My wife Kara Sundlun calls me a throwback, a lover of old things and hopelessly nostalgic. Case in point, our trip this past weekend to the Cape. We stayed at a place I first visited as a child with my grandmother, worked during a college summer, and where I got the life changing news I was going to be a dad: the Lighthouse Inn in West Dennis, Massachusetts.

This oceanfront landmark has been owned by the Stone Family since the 1930s, and is now run by Greg and Pat Stone, who have a twenty-something son who’ll be able to keep this treasure running for decades to come. The inn itself is chock full of history, as Greg will gladly share with guests. He showed my kids how the vintage nickelodeon works, and threw in a fishing lesson for good measure.

The floors faintly creak in a few spots and the wood on the walls has a look that evokes feelings of a bygone era and with the salt air, the place just brings a smile across your face. The cottages that dot the property are all modernized with flat screen televisions, and air conditioning along with the fireplaces, but guests spend plenty of time in the inn for the gift shop, meals, and to get married.  There were a few weddings taking place during our visit with  Nantucket Sound as their backdrop.

As I mentioned, the Lighthouse Inn has been the scene of several memorable moments for us. Ten years ago, Kara and I stayed here and the weather was cold and rainy so no beach.. We bought a pregnancy test and it was in a cottage at the Lighthouse Inn that we got the news we were going to be parents! Kara took a rock from the beach home as a souvenir. And this year, the tooth fairy came to our cottage for the little girl who made her impending presence known on a stick a decade earlier.

As for that job, I worked at the Inn as a waiter for a while during a summer in college. I lived in a share house down the street and biked and walked to work. I can’t find any pictures of me working, but I did find a blurry one of me wearing my uniform and one of me taken the day I interviewed for the job with Greg’s mother, who just passed away this spring.   I think that scowl was because I was working the breakfast shift!

Here’s the link to one of my favorite places, and when you stay there ask for Greg. http://www.lighthouseinn.com/

Check out this other House family vacation: https://dennishouse.tv/2013/01/24/journey-to-abruzzo-to-meet-my-italian-family/