Pictures of the shifting
Crane Beach is a gorgeous 1,234-acre state-owned conservation and recreation property in Ipswich, Mass., just north of Cape Ann. It has a four-mile-long sandy beachfront, dunes and a maritime pitch pine forest. Five and a half miles of hiking trails through the dunes and forest are accessible from the beachfront.
The land was given by the Crane family, whose fortune was from plumbing supplies. (One of the family bought my great-great grandfather’s house in Woods Hole, on Cape Cod. — Robert Whitcomb.)