By Michael Perna Jr.
Contributing Writer
DENNISPORT – Back in the early 1950s, John and Gladys Zinkevich opened what would become a wildly popular summertime entertainment destination in the Cape Cod village of Dennisport. They named their new business Sea View Playland, a name that would become known to thousands upon thousands of Cape vacationers for over fifty years.
The new amusement park, situated on sixteen and a half acres of land, was located on Lower County Road and stretched all the way to the shore on Chase Avenue.
Barn was park centerpiece
The centerpiece of the business was the “Barn of Fun.” The barn itself had been built by a couple from Worcester and had actually been used as a dairy and egg farm before the Zinkevich family purchased it in 1949. They transformed a number of chicken coops into small cottages that visitors could rent.
Inside the barn, which featured a clown painted on its green roof, could be found all kinds of arcade games, including pinball machines and skee-ball. E. J. O’Rourke, a resident of Shrewsbury whose great-aunt was Gladys Zinkevich, still fondly remembers how his first job, at the age of eleven in 2003 was running the prize counter in the arcade. “I collected all the flags from the pitch and putt course at night for $3,” he recalled. His father, the late Edward “Eddie” O’Rourke spent a great deal of time at Sea View Playland, developing a fondness for pinball machines, eventually acquiring a large collection of them.
The pitch and putt course was in addition to a mini-golf course. A large blue statue of a hippopotamus stood watch over the first hole on the course, greeting the mini-golfers. Years later, after the park closed and was sold, the hippo was donated to Nickerson State Park in Brewster where it still stands today.
Decline, closure and rebirth
By the early 2000s, ownership of Sea View Playland had passed to Janice Girouard. After a period of declining business, presumably due to the growing popularity of online gaming and other pursuits, the park was closed in 2004, marking the end of an era of summer fun on the Cape.
The park was offered to the town of Dennis, which ended up purchasing the property for $4.9 million. The Barn of Fun was torn down and the property converted to what is now called Sea View Park. The redeveloped park now includes picnic tables, benches, and parking. Playgrounds with slides and swings have rubber mats to ensure safe play areas for children. A man-made pond and community gardens can be accessed by a short walking trail. Tennis courts were also installed.
Another rose-lined walking path leads to the ocean and what is known as the Chase Avenue jetty, which is touted to offer “a breathtaking view of Nantucket Sound.”
Despite all the improvements and changes to the old Sea View Playland, it appears that the Sea View Park is not as popular as it was during the heyday of the amusement park. It has few visitors other than families with very small children, with nothing left but fading memories of the fun times that thousands of visitors enjoyed for the more than fifty years that Sea View Playland was “the place to go” in Dennisport on Cape Cod.
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