Lukas Scott of Nauset Media
Why buy one home when you can buy two handfuls of them?
In the outer Cape Cod town of Wellfleet, Mass., a historic cluster of midcentury modern bungalows has listed for $5 million — ripe for a buyer on the hunt for an investment, which could include running vacation rentals in a popular summer destination.
Built in the late 1940s by the architects Nathaniel Saltonstall and Oliver P. Morton, the eight homes range from 600 to 750 square feet and are all built to get maximum sunlight.
“Saltonstall and Morton were an interesting firm, as they were doing a kind of upscale New England modernism for mostly wealthy clients at a time when it was still viewed with great suspicion, especially in the provincial Boston area,” Peter McMahon, the executive director of the Cape Cod Modern House Trust, told Boston.com.
The current listing marks the first time the adorable array of picturesque cottages, which are officially named the Wellfleet Colony, has hit the market since Boston artist Loris Stefani purchased the complex from Saltonsall in 1963 and transformed it into a hotel.
Originally, the Colony (as it’s known locally) had 11 cottages spread over 10 acres, and the grounds additionally had a laundry building, a storage shed, a kitchen and an office built around an art gallery.
Also, those staying in the wee homes enjoyed maid service, and often the company of A-list celebrities. For a time, the Colony became a “haven” for fans of midcentury-modern architecture, and past guests “have included actors Paul Newman and Faye Dunaway, writers Lionel and Diana Trilling, Bernard Malamud, William Shirer,” artists, professors, poets, psychiatrists, such as Margaret Mahler, a pioneer in mother-baby attachment research, and generations of guests who continue to find The Colony of Wellfleet as inviting and magical as ever,” and others boasts the Colony’s website.
Today the compound — the technical address for which is 25 Way #55 — is set on just under 4 acres. In all, the listing says the property includes 13 full bathrooms and 15 bedrooms, with some of the cottages offering Cape Cod Bay views and others looking out over the adjacent Chequessett Yacht & Country Club.
The listing is held by Gibson Sotheby’s International Realty.