BY BETSY WADE
In Jack Finney's fantasy short story ''The Third Level,'' a man finds his way to a hidden place in Grand Central Terminal, where he is able to buy a ticket that takes him to a small town as it was in 1894.
The note he sends back urges his friend to keep trying until he, too, finds his way to the secret passageway and is transported back to a simpler, less harassing time.
When I first passed the pay phones in the lobby of the Ocean House, atop the dunes in Watch Hill, R.I., I felt as if I should step in and call my friends and tell them to keep searching because I, too, had found the way back to a happier era.
The phone booths at the Ocean House are capacious wooden closets with glass windows. Inside are a chair and, on the day I first walked by, a shelf holding a phone that looked remarkably like the one we used as children to make surreptitious calls to the druggist to ask if he had Sir Walter Raleigh in the can.
Ocean House is a survivor, a summer hotel overlooking the Atlantic, a great wooden heap that opens on July 1 and shuts on the day after Labor Day.
Its carpeted floors pitch and roll and my bathtub clutched the painted planks with knuckly white claws.
When the doors at the end of the upstairs hallways are opened to scoop the breeze, the view is like Edward Hopper's ''Rooms by the Sea,'' a seductive expanse of water and sky.
Ocean House appears to have carried on almost unchanged since it was built in 1868.
It has neither pool nor air-conditioning nor sauna.
But its porch has the requisite scrunching wicker chairs, and the breeze blows from two directions, Watch Hill being Rhode Island's mainland elbow into the ocean, 15 miles north of Montauk Point.
To replace a Walkman or television set for those awaiting sleep, Ocean House offers the sound of surf.
Instead of a plastic-upholstered menu with glossy photographs, it provides a mimeographed sheet dated for each evening.
The price of the room ($58 to $75 a night a person) includes two meals a day in the dining room, with windows around 180 degrees.
There is no cabana or bath house: Put on a bathing suit and take the elevator to the lowest floor and walk to the surf.
The owner of Ocean House considers that it qualifies for the list of endangered species, but the vital signs are good.
It has opened each summer for all those years, surviving damage in the '38 hurricane after escaping the fires and economic disasters that claimed its more prominent Watch Hill fellows, the Larkin House, the Plimpton Hotel and Atlantic House.
The top floor and the cupola are closed to guests, but 59 rooms, all with their own baths, are still in use and the building has a sprinkler system.
Of a sunny Friday afternoon, the lobby is quiet, dim and almost empty, but below the dunes, in bright sun on the beach, families can be seen gathering up umbrellas and hampers, preparing to trot up for a drink and supper in the dining room at 6 P.M.
At the front desk, the clerk is sadly telling a couple that there is no room for tonight, but for next week, yes, there is space.
This turned out to be a typical situation.
Carole Lacey, the assistant manager and, not incidentally, the daughter of the owner and general manager, E.F. Brankert, said that reservations filled the place each weekend, but usually rooms were available during the week.
So, she points out, the rooms now in use roughly meet the demand and match the capacities of the staff of 70, most of them students who work as waiters and cleaners.
As a result, Ocean House will take a single-night reservation during the week, but requires a two-night stay on a weekend. The checkout time on Sunday is 5 P.M., so this works out to a weekend package.
A few words of caution for the uninitiated.
Those with a fondness for visiting anachronisms need to remember, as I was forcefully reminded, that the 19th century was not engineered by Disney, but by people who had 19th-century technology to work with.
To be more direct, those not adept at dumping pitchers of water over the sandy scalp while supine in a bathtub should request a room with a shower. About half of Ocean House's baths have showers.
The rooms are sparely furnished and faded but clean. Our double room had two wooden dressers of the sort found in rental cottages, usually with a knob or two missing. The closet was about the size of the bathroom, and the beds, while old-looking, had sound mattresses and were faultlessly comfortable.
Unlike many motels, the middle table had lamps suitable for reading in bed, but they were no esthetic marvels.
The absence of ice machines down the hall means that if you phone the desk for ice, a neatly pressed college freshman will deliver it to you, and will accept your reservation for any number of newspapers the next day.
On Friday and Saturday nights, the cocktail lounge below the lobby provides live music by a group called All in the Family, a staple there for 10 years.
The music is rock and just about everything else; the dancers come in all vintages.
In common with most places in the Westerly police district, the Ocean House lounge has a uniformed officer at the door, but he seems to exercise no dampening effect on the vigor of the music or dancing.
If one does not care for such athletic activity after dinner, Ocean House provides lobby sitting with tables for card games, porch sitting, table tennis, beach walking or inspection of the antiques in the modest lobby shop.
Even those who find that the combination of salt air and surf render them insensate at 8 P.M. should stroll into town first to take a look at Watch Hill in the evening, walking down from Ocean House toward the merry-go-round, which is known as the Flying Horses.
On Bay Street, homemade ice cream and popcorn are sold at the St. Clair Annex, as they seem always to have been, even though the old building burned and has since been replaced.
In addition, if you are in time, you can browse through the chaos at Bernard Gordon's Book & Tackle Shop on Bay Street, which is by and large open in the evenings.
On our vacations, a town without a bookstore begets a week of searching. Watch Hill presents no such problem, having the Book & Tackle, probably the champion funky bookstore in all New England.
We once spent a lot of time bidding against Bernie at auctions in the area and all too frequently found his hand clasped around the fleamarket volume we were reaching for. But eventually we came to like Bernie, who is a photographer, teacher and writer as well as a bookstore owner.
No better place than Bernie's could be found to lead a child into the rainy-day pleasures of a used-book store. Among tipping shelves and racks, the Book & Tackle sells balloons, fishing lines, kids' gadgets, antique postcards, whatever.
Hours speed by; it is hard to stop reading other people's correspondence if it is dated 1921 on a tinted postcard of a trolley.
Even when the shop is shut it is in business, because the cosmic rejects remain on shelves on the porch, where one may help one's self for 50 cents or whatever the price is that day: put the money under the middle door, please.
One of Bernie's many talents is photography; he has published wonderful color postcards of the Watch Hill-Westerly-Stonington area.
Some of these, labeled ''Fishing Fleet in Southern New England'' and the like, are sold up and down the coast, far from their origin in Watch Hill.
Daytime Watch Hill offers plenty to do if it rains - or the beach palls. The town has been called ''Little Newport'' because of the large summer places and the oh-so-discreet presence of great wealth.
Avenue magazine said that the price of Watch Hill real estate was on a par with the Hamptons, Malibu, Calif., and Rehoboth Beach, Del. But architecture buffs will find no Von Bulow-style chateaus in Watch Hill. The big homes are ''shingle style'' and ramble on down the beach.
The rich bring their own with them; Watch Hill is full of boutiques and shops purveying such items as dresses, gourmet-ware and antiques, stores whose windows are graced with goldlettering bearing such inscriptions as ''Watch Hill-Palm Beach-Antigua.''
But the second floor of the arcade running along Bay Street harbors a string of seasonal rooms to rent, so the town's elegance is dotted among a number of shops offering beach necessities, a fish market, the grocery store, the Book & Tackle and a number of other less prepossessing establishments.
The twain meet at the Olympia Tea Room on Bay Street.
It is so magnetic for me that a friend and I once borrowed a sailboat in adjoining Stonington, braving rough seas in late September, and sailed over, just to visit the Olympia and watch the westering sun through the great glass windows while eating a sundae. It fulfilled our fantasy.
When S.S. Pierce, the fancy grocer, disappeared and the Olympia dismantled its archetypical New England display of chutneys, coffees and vinegars, it was a terrible blow.
But the loss brought the Olympia a new emblem, the silhouette of a junk, and a revival of the menu, which is now a diverse offering of seafood, other hot food and salads, in addition to the baked goods and ice cream desserts that emerge from its Art Deco soda fountain.
Many of those staying at Ocean House lunch in the booths at the Olympia in preference to luncheon on the hotel deck, which is paper plate-style.
The Olympia lunch menu offers, for example, a chili burrito with Spanish rice or Watch Hill gumbo, each at $4.25.
The ''new American sandwiches,'' meaning open-faced on white or whole wheat dill bread, include lobster salad with avocado at $6.25 or smoked bluefish with horseradish and onions at $3.95. Bread pudding is $1.25 and carrot cake is $2.
The Olympia's dinner menu recently ranged from bouillabaisse at $10.95 to linguine with clam sauce at $6.95.
It does not have a liquor license. (Telephone: 401-348-8211.)
Those wishing to stroll about rather than shop or eat have one of the finest walks in the East at their feet. Napatree Point, or the Naps, as local people call it, extends a mile and a half back toward Connecticut.
In fact, before the '38 hurricane, it was joined to a spit called Sandy Point that is partly in Connecticut. At low tide, the water of Little Narragansett Bay is barely a foot deep in most spots between the Naps and Sandy Point.
Although many deaths were involved, the hurricane was not without some benefit to those who came after.
It tore up all the private houses on the Naps and hurled them into the bay or the ocean.
The private houses were never rebuilt, and the fragile point is now a bird nesting preserve sponsored by the Audubon Society of Rhode Island and the Watch Hill Fire District.
It is stitched over with snow fences and boardwalks, to save the dunes.
Pedestrian entry to the point is at the end of the parking lot of a private beach club, which is beyond the public parking lot.
The entry is purposely kept narrow to bar the passage of vehicles, and walkers are urged to stick to the beach or walkways.
Far out on the Naps are the remnants of an abandoned fort. Picnicking, swimming, shelling, bird watching are possible, but a container should be carried to bring back all litter.
Considering the beauty of the natural setting, it is no wonder that developers over the years have covetously eyed Watch Hill.
Like Ocean House, it has emerged mostly whole. But part of the promotion lavished upon it by one ambitious combine caught my eye.
In the turnof-the-century booklet ''Souvenir of Watch Hill, R.I.,'' which Bernie Gordon has reprinted, the strivers say:
''During the hot season, blankets can rarely be spared from the beds at night.
The tonic effect of the invigorating sea air upon the appetite, shattered nerves and overworked brain is very marked, and approximates very closely to the benefits derived from a sea voyage.''
Just so.
If you go to Ocean House By car or train Ocean House is 148 miles from New York on I-95; take the Westerly exit and follow the signs to Watch Hill. U.S. Route 1 will get you there, too.
Amtrak trains linking Boston and New York stop in Westerly, 45 minutes west of Providence.
United Taxi in Westerly (401-596-4233) will drive railroad passengers to Watch Hill; the fare is $5.50 or $6.
This can be arranged in advance by calling Ocean House at 401-348-8161.will provide advice. Ocean House Rates at Ocean House range from $75 a person a day, which includes breakfast and dinner, for a corner room occupied by a single person, down to $58 for one of two persons in a room without an ocean view.
It is possible to have a visitort join a guest for dinner; or those driving through can pause for dinner or breakfast.
Many do, so reservations are needed. The dinner price this season will be under $15 and the breakfast price under $5.
Opening day is Thursday, July 1. Tips for Drivers Because of its many beaches, parking in Watch Hill is a problem in summer.
Most streets are metered or posted against parking, and there are expensive private lots to supplement the town lot on Bay Street.
Ocean House provides stickers for the windows of guests' automobiles, and once you are parked, it is by and large easier to walk to places in Watch Hill.B.W. RIP Jan 2007
Dodging Durangos at Watch Hill
Spray from rolling surf shimmered in the early morning light as two friends and I loped in the sand at Watch Hill last week, savoring a run on the beach on the final full Sunday of summer.
Gulls cried and Monarchs fluttered in a breeze that whistled through dune grass, already yellowing with autumn’s approach.
Amid the splendor emerged another sign of the changing season: SUVs roaring along the shore.
What’s that all about?
It turns out at the approach of fall the state of Rhode Island allows fishermen to drive right up to the water’s edge so surf casters don’t have to haul their gear a few hundred feet from a parking lot.
“It’s outrageous,” sputtered Maggie Jones, executive director of the Denison Pequotsepos Nature Center in Mystic who had joined Ray Cherenzia of Avondale and me on last Sunday’s run. “There are all kinds of migrating shore birds in the sand or roosting nearby; you have butterflies that are stopping to rest …”
Beyond the potential harm to wildlife is the obscenity of oversized vehicles, ugly enough on the road, defiling one of the region’s most glorious natural settings. The beach now looks less like a picture postcard and more like a Ford Explorer ad.
Let me be clear – I have nothing against fishermen per se (though I remember chuckling at a Steven Wright observation: “There’s a fine line between fishing and standing on the shore looking like an idiot.”) They have as much right to enjoy the beach as runners, swimmers, kayakers, sailors and other outdoor enthusiasts. And in fairness, most are friendly, polite and environmentally sensitive.
That said, it makes about as much sense to allow them, or anyone, to churn through the sand in a three-ton vehicle as it would be to let National Gallery of Art patrons urinate on the floor.
As for driving on the beach, you could make an exception, of course, for the disabled, but from all appearances the only thing handicapped involving the Watch Hill fishermen is the state officials’ bone-headed judgment in approving this idiotic policy. What happened: Did Homer Simpson lose his job at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant and start working for the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management?
Incidentally, where’s the tidal wave of outrage from the Watch Hill haut monde, who some feel through exorbitant parking fees and a dearth of public rest rooms do their best to keep the serfs out of the surf? Try even turning your car around in the Watch Hill Yacht Club driveway on a Sunday afternoon in July to see what kind of welcome you’ll receive.
Anyway, enough ranting about Range Rovers. The sublime-to-ridiculous contrast got me thinking about all the glorious and, conversely, godforsaken phenomenon that take place as the seasons go ’round and ’round.
The slanting light of autumn helps hone our vision with crystalline clarity, but with this sharpness comes a realization that daylight is dwindling. This Sunday is the equinox, equal parts night and day, but from then until the winter solstice Dec. 22 it’s all downhill as far as the sun is concerned.
Long before autumn, when, as Emily Dickinson observed, “The maple wears a gayer scarf, the field a scarlet gown,” the asters and chrysanthemums of late summer paint the landscape. Alas, so do the goldenrod, the bane of all allergy-sufferers.
The air now is redolent with the heady aroma of concord grapes; long gone, though, are the wild strawberries.
Mosquitoes and deer flies, for the most part, have called it a season, but now is prime time for yellowjackets, which don’t just sting once and die, as do bees, but because they’re wasps will continue impaling you ferociously while you run around screaming and flailing your arms. And then there’s even worse hell to pay when you finally mash one with your rolled-up copy of The American Spectator (only neocons and dittoheads use magazines to swat insects when their M16s aren’t handy; left-of-center tree-huggers either rely on organic willow switches ordered from the Bean catalogue, or adopt a live-and-let-live policy with regards to all living creatures). That’s because a squished yellowjacket emits a pheromone that’s a cavalry call to all his comrades, and before you know it you’re surrounded by a biblical plague of stinging insects.
Now that summer’s gone, say goodbye to insufferable heat but get ready for piercing cold. (Memo to global-warming deniers: If we somehow manage to get a few blizzards this winter, don’t start in about the myth of the greenhouse effect).
The ocean water, incidentally, is still warm enough for swimming, and midway through our run last week we plunged in and bodysurfed a few waves. All in all, it was a great start to the day and a great end to the season, even if we had to dodge a few Durangos. Steve Fagin Day Staff Columnist
