Harwich

Harwich Center has the appeal of a typical New England village with the benefit of being surrounded by both freshwater and saltwater beaches. The First Congregational Church’s towering white spire lies at the heart of this Lower Cape community — around it, brick sidewalks lead to shops and restaurants housed in carefully restored 1800s structures. Farther down Main Street is Brooks Park, where people play pickleball and outdoor fairs take place. Along the maple-lined side streets, post-and-rail fences surround traditional cedar shake-sided cottages. Living on Cape Cod allows many opportunities to enjoy the water. In the town of Harwich, there are 22 beaches — both saltwater and freshwater — and residents can buy an annual pass to visit all of them. The village of Harwich Center is poised between Long Pond and the shores of the Nantucket Sound. Eric Beebe, Harwich's director of recreation, says Red River Beach is the most popular, with its miles of sand, food vendors and lifeguards. The village also has plenty of land-based recreation. Bikers can connect with the Cape Cod rail trail system beside the First Congregational Church. The paved pathways meander through towns from Yarmouth to Wellfleet. Brooks Park offers several sports fields for everything from pickleball to baseball. In the summer months, sports fans head to Whitehouse Field to watch the Harwich Mariners play for the Cape Cod Baseball League. The Cranberry Valley Golf Course, a par-72 public course, has tee times from April through October. In winter months, the Harwich Community Center’s basketball court and fitness center are a popular place to stay active. The village’s focal point is the Harwich Community Center, which has a full schedule of activities. “Anything the public shows an interest in, we develop a program for,” Beebe says. “There’s tons going on in the building all the time.” During the school year, they host after-school care for children, but many of the daytime and evening offerings are geared toward adults. “It’s basically a senior center,” Beebe says. Adults can participate in fitness classes, learn African drumming or even take lessons on how to properly do tax write-offs. Annual events include the Harwich Cranberry Arts & Music Festival, which takes place at the community center each September. Attendees can shop from Cape Cod makers, grab treats from food trucks and dance to live music. In Brooks Park, there’s a community-wide yard sale each August and a craft fair in July. Harwich Center has a good stock of mid-to-late 1900s Cape Cod-style cottages, many of which have been expanded into larger, year-round residences. Buyers may find a two- or three-bedroom home with around 1,000 square feet of living space priced between $500,000 and $700,000. Late 1900s capes, ranch styles and Colonial Revivals with around 2,000 square feet sell from $700,000 to $1.2 million. There are also a few newly built traditional-style residences with classic cedar shake shingles — these often sell between $2.5 million and $2.65 million. Harwich Center children can attend schools in the Monomoy Regional School District, which earns an A-minus on Niche and has a student-teacher ratio of 11-to-1. Students will study at B-rated Harwich Elementary School for prekindergarten through fourth grade. Members of the Harwich Elementary chorus perform at the annual Harwich tree lighting ceremony each December. For fifth through seventh grades, students attend Monomoy Regional Middle School, which holds a B-plus rating. Monomoy Regional High School, located in Harwich Center, also gets a B-plus. The high school has a student-run television station, and it offers a full range of visual and performing arts electives. Harwich Center lies between Cape Cod’s two major thoroughfares, U.S. Route 6 and State Route 28. There is a Cape Cod Regional Transit Authority bus stop at the Harwich Community Center — buses along this route go to the Harwich Star Market as well as to Provincetown, where there is a ferry service to Boston. In Hyannis, about 13 miles west of the village, riders can catch CapeFLYER trains to Boston on summer weekends. The Cape Cod Gateway Airport is also in Hyannis. It offers direct flights to Boston and New York City. Along Main Street, there are a few locally owned businesses, including Firefly Boutique & More and Corner Thrift Shop. Diners can stop by Ruggie's Breakfast and Lunch for casual comfort food, and the Seal Pub & Café serves American classics from early morning until late into the night. The Cape Cod Lavender Farm is also in the village — patrons can wander through fields of fresh lavender and browse the array of lavender-based products in their shop. When residents need to grocery shop, a Star Market and Shaw’s are about 2 miles from Harwich Center. Cape Cod homes traditionally relied on private septic systems. As those systems age, they have become less reliable, and some discharge nitrogen into the groundwater and other waterways. The entire cape is undergoing a process of converting to sewer systems and, in some towns, upgrading private septic systems. The town of Harwich has completed phase one of converting properties to sewer, and the village of Harwich Center is slated to be part of phase four, which does not yet have an anticipated completion date.