Hawthorne Motel For Sale; Shore Road Fixture Offered For $25M

CHATHAM – The waterfront Hawthorne Motel, a Shore Road fixture since 1959, went on the market last week for $25 million.

 The 32-unit motel, named for the hawthorne bushes that screen the inn from Shore Road, has been owned and operated by the Swenson family since 1959. 

The property contains 3.2 acres, the large motel building and a cottage near the shore. According to the sale listing, the private beach includes nearly 150 feet of shoreline on Chatham Harbor. It went on the market Aug. 28. Its current owner, John E. Swenson Co., Inc., includes three members of the Swenson family — David and Peter Swenson and Eleanor Swenson Mucher — and was named for grandfather John E. Swenson, who bought the property in 1959. It has been run as an inn since 1902.

The property is currently assessed by the town at $7,410,500, according to assessing department records. The property is zoned residential with a 40,000-square-foot minimum lot size. Because the commercial use pre-existed zoning, the property is considered nonconforming. While a new owner could continue its use as an inn, any other commercial use would require a special permit from the zoning board of appeals. The property could be converted to residential lots by right; however, given the district’s one-acre minimum zoning and its proximity to coastal dunes and beach, it’s uncertain how many lots could be created on the property.

The current motel is not the first inn on the property. The original Hawthorne Hotel was a three-story gambrel-style structure built in 1902 during the heyday of large inns that included the Hotel Chatham and Hotel Mattaquasson. Chatham Bars Inn, built in 1914 at the tail end of the era just down Shore Road from the Hawthorne, is the last of Chatham’s grand inns.

 The first Hawthorne House was run by Everett and Irene Hamilton Boyd in Irene’s grandmother’s house, which was eventually moved across the street and the three-story hotel built overlooking the harbor.  William and Mary Courtnell bought the hotel and ran it during World War II, when it was taken over by the military to house soldiers and sailors stationed in town, according to a 2010 Chronicle article.

 John Swenson purchased the property in 1959, tore down the original building and built the current motel, which opened in 1960, according to the article. The current managers of the motel are the fourth generation of Swensons to operate the business.

 Calls to Peter Swenson were not returned by deadline. Other members of the family declined to comment.