Strawberry Point: Fire Control Cottages

Low-profile, 2- and 3-story fire control structures, also called cottages, were built at several places along the coast, including Castle Hill (the Crane Estate), East Point (Nahant), Ft. Dawes (Deer Island), and here at Strawberry Point. The two cottages here are the only surviving examples; they probably owe their longevity to the unique ownership situation of the Glades Corporation (both before and after the war) and the fact that both structures were converted to residential use (as actual summer cottages--go figure). In any case, the two cottages today likely look much as they did when they were built in 1943.

The Eastern Cottage (Site 1D) is located here, almost at the tip of the northeast promontory of the peninsula, at the end of a driveway from Glades Rd. running east along the shore. The elevation drawing in Silde 2 shows how the reinforced concrete shell of the fire control structure was hidden inside the wooden roof and the false siding and windows of the cottage. The "tower" portion of the structure was built on a 13x13 ft. plan, a bit smaller than the 14x14 ft. plan of one of the taller fire control towers along the coast (or here at Site 1A).

This cottage