What is it like to live in Yarmouth?
Lynn Mason-Small and her husband, Nate Small, returned to Cape Cod from San Diego to raise their family.
Lynn Mason-Small and her husband, Nate Small, have lived in their South Yarmouth house for about 12 years. The Cape Cod natives returned here after living for a short time in the San Diego area, where Nate was attending San Diego City College after serving in the Coast Guard in Florida and Lynn did hotel marketing.
They missed their families and wanted a community in which to raise Josh, 12, and Liam, 15. So back they came. Lynn is now a vice president at Rogers & Gray Insurance, which has offices across the Cape, South Shore, and Wareham. She came to Rogers & Gray after meeting the principals through Cape Cod Young Professionals, of which she was a founding board member; she had previously done sales and marketing for the Yarmouth Chamber of Commerce and Mid-Cape Home Centers.
Lynn is involved in the community, sitting on grant committees for the Cape Cod Foundation and Cape and Islands United Way and on the board at Community Visions, which supports Yarmouth recreation. She also administers the Rogers & Gray Charitable Foundation.
Nate is a realtor who serves on the town’s community preservation committee and chairs the affordable housing committee.
They enjoy living among a relatively small population of year-rounders, but when the size of Yarmouth balloons in the summer, they play tourist as well, hitting up all of the community’s great beaches and eating ice cream at Cape Cod Creamery. If they journey to the north side, they stop in at their favorite restaurant, Old Yarmouth Inn (“It’s cozy and the food is amazing,’’ Lynn said), or walk on the boardwalk at Gray’s Beach (which suffered significant damage in last winter’s nor’easters).
“We think people should try to understand that Yarmouth is more than that one section of Route 28,’’ Lynn said. “There is so much to be found on all of its little backroads.’’
BY THE NUMBERS
200,000+/-
The number of artifacts Barry Clifford and crew recovered from the Whydah wreck site off the Wellfleet coast — with some on display at Yarmouth’s Whydah Pirate Museum, cite of the old ZooQuarium. It is believed that nearly 4.5 tons of gold, silver, and other treasure went down with notorious pirate Samuel “Black Sam’’ Bellamy and his ship on April 26, 1717. Clifford continues to search for the full bounty.
400 %
The increase in interest in pickleball in town over two years, according to the recreation commission. Town Meeting recently approved $275,000 to construct 12 courts at Flax Pond Recreation Area.
50
The number of former ship captains’ homes along the Captains’ Mile on Route 6A in Yarmouth. Some date to the 1600s. Homes designated as such are connoted with a black and gold plaque with the logo of a schooner.
40% & 60%
The percentages Dennis and Yarmouth respectively agreed to pay toward a new middle school. Because of Dennis’s smaller student population, the town usually pays less toward school district costs.
PROS & CONS
Pro
Location
Once you can get to Route 6, if traffic is not too heavy, you can be anywhere on the Cape within an hour, excluding Truro and Provincetown.
Con
Location
With this centrality comes congestion in the summertime. Route 6A on the north side and Route 28 on the south side get jammed.
Scott Lajoie is a freelance writer on the Cape. He can be reached at [email protected]. Subscribe to realestate.boston.com’s weekly newsletter at pages.email.bostonglobe.com/AddressSignUp.
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