History

Edward Wells Chadwick and his son James E. Chadwick started the 'bathing beach on Chappaquiddick' in 1883.    By 1890 (the year in which the Harborview Hotel was built), there were a total of fifty bathhouses.  James Chadwick had an interest in the Martha's Vineyard Railroad, and the bathing beach pavilion was part of the Edgartown station & waiting room of the railroad, which he had moved to Chappaquiddick.

Many shore resorts had bathing beaches, but crossing to this bathing beach across the Edgartown harbor via an old wooden launch was a unique, romantic experience.  Some members still fondly remember the 'Charlesbank', an open naval sailing launch of a style used more than a century ago, which had been a battleship tender early in its career.

James Chadwick died in 1938 and his daughters, Mrs. Bernard Wagenaar and Mrs. Joseph Conkling, continued to operate the bathing beach.  Among frequent visitors were the Joseph  Kennedy family on their yacht 'Honey Fitz', attracted by the widely renowned clam chowder.

In October of 1962, the property was purchased by Northam Warren Jr.  The old bathing beach was dismantled and the Chappaquiddick Beach Club was formed, to "offer summer residents a fine, safe place to sun, swim, sail and, perhaps most important of all, just to relax."   Mr. Warren's philosophy embraced the ideal that, "beach clubs are not big money makers, but through skilled management could be operated on a break-even basis".  Opening in the summer of 1963, Mr. Warren, and his wife Dorothy, operated the new beach club until 1968, when it was syndicated among a new partnership of which he retained a majority interest until 1988.  Today the Chappaquiddick Beach Club is a member-owned private swim club whose central philosophy is still framed around the founding concept of the original bathing beach.