” she said. “This bathhouse has not changed.”

Local historians were not able to confirm if 85 Dune Road is the last bathhouse on Dune Road. It is certainly one of the last, said Meredith Murray, a Westhampton Beach resident who penned two local history books, “Steamed Crabs and Cranberries” in 2000 and “The Magic Boat and the People Who Sailed It” in 2007.

“I’d have to stare at each house on Dune Road to say it’s the last,” she said, mentioning that there are still a few bay-side cabins on Dune Road. “It’s safe to say that it’s one of the very few left.”

Cabanas were built along Dune Road in the early 1900s, typically by people who owned homes inland but wanted a place where they could change and shower after spending a day at the beach, Ms. Murray said.

The Hurricane of 1938 destroyed most of the bathhouses. Those that did withstand the storm’s 130-mph winds were eventually knocked down and built over once the values of oceanfront properties skyrocketed, she said.

Also, there are some small homes along Dune Road in the Village of West Hampton Dunes, though none are traditional cabanas, according to Mayor Gary Vegliante. Most of the older structures along the western end of Dune Road were knocked down in the early 1990s.

Local real estate agents, meanwhile, also said that they could not confirm if the cabana at 85 Dune Road in Westhampton Beach was the last of its kind. They did agree that it is now an endangered species.

“It’s truly a unique structure,” said Nancy Malin, a broker with Westhampton Beach Real Estate on Main Street in the village.