Jenkins Beach, a popular beach and camp on Dedham’s Green Lake, will be closed to the public this summer for the third year in a row.
The private beach was open to the public for a small fee for about a century, becoming a summertime staple in the area with three generations of Jenkinses at the helm. The camps are still open for private rentals but the beach has been closed to public visitors since 2023, when Julie Jenkins and Duncan Dwyer bought it from Jenkins’ father and started extensive renovations.
The owners don’t know if or when the beach will reopen for general admission like they once planned. Keeping it private would reduce local options for beach access in the summer in an area already popular for private shoreline camps, which has drawn some pushback locally. But focusing on camp rentals is necessary to keep the legacy business going, according to Jenkins and Dwyer.
Though local beach access is important to them, they said, numerous factors make it difficult. Even if they do narrow down a solution, which might happen next year, the experience will be different than it was when Jenkins’ father Joe ran it.
The biggest hurdle to reopening the beach is parking. The beach and camp originally developed around a railroad, which stopped service in 1984; in the years following, fewer people seemed to be carpooling and cars would park up the road shoulders for half a mile.
That’s a safety and emergency access risk that the town no longer allows, according to Jenkins.
“We can’t reopen to ‘anyone can just come,’ because of parking alone,” she said.
Crowds and parking challenges also led to chaos, tension and aggression from customers, which they want to avoid for themselves and for camp renters.
Capacity is also limited on the beach by the composting toilets added because the town no longer allows long term use of portable toilets. Then there’s insurance, which would be a steep cost for a public beach.
The property had been paid off for years when Joe Jenkins owned it and his insurance was grandfathered, according to Dwyer. He approached it as a community service and was devoted to keeping it open.
“It is in his heart, in his soul, in his bones, in his blood,” his daughter said.
But the next generation has a mortgage and significant loans, according to Dwyer. They also want to create a business their son can inherit if he chooses.
“We needed a business plan,” he said.
They focused first on the camps and structures, which they said has brought some local resistance. But the property couldn’t be insured in its original condition, according to the couple, and they also wanted to prioritize their regular summer customers, most of whom have returned every summer for decades.
Among many other projects, the couple renovated four buildings and brought in five new ones, took out old docks, rewired buildings and converted them from oil to electric, removed numerous dilapidated structures, added native plants and erosion buffer zones, built the composting toilets and put up a large new community meeting building.
“Every minute has been a working minute when we’re there,” Dwyer said.
The new meeting house will host local events and groups, which they hope will restore some form of the camp’s role as a local community hub on the lake. They plan to bring in “rail bikes” — four-wheeled, pedal-powered carts along rail tracks — soon and may add a small shop or farmstand.
“We’re trying to consider how to make this a community space with a community feel,” Jenkins said. “We know that’s been important to folks in the area, and it’s important to us too.”
Though the beach has always been privately owned, it’s viewed like a public resource that locals are deeply attached to, Jenkins said.
The couple has considered everything from a membership model to a shuttle service and expect to have narrowed down some options next year as they make progress on renovation. They opened it to a few local school and business groups that carry their own insurance last summer and are expanding that this season.
To make it more accessible, they’re also adding lower-cost options such as glamping tents, a camper, an RV spot and a tent site between this season and next.
Dwyer added that through the generations, each owner made changes to the beach, such as Jenkins’ grandparents building a gas station when the area was remote, which they later removed as the highway system developed.
“At every point, everyone had to make a decision about the best use of the property,” he said.
The boat launch remains open to the public.
