Collins' Cottages Timber Dock

The Collins Cottages Historic District occupies a 2.7-acre wedge of land in southeastern Eastham that slopes from State Highway (Route 6) down to Town Cove. It comprises seven small Craftsman-style cottages (six built in 1928-29, one in 1946) along with a 1936 fieldstone seawall and a 1940 shucking house, unified by their small scale, one-story height, weathered wood-shingle siding, low roofs with exposed rafter ends, and screened cove-facing verandas. Built largely from salvaged materials including former chicken coops and paneling from the Chatham Naval Air Station, the colony was developed by Lewis Henry Collins, a Nauset Life Saving Station surfman and shellfisherman, and his son Bernard, whose family also ran a Town Cove shellfishing operation. The district is significant as one of the few well-preserved early-20th-century cottage colonies remaining on Cape Cod, representing the region's summer tourism boom as well as its maritime shellfishing history, and it has remained in the ownership of the family that built it.

Collins' Cottages Timber Dock is a landmark in Eastham, Barnstable County. It is one of 6,558 landmarks documented in Barnstable County, among 6,897 historic sites cataloged across the county on MassRoam.

The site sits at 41.8001, -69.9806 near Eastham. The nearest cataloged historic site is Collins' Cottages Fieldstone Breakwater - Seawall (landmark), about under a tenth of a mile away. Others within a short drive include Collins Cottages Shellfish Shucking House, Collins' Cottage No. 1, and Collins' Cottage No. 2.

This record is drawn from public historical records. Use the map below for its exact position and turn-by-turn directions.