Only a thirty minute commuter rail ride along North Shore, Beverly offers the essentially New England beach town experience, with Rockwellian views, beaches and lush trees and blossomed bushes, while maintaining its own unique Beverly identity. Elegant and bungalow-type beach houses line the nearby-ocean streets, before giving way to Cabot Street, full of local businesses and restaurants, and throughout, there is an abundance of large Victorian style houses for families, or splits up into apartments for tenets.
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Beverly has a claim staked as the birthplace of the American navy. Whether or not the Hannah schooner really was the nation's first military-purposed vessel, Beverly is full of history dating back to the colonial era. Across the city, there are plaques on old houses, buildings, harking back to the 1600's, as well as similarly dated stone cathedral in the center of Cabot Street. Sometimes these markers even cite the builder of the house, and who the building was built for, and their profession. The crude stone headstones in the city's various cemeteries permeate the city with a lasting tie to the past. Beverly holds another significant place in American history, known as the origin of the American Industrial Revolution, being the home of the first cotton mill. The subsequent manufacturing boom dominated the city's industrial output for decades, and remains a lasting influence today.
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At the beach, you'll find a small and classic ocean homes with decks the size of the house that look over tides, mixed in with large multi-leveled homes, either elegantly old fashioned or modern and glassy. Toward the center of town, there brownstone apartment buildings, and colonial and Victorian wood houses, in the signature New England style. Neighborhoods between Beverly and Beverly Farms host a good mix of medium and larger homes, alternating between New Englanders and quaint ranchers. Throughout, the painted trim, the top story A-frames, and the iconic cupolas compose the ideal architectural atmosphere.
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The beach is where the people of Beverly come to smell the sweet and salty smell of the water on the wind, and lounge in the New England sand, while gulls pass overhead, sailboats careen in the Atlantic breeze, and the waves come in and go out incessantly. If you're simply out for a stroll, take a public way to a limited stretch of beach where you'll usually find a bench and a view of the ocean's horizon, stretching on for miles and miles. If you're looking for some added space for activities, Dane Street Beach is the local venue for frisbee players, kids practicing their soccer passing, fastballs, and perfect spirals. There is a rolling grassy hill, picnic tables, swings and a playset, and of course, the beach. Several boulders are half-buried in the sand, providing a proving-ground for young kids' climbing skills without the danger of falling. Almost every sunny day at Dane Street Beach is a dog parade. They trot back and forth in view, smelling the sand, and playing with each other. Thankfully, the good dog owners of Beverly do a good job cleaning up after them too. Lynch Park is another excellent park and beach combination in Beverly. With even more space than Dane Street Beach, Lynch Park is a great place for bigger events, with a set of sand volleyball courts, a big field, and long paths that wind through hills, trees, and the edge of an ocean-facing ledge. West Beach, in Beverly Farms, Beverly, offers a nice change of pace, and the journey there through the quaint Bev Farms main square, large and beautiful mansions on tight, circuitous roads shadowed by deciduous trees will make for an idealistic experience.
For a beach town, Beverly has the night life of a much larger city. The arts are appreciated here, either in the many Montserrat Art School showings, or larger venues like the North Shore Music Theatre, the Larcom Theatre, and the Cabot Street cinema. Cabot Street is also home to a wide range of styles of restaurants, from dines, to Mexican street food, to South American cuisine, burgers, American, Mediterranean, and signature Beverly roast beef sandwiches. So much to say, it will take a long time to exhaust your Beverly eating options. So too for the bar options. Starting at the most-oceanside and fittingly nautically-named, The Anchor, then down Cabot Street to Lucky Dog, over to classic pub styled Fibber McGees, on to the heart of Cabot for something more upscale like Soma, or Barrel House, then finish up at Sports/ Celtic, famed The Pickled Onion, over on Rantoul Street.
Throughout the coastal shore, you’ll see a ceaseless stream of joggers hitting the pavement, sand and woodland trails all within the same run, and cyclists and everyday bikers riding for work and for pleasure through town, or along the side of the beach, overlooking the Atlantic. There are parks for kids scattered throughout town, and a several gym locations for the health minded individual.
