Preston Beach, Swampscott, MA

Just about any day of the week and time of the year you will find several cars parked along Atlantic Ave that runs along the shore between Swampscott & Marblehead, MA. Right at the border between these two historical seaport towns is a beach called Preston Beach. The challenges these days is there is little if any beach at high tide. This was not the case in the early 1900’s.

Below are photographs of two postcards that feature the Hotel Preston. This remarkable hotel sat about fifty feet above the beach. There were distant views of Nahant, Boston, and Marblehead. There were fifty bathrooms, one hundred and sixty five guest rooms. Additional facilities included dining hall that could accommodate three hundred guests, billiard room, barber shop, ladies parlor, and a very large music hall.

When a storm hits this area these days the waves come crashing in and often find their way right up on the decks of the existing porches of the current properties. A lot of things have changed since those days including the Town of Swampscott once had 600+ hotel rooms and now there are none.