“I call this the end of the earth,” said Carrie Bosmer, who moved to the unincorporated area nearly 20 years ago. “I can’t imagine leaving.”
Bosmer said many residents commute 38 miles to Baltimore or 35 miles to Washington, but enjoy the quiet life in Beverly Beach. “It’s a place to get away from the hustle and bustle,” she said.
Before the Chesapeake Bay Bridge opened in 1952, Beverly Beach was one of three beaches on the Mayo Peninsula that attracted weekend swimmers, boaters and fishermen from Baltimore and Washington, D.C.
Baltimore native Edgar S. Kalb founded the cottage community then called Beverly Beach around 1925 and about 20 years later purchased the nearby beach, which he renamed Triton Beach and offered as a day resort.
The original cottages, with their stucco walls, tongue-and-groove beadboard and exposed ceilings, were primitive but sturdy, said resident Greg Hurley, who remembers Beverly Beach as a child in the late 1950s. They had free access to the beach resort, according to “Images of America: Vintage Vacationland on the Chesapeake West Coast” by Lara L. Lutz.
According to “A History of Mayo, Maryland” by Caroline L. Britt Mullins, the resort featured concessions, slot machines, coin-operated rides, bingo games, and a dance band.
“If you sat me in the middle of that pavilion, I could tell you where everything was,” Hurley said.
Much of that charm has since disappeared; today the area is a mix of around 400 houses, and most of the original cottages have been renovated, demolished or extended.
The former lifeguard barns have been converted into four homes, a rarity in Beverly Beach, where most homes are single-family homes.
“There are beach bungalows and million-dollar homes,” Bosmer said. “There’s a little bit of everything here.”
Nine homes sold in Beverly Beach in the past 12 months, with an average sales price of $460,000. The lowest price was $315,000 for a two-bedroom, one-bathroom home with 970 square feet. The highest price was $779,000 for a four-bedroom, three-bathroom home with 2,861 square feet, said Realtor JJ Fegan, associate broker with RE/MAX Executive.
Some homes are right on the water, but one of Beverly Beach’s attractive features is that homeowners can enjoy water views and water access without paying the high taxes that come with waterfront homes, Fegan said.
The neighboring Beverly Triton Nature Park offers beaches, three saltwater ponds for crabbing and fishing, and hiking and biking trails that Beverly Beach residents can access directly from the neighborhood.
The community maintains a private marina at Cadle Creek, but the only sandy beach is at Beverly Triton Park.
Sandy Lofgren Sargent, a real estate agent and lifelong Edgewater resident, has cherished memories of Beverly Beach: Her family farmed bloodworms, and as a child she made early morning deliveries to a general store on Central Avenue that distributed goods to three beaches in the area.
In 2021, she purchased a 1926 lifeguard bunkhouse in Beverly Beach and converted it into a rental property.
“I have a passion for old things,” says Lofgren Sargent, owner of Lofgren Sargent Real Estate, “and I love seeing old things properly loved.”
Hurley, who bought his parents’ Beverly Beach home in 1974 and added a second story, reminisced about his childhood in the area, playing with black children whose grandmother lived nearby on land that had been in his family since the 1800s. One day, Hurley’s brother suggested they go to the beach, to which his friend replied, “‘No, you can’t go there.'”
“I thought it was because I wasn’t allowed to go that far,” Hurley said.
The real reason was that Kalb County didn’t allow blacks or Jews to buy cottages or use the beach, according to the county’s Four Rivers Heritage Area African American Heritage and Cultural Guide, which cites a sign posted in front of the beach club that reads, “Membership Open to Non-Jews Only.”
Kalb closed the resort in 1968 after refusing to comply with federal orders to integrate, the same year state law banned slot machines, the heritage guide said.
A few years later, Kalb sold the land to a developer who planned to build a high-rise building on it, but Beverly Beach residents and other groups opposed the plan and continued to resist. In 1984, Anne Arundel County purchased the land that would become Beverly Triton Nature Park.
Residents have worked with the county to try to minimize traffic to nearby parks, and anyone who doesn’t live in Beverly Beach should only come to the park through the Triton Beach Road entrance.
“They don’t want [their neighborhood] “It’s not good for it to be exploited and for the naturalness of what’s there to be disturbed,” Sargent said. “If you live there, you’ll love it.”
Bosmer said they also want to help each other.
When a storm knocks out power, residents with generators pull cords to run electricity to neighbors’ refrigerators and lights, and when rising waters threaten, they hand out sandbags to ward off flooding, Bosmer said.
“I don’t know all my neighbors by name, but I can assure you that if something were to happen, like a hurricane or a power outage, we would all work together,” Bosmer said.
school: Mayo Elementary School, Central Middle School and South River High School.
Transportation facilities: Davidsonville Park and Ride, which has commuter bus service to Washington DC, is just under 12 miles away on Route 424.
