128 Bay Avenue
The current house at 128 Bay Avenue.
Nope that wasn’t our house. This is actually what the house currently looks and after it was remolded. At one time this property was listed for over $1 million now it’s down to half of that. Continue reading to find out how we came upon it.
In May 1985 my grandmother made the plunge and decided to purchase her own beach house at 128 Bay Avenue in Lewes, Delaware. Although this would seem exciting to some, to a 10 year old girl it was traumatizing who was only used to vacationing at one place. To me Lewes was world away in reality it was only 20 minutes. Silly little girl.
Replica of the Breakwater Lighthouse that greats you as you enter Lewes
The house was built in the late 1800’s or very early 1900’s I believe and the only reason I know that is because during our first time in the house we found old newspapers stuck in the drawer or furniture. I have tried to do some research online but can’t find anything. Zillow says that the year built is unknown and the tax info only goes back to 2009. I’m sure I could find it if I made some phone calls and really dug deep but I’m going to let that lie. Below is a photo of the house when my grandmother purchased it. It’s the tan color house right there in between the white motel and the small brown house on the right. The house was right on the shore of the Delaware Bay.
128 Bay Avenue
The photo below is if you turn in the other direction with the house behind you. As you can see our house was literally on the beach!
Delaware Bay
Grandma at the Lewes house.
Above is a view of the backyard with my grandmother in the back smelling some of the flowers growing there. It kills me to think of what we could have done with that property.
If you turn directly around from where my grandmother was in the photo this is the rest of the backyard and there’s the famous Mercedes that I talked about on this post. This had to have been when we first got the house because we did clean up the yard and it didn’t look that bad. There was an outdoor shower that we used in the back for rinsing off after the beach.
The girls room.
The photo above is of the bedroom that my sister and I would stay in. As you can see they were very small rooms but it was just enough for us. If you faced the other way there was a dresser and a closet. My grandmother made the bedspreads on the beds.
Living Room
This is a view of the living room. My grandmother bought the house fully furnished and sold it that way too. Ugghhhhh! Look at those antiques! To the left is a trundle bed and to the right of whoever was taking the photo there was another trundle bed. So you could lay and watch tv or have extra beds for guests.
One of my fondest memories was stopping to get peaches at the Nassau Orchards Market on the way in to Lewes. I believe they also sold other produce but we would always stop to get peaches. This is a tradition I continue today with my own son. When we go down to the Outer Banks we always stop at Grandy’s to pick up peaches!
This is a view of the main street of Lewes. It really is a cute little town although I don’t ever remember going there much. We always went in town to Rehoboth.
As you make your way through Lewes there are town of historical houses and some are way over the top, like the one above!
Another tradition we had was to stop at the local IGA for groceries before we made our last stop at the beach. This is where I would load up on the all the things that I couldn’t eat at home. My mother would let me get whatever I wanted! I tried to search online for the IGA but it didn’t come up. The only thing that kept coming up was Lloyd’s market but it is in the spot that I remember the IGA being off and it looks the same so I guess this is it.
I hope you enjoyed this week’s trip down memory lane. Next week I’m going to dive deeper into the house itself and the memories it holds for me, see you then!
