4. Aberdeen Hall

Tour the Villages
West Yarmouth

Aberdeen Hall, Great Island

Stretching a long, lonely arm out into Lewis Bay, Great Island provided a large open space, perfect for grazing cattle and supplying firewood. Few families lived on the isolated island and it remained sparsely settled throughout the 19th century. In 1882 Charles B. Cory, a wealthy ornithologist, purchased the island and established a game preserve. Hoping to encourage friends and acquaintances to visit, Cory and a few of his wealthy friends built the Great Island Club in 1902. The Club, with 45 bedrooms, and extravagant amenities such as telephones, electric lights, steam heat, and private bathrooms, provided attractive recreational opportunities including an 18 hole golf course, motoring, sailing, beach bathing, fishing, and hunting. Unfortunately for Cory his fortune was lost in a stock market crash, the island was sold, and the Great Island Club became Aberdeen Hall Hotel. A popular summer destination, some of the families that vacationed at Aberdeen Hall in its earliest days still retain summer residences on the Island today. The hotel, isolated from the mainland and its fire brigade, burned down in 1924.