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The 23 Acre Sargent Estate sits atop a 30 foot bluff at the head of Waquoit Bay. First created in the 1880's, the estate had a long history of summer use by a number of owners until the 1938 hurricane damaged the mansion. Although the Swift family, the last owners, continued to use other parts of the estate, the mansion remained boarded up and unused for almost fifty years.

In the 1980's, local citizens became concerned about the ecological impact of a proposed residential development on nearby Washburn Island. The developers planned to use the estate's mansion as a visitor center and to build a ferry landing on its beach. The citizens group urged the State to take title to the property. With financial support from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the estate was acquired by the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Management (DEM) in 1987. It is now the headquarters of the Waquoit Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, which operates with the shared support of DEM and NOAA. It is one of 25 similar research reserves in 20 states and Puerto Rico dedicated to the study and protection of these important habitats.

Waquoit Bay NERR includes the 23-acre Sargent Estate; South Cape Beach, a 500 acre State Park; 330-acre Washburn Island, with 11 primitive campsites; and a 450 acre tract of uplands protecting the Quashnet River. The rest of the 2500-acre reserve is covered by tributaries, estuaries, open water, salt ponds, marshes, beaches, and 15 miles of shoreline.

Before the arrival of Europeans, the Native Americans were well acquainted with the richness of Waquoit Bay and were careful stewards of the bay and the surrounding land. Bartholomew Gosnold, the English explorer who named Cape Cod for its teeming fish stocks, visited Falmouth in 1602. He found the Wampanoags living in wigwams, hunting and planting along the shores and fishing in the waters. Later, when the first Europeans settled in the Falmouth area, the Wapanoags brought homegrown produce to trade with them.

During the next two and a half centuries, most of the settlers of the area were subsistence farmers and fishermen and, later, whalers and boat builders. But as the population expanded, the region's attractiveness became known to more and more outsiders and when the railroad reached Falmouth in the early 1870's, it brought an influx of people, attracted by the natural beauty of the region.

The era had now begun in which recreation and leisure activities were acceptable as legitimate spending outlets for the newly rich. So, toward the end of the nineteenth century, people from Boston, Worcester, Providence and New York, came during the summer to visit and to stay along the south shores of Cape Cod. There they found warm waters, fine sailing and excellent sport fishing. This led to the building of hotels and recreational facilities along its shores and beaches to attract tourists.

Some of the wealthier vacationers began building summer homes along the shores. Families now came for the entire season, arriving with their coaches, horses and servants. A Boston to Falmouth train, call the Flying Dude allowed business men to commute to their city office when necessary even though a trip from Waquoit to Woods Hole still required a two hour carriage ride.

The Estate was established in the 1880's during an era of great prosperity. Its main house was built sometime between 1880 and 1890 by Ignatius Sargent, a builder, and Philadelphia native. Mr. Sargent also built homes on Washburn Island in 1891-2 for Henry Bryant the owner of the island at that time.

The estate is made up of four buildings, the family mansion, a carriage house, a boathouse, and a gatehouse. It was planned to accommodate the needs of a large wealthy family summering on Cape Cod. Its style is similar to that of many estates built in other coastal and resort regions at the same time. During its construction, and later during its operation, it provided a substantial benefit to the local community, by buying goods and services and employing local community, by buying goods and services and employing local residents while the owner and his family were in residence.

The 16-room mansion house of the estate, modesty referred to as a "cottage", is typical of the late Victorian era building type known as a Shingle Style. Mostly found along resort and seashore areas, this 2-3 story style features steeply pitched, complex gambrel roofs, often with towers and turrets but without the ornate verge boards and rococo decorations of the earlier Gothic and Italianate styles. The name is derived from the use shingles to cover the exterior surfaces, shingles which were allowed to weather naturally, often giving the buildings a particularly somber look.

The carriage house of the estate is also shingle style and was built to accommodate the estate's horses, carriages, and wagons. A four stall garage was later added to the west side of the building when cars replaced horses.

The boathouse was a spacious floor at ground level, open to the Bay side, used for storing the estate's powerboats. Upstairs, the large open main room, with a vaulted ceiling, large windows and a fireplace, was designed to be the social center of the estate. Here, dances and other social events were held regularly during the summer seasons.

The gatehouse was built as a residence for the property caretakers but after the 1938 hurricane damaged the mansion, the Swift family, the owners, used the gatehouse during their visits to the estate.

The deed history shows several names, - Brown, Tyndel, and Heller, - Interposed briefly between Ignatius Sargent, the original owner, and Norman Rutherford, the owner from 1914 to 1929. Rutherford was a controversial character, an Australian, who often gave lavish parties for his friends but was remembered best for his exclusions around town in his Franklin touring car. But several years after taking over the property, Rutherford disappeared without a trace.

In 1929, the property was transferred to the Charles Swift family, which used it until the 1938 hurricane damaged the mansion. Mr. Swift, who was instrumental in the establishment of the local cranberry industry, was a distant relative of the founder of the Swift meat packing dynasty. Charles Swift died in 1966; his second wife Mamie died in 1974. The property passed on to her daughter Ethel Trapp who, in 1982 entered into an agreement with a group planning to develop Washburn Island and the Sargent Estate. It was at this point that the local citizen's group urged the state to buy both properties.

DEM bought Washburn Island and reached a tentative agreement to purchase the estate but protracted negotiations failed to come to an agreement on price. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts finally took the property by eminent domain, paying the owners full market price for the property.

The Sargent Mansion has been renovated and now houses the staff office and visitor center for the Waquoit Bay NERR. The boathouse contains a library, meeting room and office space. Research labs and a classroom can be found in the carriage house which also continues to be used as a maintenance and storage facility. The gatehouse is used as housing by visiting researchers.

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