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Cape Cod house with Watergate ties falls victim to eroding bluff
On Feb. 3, demolition began on the Bartlett House in Eastham, bringing to the forefront its storied past.
In the ongoing saga of the eroding edge of the Outer Cape, another house bites the dust. And this house was, according to local news reports, the birthplace of the Watergate scandal.
On Feb. 3, Apex Abatement and Demolition of Amesbury began to dismantle the Bartlett House. Located at 40 Ocean View Drive in Eastham, the Bartlett House is one of the properties endangered by the eroding edge of Coast Guard Beach.
Built in 1960, it was acquired by the National Park Service from its owner, H. Craigin Bartlett, in 1964. This was shortly after the Cape Cod National Seashore was created in 1961. At that point, the National Park Service disallowed new construction and purchased and removed run-down and unsafe buildings of no historical significance.
A one-story, 1,200-square-foot house with three bedrooms and two bathrooms, the Bartlett House was used for decades as National Seashore seasonal employee housing until it most recently was made available to the public as a short-term vacation rental.
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But before that, it was earmarked as a vacation destination for White House officials. “Once the home was acquired by the park, it was initially used as a ‘VIP’ house for high-ranking government dignitaries who would visit the seashore,” said Linzy French, Public Information Officer for the
National Seashore.
“The home achieved notoriety as the ‘VIP House’ during the early 1970s when the park rented it as a weekend retreat for various government dignitaries,” French added. “Most famous among those were members of President Richard Nixon’s inner circle, including Nixon’s chief domestic advisor, John Ehrlichman, Nixon’s chief counselor, Donald Rumsfeld, deputy director of Nixon’s 1972 reelection campaign, Jeb Stuart Magruder, and numerous U. S. senators and White House staff. The comings and goings of such figures forever connected the house to the Watergate scandal.”
It was from here that Ehrlichman reportedly made the phone call that authorized the White House “plumbers” to burglarize the office of Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist, thus setting in motion the national sordid tale known as Watergate. It culminated with the resignation of President Nixon.
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A 1974 New York Times article states that Ehrlichman was on Cape Cod when he gave the approval over the phone. This Cape Cod connection was detailed, according to the Cape Cod Times, in a 1974 Cape Codder piece titled “Ehrlichman Launched Plumber Caper from VIP House On Eastham Dunes.”
“The exceptional reporting was buoyed by the fact that (Jack) Clarke knew that visitors to the Bartlett House had to register at the Salt Pond Visitor Center in Eastham. This information placed Ehrlichman at the house in summer 1971,” the Cape Cod Times article details. “According to the Cape Codder story, written while Ehrlichman was on trial, testimony showed that while he was in Eastham, ‘Ehrlichman was actually giving orders to the White House ‘Plumbers’ to go ahead with the Ellsberg caper.’”
Clarke, at the time, worked for the Cape Cod National Seashore and went on to hold various positions with the state. He wrote about his brush with the Watergate scandal in a 2020 Cape Codder piece.
Flash forward to April 2023, and the storied house was approximately 45 feet from the edge of the bluff; by 2024, it sat less than 13 feet from the edge. In 2023, salt water began to infiltrate the well and, in 2024, the Cape Cod National Seashore announced that the house was no longer safe for habitation. The cesspool was removed and the well decommissioned, which means that it was filled with stone and capped with concrete. Now the structure itself is being taken down.
“We use an excavator with a rotating grapple to pull the pieces up,” said Robert Sullivan, spokesperson for Apex Abatement and Demolition. “That’s to make sure that we don’t put weight on the ground under the house. It’s important that we don’t affect a delicate ecosystem.”
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Before the demolition began, the company surveyed and tested for hazardous materials.
“We found no asbestos or other hazardous waste,” said Sullivan. “That makes the process relatively simple.”
The demolition includes measures for dust and debris mitigation.
“Those are normal parts of any demolition,” Sullivan said, adding that the process also includes noise and vibration monitoring and proper material handling and disposal, in compliance with federal and state regulations.
Demolition should take about a week, according to Sullivan. Once the house is demolished and taken away, the lot will be planted with native vegetation.
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