Charm is a Sears, Roebuck & Company kit home, purchased by catalog in 1917 by the Days family and delivered to Provincetown by freight train. 

 

The property was then purchased and run as a boarding house in the 1940's. For a period the home was requisitioned with other guesthouses in the town by the U.S. Navy and used as the officers' quarters for the nearby Naval Mine Testing Facilities. 

 

In the 1950's a one-story addition, which currently serves as Charm's manager's unit, was built on the back. The property has been a guesthouse open to Provincetown visitors ever since.

 

In 1965 new owners re-christened it Casa Brazil Lodge.  At that time the property had grown to encompass not only the current Charm guesthouse, but also the condo units at the rear of the property and the neighboring Admiral's Landing Guesthouse.

 

A consortium of individuals purchased and renovated the Casa Brazil properties in the early 1980's and sold them off as condominiums.  They rechristened the guesthouse after the Elizabeth Taylor film (and novel it was based on) Elephant Walk.

 

In 1985 Leonard Paoletti purchased the Elephant Walk Inn and ran it until 2003, restoring the property and giving it the quaint aesthetic that would become familiar to guests for the next 30 years.  The Elephant Walk passed through a succession of different owners once Paoletti moved on, until Cory Conley and Curtis Helmus purchased the property in 2016 and gave the property a new look and a new name.  They also own another Provincetown guesthouse, Inn at 7 Central.

 

Why "Charm"?  Probably not why you think!

Quarks (which make up the protons and neutrons inside atoms) come in six flavors: up, down, top, bottom, strange and charm.