"I have a postcard dated 1905 of the building as a captain's house with children in long dresses playing outside on the wooden sidewalk under tall elms. Commercial Street was dirt then and any businesses on it were feed stores or ships' outfitters. In the forties the building was converted to a small A&P food store and the double-bay storefronts with a graceful fan detail were installed. In the sixties it became a coffeehouse with art films and a folk nightclub called "The Blues Bag". The local Portuguese-American Civic Union used it for a few years for their Saturday night dances, and it housed a marine outfitter, a print shop, and reputedly upstairs the poorest family in Provincetown."

The gallery's neighboring homes in the West End of Provincetown are full of colorful history. Many of the houses were floated over from Long Point (the tip of Cape Cod) and rebuilt along the picturesque sandy waterfront. The tides in the harbor often exceed ten feet, and low tide leaves the moored sailboats stranded along the miles of flats. Quaint piers piled with a jumble of tiny shingled cottages such as Captain Jack's Wharf are either high and dry or lapped by waves.