Save the View to the Windmill…Again!

In February, a local realtor hammered a “For Sale” sign on Main Street just west of Drummer Boy Park.   It was a new listing for a 1- acre, ready-to go-building lot right next to BCT’s Windmill Meadows on Route 6A.  Asking price – $175,000.  Immediately, the BCT saw the opportunity to save the whole sweep of meadow in front of the windmill.  We couldn’t take the chance that someone would buy it and build a big house on this historic property – blocking forever the open view to the windmill and the Bay.  So we have set out to buy it.   After all, we had already saved this view once in 1987!

All over Cape Cod, there are memorable views – signature scenes that stay with us.  For people who summer here, these are the memories they carry home, and want to see again – proof of their return to the Cape. For those of us lucky enough to live here, these are the places that tell us we’re home, that where we live is special, beautiful – a place we carry in our hearts always.

Many of these iconic scenes barely escaped disappearing forever.  The Fort Hill meadow was already laid out as a subdivision when the National Seashore came along in 1962.  The Roland Nickerson Estate donated 1700 acres to the Commonwealth in East Brewster in 1937, so all can enjoy not only bike and walking trails but also the broad view from the hill above Cliff Pond.   Brewster Town Meeting found the funds so we can enjoy forever the sweep of the Brewster marshes and the view from 6A across Drummer Boy Park to the Bay beyond.

The Brewster Conservation Trust understood very early the importance of this Bayside view.  In 1987, the BCT purchased the acre of meadow directly in front of the old Higgins Windmill, for a whopping (for us and for then) $146,000.    For a few years, at  BCT monthly meetings the trustees would pass the hat just to pay the interest on the loan.  (The mortgage burning was eventful!)  But saving that acre was the most important thing – not only to prevent a house from being built in front of the windmill, but to preserve the feel and look of an older time, when open meadows abounded.  Now, when you drive by on 6A, the acre between the road and the windmill is saved forever – as Windmill Meadow.

The two acres next to Drummer Boy Park are expensive – but invaluable!  Strewn with large glacial erratics, including Whale Rock; dotted with native wild cherry trees; home to nesting swallows; verdant with meadow flowers – Windmill Meadows joins the host of great Cape Cod views and open space, for all time.