Cape Cod by William Martin Read Free Book Online Page B

prices had turned in a big way. No one was buying middle-priced homes in subdivisions hacked from the scrub pine. Planning boards and conservation commissions were getting tough. And the people of Cape Cod, who shared watershed and coastline but who had always acted as fifteen towns going in fifteen directions, had voted a County Commission to contend with development.
    The only land certain to sell—or worth the fight—was waterfront. In a bad market, scarce things kept their value. Douglas said they could squeeze thirty to thirty-five premium-priced one-acre lots out of the island, each one worth three to five hundred thousand once it was perked and permitted. And once they put houses on the land, the profits would double.
    “Geoff, sell us your land, convince Rake to sell,” said Dickerson, “and you’ll design the development we want to call Pilgrims’ Rest.”
    “Modern luxury inside, Pilgrim ambience outside,” added Douglas. “Like… Star Wars meets the seventeenth century.”
    “What about the permits?” asked Geoff. “The town and county will put you through hell to develop that island.”
    “We’re grandfathered.”
    “Grandfathered?” said Janice. “How?”
    Douglas unrolled a map of Jack’s Island, subdivided into scores of 5000-square-foot lots. In the corner was a legend, in the fountain-pen script of someone who had learned handwriting in the old school: “Plan of Land for Pilgrim’s Rest at Jack’s Island, Brewster, Mass., owned by Elwood Hilyard, Zachary Hilyard, and Heman Bigelow, January 9, 1904, Scale 1″ to 100′, Charles Berry, C.E., Orleans, Mass.”
    “I dug this up at the Barnstable County Courthouse,” explained Douglas. “They did plans like this for land all over the Cape. Most of them came later than this one, and they were seldom followed up on. This one was forgotten after the Hilyard House burned, but these things retain their weight.”
    “What good does it do us?” asked Janice.
    Dickerson tried to say something, but Douglas was doing the talking now, and he talked right over his father. Since Dickerson’s heart attack, Douglas had done so much talking, and done it so fast and so well, that Dickerson didn’t even try to top him.
    Douglas took his putter from the corner and used it like a pointer above the map. “The genius who laid this out divided the island like a pie, with everybody getting a quarter-acre. If we don’t alter the roads or lot-lines, just combine lots to build bigger houses, we have a strong case. I’ve already gone after several building permits on my side of the island, just to test the waters.”
    “What did Uncle Rake say about that?” asked Geoff.
    “That’s when he started his eminent domain drive,” answered Doug. “He wants the town to take the whole island.”
    “He’s getting senile,” grunted Dickerson.
    Douglas dropped a golf ball onto the floor. “If the town rejects Rake, then it’s up to you, Geoff. Convince him to sell, and you’re in for a fee of a million five—six percent of projected construction costs—plus payment for your piece of land, which may be worth two mil more.”
    Geoff looked at Janice. Through the telepathy of marriage, they heard the arguments without speaking them: Imagine the prestige. Imagine the income. And it wasn’t like he’d never thought of it himself. He had moved to the Cape to create buildings that respected the Cape’s history and ecology, whatever that meant. Here was his chance. Besides, if the island was going to be developed, who better to design it?
    But Janice knew what else he was thinking, and she said it for him. “This would kill Uncle Rake.”
    Dickerson grunted, as though his daughter’s remark might kill him. “Nothing could kill Uncle Rake.”
    “I need to think about this,” said Geoff.
    “Take a week,” said Douglas.
    Janice looked at her brother. “Does he get this offer in writing?”
    “In writing!” Dickerson half-rose from his chair, then dropped