This is the second postcard I’ve posted showing Driftwood Farm, which was located above Whale Cove in Rockport, on Driftwood Way, off South Street, between Whale Cove Lane and Driftwood Road. The earlier post showed it looking up from the ocean side. This view looks down at the house towards the ocean, roughly from the perspective of Whale Cove Lane. The house looks over the spot where Samuel de Champlain is believed to have stepped ashore on July 16, 1605.

As I noted before, this was the home of J. Raymond Smith and his wife Edna L. Smith. Mr. Smith was a prominent businessman who ran a lumber yard and hardware store until his death in 1947. Mrs. Smith operated Driftwood Farm as a guest house from 1937 until her husband’s death, after which she took over management of the lumber and hardware business.

Driftwood Farm was later owned by Lloyd B. Waring, a wealthy investment banker and former chairman of the Massachusetts Republican Party. I found a newspaper advertisement from 1959 advertising this property for sale at auction. I don’t know if Waring bought it then or later. A 1965 Boston Globe article says that Waring provided land on his Driftwood Farm estate for the Cape Ann Repertory Theater to stage a program of one-act plays, directed by Myron Yorra of Rockport.

Waring died in 1997. His widow still occupies the property, but the home pictured here no longer stands. I have not been able to determine whether it was torn down intentionally or lost in a fire or other tragedy.

This postcard was postmarked June 16, 1944. The back bears the imprint, “Driftwood Farm, Home of the J. Raymond Smiths, on the ocean front, Rockport, Mass.”