Though Cape Cod’s historic dune shacks are drenched in sun, the application process inviting new bidders to manage them will remain in the shadows.
The future of eight historic Provincetown dune shacks is out for bid by the National Park Service, and more than 400 applications appear to have been received by the agency, but on Friday, the Park Service denied the Globe’s request to see them. According to the agency’s denial, the applications will not be made available by such a request until bidders are selected and leases are signed.
Bidding closed July 3 for the Request for Proposals issued in May, which invited applicants to pitch their vision for the shacks, as well as their top price, with no ceiling noted. A total of 406 bids were submitted, according to the number of documents withheld by the Park Service. Last month, the Park Service drove potential bidders out to the sites in advance of the deadline.
“All proposals submitted in response to this Request for Proposals may be disclosed by the Service to any person, upon request, to the extent required or authorized by the Freedom of Information Act,” read the RFP. The Park Service initially estimated an Aug. 1 response following the Globe’s July 3 Freedom of Information Act request for submitted applications, but on Friday, it closed the request, citing a “full denial based on exemptions.”
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In its withholding, the agency named an exemption to FOIA law that it says protects “contractor terms” unless “set forth or incorporated by reference in a final contract.” That is to say, they are not releasing the documents because they may contain information pertaining to an agreement in the making with a potential contractor before it is signed.
The agency did not name a date when the files would be made available pending signed contracts. “However, after consulting with staff at Cape Cod National Seashore and staff in the IR1-NAA Leasing Office, a best guess estimate would be sometime after the close of September 2023,” it wrote.
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The agency noted that in October, following the finalization of the dune shacks’ new leases, the Globe may submit another request to view the applications.
The National Park Service has stated that the RFP process represents “equitable access to public lands.” Local dune colony advocates argue the RFP stands to displace the unique and longstanding cultural identity of dune shack life, represented by the people who have occupied and maintained the shacks. In June, park rangers locked and boarded the shack occupied by noted 94-year-old painter Salvatore Del Deo.
Also on Friday, talks between the Park Service and Del Deo’s family stalled, while the families who occupy the other shacks up for bid consideration began to organize.
Romolo Del Deo, the painter’s son who is also a sculptor, said that the family refused an offer by National Seashore Superintendent Brian Carlstrom for a two-year provisional extension, because the offer did not include consideration for the other dune dwellers who may be displaced by the RFP results. The Del Deo family has occupied “Frenchie’s” shack since 1946, when Salvatore began assisting its original owner, Jeanne “Frenchie” Schnell, with its management.
“We consider the matter so important that we are willing to stake our shack on furthering dialogue on all the shacks,” said Romolo Del Deo.
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Tracy O’Toole, Chief of External Affairs for Interior Region 1, confirmed the meeting between Salvatore and Romolo Del Deo, during which she said the agency “offered to explore options for allowing continued use of the shack.”
“Through his son, Mr. Del Deo declined the option made available to him,” wrote O’Toole in an email. “The [Schnell] Shack will transition to a 10-year lease that will be offered through public solicitation process consistent with the Dune Shack Preservation and Use Plan. The Del Deo family is welcome to bid at that time along with other members of the public.”
A team of Massachusetts legislators advocated for the dune dwellers in June, meeting with Interior and National Seashore officials, urging the agency to prioritize the concerns and cultural contribution of existing shack residents and their long legacy in the colony.
Local organizer Michela Murphy said that representatives of nine other dune shacks had convened to discuss their future in the face of the RFP, recalling a 1960s coalition that formed following the creation of the park by federal law in 1961. Murphy said the provisional nature of the latest offer from the Park Service to the Del Deo family jeopardized the shack itself, a status familiar to all shack stewards — Frenchie’s shack, sunk into the dunes, needs to be raised, but short-term offers disincentivize maintenance and investment by existing occupants.
“If the shack dwellers were given more stability, the shacks themselves would be given more stability,” she said.
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The dune shack colony, with roots in the 1800s as rustic Coast Guard outposts, and later, as the notable retreat for significant artists and writers, has long vollied with the Park Service over the management of the shacks. Early residents — including Josephine Del Deo, Salvatore’s wife, who died in 2016 — advocated for the protection of the lands as a park, culminating in President John F. Kennedy’s 1961 law that created the Cape Cod National Seashore, but soon found themselves organizing again as the Park Service management periodically demolished some of the structures. Advocates managed to protect the structures themselves by successfully working to have the shacks placed on the National Registry of Historic Places.
As the Park Service developed its ongoing management plan, it conducted an anthropological study to determine the colony’s status as a “Traditional Cultural Property.” TCP status would likely shield the occupants from displacement, and its author determined the colony did quality, but the Park Service later refuted the study. Following the shacks’ taking by eminent domain, occupants were offered lifetime leases, later governed by the 2012 Use Plan which honored blood kin with provisional one-year leases until a long-term management plan was established.
The Del Deo family has said that even if the Parks Service does not honor Frenchie’s will bequeathing the shack to Salvatore Del Deo, the eviction bypasses the Use Plan’s responsibility to recognize an existing, living Schnell daughter in Tennessee.
Criteria for selected bidders included that the applicants had to use the shacks in a way that’s compatible with the park’s historic and visual qualities, and emphasized the financial and business capacity of new lease-holders to maintain the lease, noting the applicant’s potential “financial benefit” to the Park Service. Bidders were invited to name their own price, with no ceiling listed above a base rent, which varied by shack from just over $2,000 to $16,000 in the first year. The season considered by the Park Service lasts Memorial Day to Labor Day, and leases are offered for terms lasting up to 10 years.
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