New Portsmouth recreation director — and new digs

Department now headquartered at Leonard Brown House

By Jim McGaw
Posted 3/23/18

PORTSMOUTH — When local children gather for April vacation and summer camps at Glen Farm, they’ll now have a building where they can take shelter, play board games or even hunker …

This item is available in full to subscribers.

Please log in to continue

Log in

Register to post events


If you'd like to post an event to our calendar, you can create a free account by clicking here.

Note that free accounts do not have access to our subscriber-only content.

Day pass subscribers

Are you a day pass subscriber who needs to log in? Click here to continue.


New Portsmouth recreation director — and new digs

Department now headquartered at Leonard Brown House

Posted

PORTSMOUTH — When local children gather for April vacation and summer camps at Glen Farm, they’ll now have a building where they can take shelter, play board games or even hunker down with a sleeping bag.

That’s because the historic Leonard Brown House is now the headquarters of the Portsmouth Recreation Department, which will run those camps and host many other programs.

Wendy Bulk, who was hired to be the town’s new recreation director in November, is looking forward to the company. Currently, she’s the only occupant of the yellow farmhouse on Linden Lane. 

“I’m here alone and I hear a lot of things — noises because it’s an old house,” said Ms. Bulk, adding the toilets sometime flush on their own.

“I didn’t know ghosts use the bathrooms,” she joked.

Ms. Bulk has been a Portsmouth resident for nearly 50 years. She attended Portsmouth High School and graduated from the University of Rhode Island. She has more than 25 years of experience in management of health clubs/facilities, health education, fitness instruction and sports/team coaching. 

While it’s only natural to concentrate most of the recreational programs on younger children, Ms. Bulk said she wants to make sure there are activities for adults, too. 

“We have lots of sports going on, we have senior programs at the senior center, but there’s that one piece missing: the adult population,” she said. “I want to implement more adult programs. For instance, we’ve started a yoga class. The Common Fence Point hall has agreed to add some classes under the town. It will complement whatever else is going on there.”

Pastoral Glen Farm will be an ideal location for the upcoming April school vacation camp, she said.

“I’m probably going to take about 35 kids at the most, 5 through 13,” she said. “There will be lots of activities. I’ve hired four staff who are going to be here 8 to 4:30. It will be indoor-outdoor, so we’ll do nature walks, rock art, board games, movie hour. I’ll have them bring their sleeping bags. The added piece is the nature; they’ll be able to utilize the grounds.”

The summer camp will have about 35 kids at Glen Farm and another at town-owned Sandy Point Beach. “We’ll swap them out. If they’re not liking the beach scene, that child will be able to stay up here at the farm,” she said.

The Recreation Department is also looking to make further improvements at the beach, including a new walkway and trash system.

“What we want to do is have our dumpsters down there, with recyclables, and the staff would pull the bags out of the trash cans daily because one of the biggest problems is the garbage cans are overflowing by Thursday and they pick up on Friday,” she said.

Her staff will also implement a new parking system for safety’s sake, she said. An attendant will give each driver a ticket for the vehicle’s mirror, and then be directed into designated spots.

“There is no parking plan at the beach right now,” Ms. Bulk said. “They had some problems last summer when it was really packed. It was chaos. We want it so they’re not jammed together, so an ambulances can get in. We’re hoping it’s going to happen this summer.”

At some point, she’d like to see a pavilion at the beach where small concerts could be held. 

“Of course, it would have to be at hours that were respectful to residents,” she said. “Eventually, I’d like to see an outsourced concession stand. Our beach could use it, especially in the middle of the summer. The staff wouldn’t run it; it could be somebody with a food truck and they come when they want.”

Brown House history

The yellow home on Linden Lane was first built in the mid-1800s for Leonard Brown, a wheelwright and blacksmith who earned a reputation as being one of the best farmers in Portsmouth by 1888. Henry A.C. Taylor bought the farm in 1902 and the home was used as a support residence for Glen Farm until the early 1950s, when the Taylors started renting it out as income property. It stayed that way until the late 1980s, when the Town of Portsmouth purchased the farm.

A local group of volunteers, The Friends of the Leonard Brown House, did its best to make piecemeal improvements to the home for years before handing it over to the town for a major renovation job. The building was officially opened in September 2017

Although the Brown House was always slated to be the headquarters for the Recreation Department, there’s enough room for other local groups to use the building.

“The conference room is available for up to about 25 people,” said Ms. Bulk, adding that local youth athletics groups may also be occupying some of the empty offices. “We haven’t decided yet on whether there will be a charge or no charge, depending on whether it’s a nonprofit group or not.” 

For now, however, she’s enjoying the peace and quiet.

“It’s so peaceful here; it really is a beautiful space,” she said.

Portsmouth Recreation Department, Leonard Brown House, Glen Farm

2024 by East Bay Media Group

Barrington · Bristol · East Providence · Little Compton · Portsmouth · Tiverton · Warren · Westport
Meet our staff
Jim McGaw

A lifelong Portsmouth resident, Jim graduated from Portsmouth High School in 1982 and earned a journalism degree from the University of Rhode Island in 1986. He's worked two different stints at East Bay Newspapers, for a total of 18 years with the company so far. When not running all over town bringing you the news from Portsmouth, Jim listens to lots and lots and lots of music, watches obscure silent films from the '20s and usually has three books going at once. He also loves to cook crazy New Orleans dishes for his wife of 25 years, Michelle, and their two sons, Jake and Max.