Belfry Inn & Bistro

The Hotel

Belfry Inn & Bistro occupies a restored 1880s Episcopal church (the original St. John's Episcopal Church on Jarves Street in Sandwich, deconsecrated in 1989) plus the adjacent 1880s rectory at 8 Jarves Street. The Sandwich location is the structural distinction: Sandwich is the oldest town on Cape Cod (founded in 1637 as the original Pilgrim-settlement of Cape Cod, six years after Plymouth), the entry to the Cape on the Sandwich-Sagamore peninsula at the Cape Cod Canal. The Belfry Inn was conceived by current owners Christopher and Karen Wilson in 1992 — they acquired the deconsecrated St John's Church, the adjacent 1880s rectory, and an 1880s Victorian residence next door, and committed to a multi-property restoration that opened the Belfry Inn in three phases through 2003.

The 30 keys are spread across three restored 1880s buildings. The Abbey (12 keys inside the converted St John's Church — the most-distinctive accommodations on the Cape, with bedrooms configured inside the original church nave, the bell-tower stairwell, the choir loft, and the priest's-rectory transept; preserved features include the original stained-glass windows, the carved-wood church beams, and the bell-tower clock-face). The Painted Lady (8 keys in the restored 1880s Victorian residence next door, with restored Painted-Lady period detail throughout). The Drew House (10 keys in the adjacent 1880s rectory, the property's most traditional boutique-room category). Categories range from entry-tier Drew House Rooms (24 sqm) through Painted Lady Rooms (30 sqm with restored Victorian period furniture) to the named Abbey Bell Tower Suite (45 sqm — the property's signature unit, configured around the original church bell-tower stairwell with a four-poster bed and the original 1880s clock-face as the room's structural feature).

Operationally Belfry Inn & Bistro runs the small-property Sandwich boutique register. The Painted Lady Bistro — the in-house all-day restaurant inside the restored 1880s Victorian residence — runs a contemporary-American kitchen with the largest Sandwich-area farm-to-table sourcing programme; chef Christopher Wilson (the property's owner-chef who has held the kitchen since 2003) runs an 8-course tasting menu on Saturday nights that books three weeks ahead. The wine cellar runs about 250 bins focused on Massachusetts and California vintage. The Bell Tower Bar (the original church's vestry, restored as a small cocktail bar) runs the property's evening cocktail-and-craft-beer programme.

What gives Belfry Inn & Bistro the considered Sandwich-area position — and the structural alternative to Wequassett's resort scale or Chatham Bars Inn's oceanfront register — is the church-and-rectory heritage register at the smallest-property Cape Cod scale. The 30-key footprint is among the smallest on Cape Cod (smaller than Wequassett's 120 or Chatham Bars Inn's 217 by some distance); the church-rectory architectural conversion is unique to this property in the entire Northeast luxury cluster; and the Sandwich village position (on the Cape Cod Canal entry, 30 minutes' drive from Logan Airport — the most logistically-accessible Cape Cod luxury location) makes Belfry Inn the most-considered single-night or weekend-getaway Cape Cod property. For an anniversary trip that values the church-conversion heritage register, a literary solo retreat that uses the Sandwich-village walking proposition as the daily anchor, or a Cape Cod multi-night stay that uses Belfry Inn as the entry-and-exit base for an Outer Cape circuit, Belfry Inn is the most-considered choice.

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