The original Beacon Studio was the old green cottage behind Pico Beach.
It was built 1906 using rough pine siding from the old mill up on North Street.. Situated behind the Pico Beach dunes on the edge of the Pine Island Brook estuary facing SW.
Vertical rough pine clapboards provides a unique rustic look
It’s a beautiful location that encourages staying for a while
It’s a very private place surrounded by a well protected south coast estuary on the western shore of Buzzards Bay. Right next to the water it has views of the bay from Cuttyhunk to Falmouth.
It has a unique microclimate that’s warm in the winter and cool in the summer. We are surrounded by cedar, holly and tupelo trees (Nyssa sylvatica). Tupelo trees are called “beetlebung” trees on Marth’s Vineyard. All three trees provide shade for the cottage and food for the many birds and small animals that live by the salt marsh.
light and dark interact with a birdhouse gourd in our tupelo grove.
Tupelo trees are typically part of a tree colony that grow near swamp lands or estuaries. Although tupelos will grow from seeds, new saplings sprout out of mature tree roots extending the colony size.
Tupelos are an important food source for many migrating birds especially robins in the fall. They are that last trees to produce leaves in spring and the first to turn red usually in mid-august. Their early color change attract birds to the available fruit, which ripen before many other fall fruits and berries.
One of our tupelo or beetlebung groves in fall.
In the early 1900s the Dexter family started to sell off some of their farm land south of Pine Island Road down to Pico Beach. Hoping to attract summer residents from Boston they divided up the land into proposed colonies. One of the early colonies was the Cedars which lies on the eastern side of the Pico Beach brook estuary. The old cottage was the first one built back in 1906. It was made out of pine beams and slabs from the Hartley Mill in Rochester.
The old green cottage behind Pico Beach after a spring rain
The mature cedar trees surrounding the front yard were planted by my grandmother, Lillian Spear about 1954 after hurricane Carol.