Daniel & Carmela Bartolomei Conservation Area

ADDRESS: 667 Sandwich Rd, East Falmouth, MA 02536

ACCESS: The Bartolomei Conservation Area parking lot is marked with an engraved stone and a hiking sign and includes designated accessible parking spots. For several hundred feet, the pond side trail is wide, flat and wheelchair-accessible. The trail then narrows and later links up with the Andrews Grove conservation area. This portion of the trail also includes a guide rope for blind or low-vision persons.  A picnic table at the start of the trail is designed to include persons in wheelchairs.

HISTORY & GEOGRAPHY

The serendipity of topography, a paved driveway and a cleared area where a house once stood suggested a new opportunity for conservation land when the town purchased 6.87 acres overlooking the Coonamessett River from the children of Daniel and Carmela Bartolomei in June 2009.

The open area is on a gradual slope above the river and Pond 14, a small pond of about 5 acres; a level stretch of ground below the slope continues into woods to the edge of the property. The 300 Committee established the town’s first accessible trail on this level ground, with benches and a picnic table that fits a wheelchair, where visitors have a lovely view of the water. The later, narrow section of the trail, which dips through a spring-spaping valley, was created in 2010 by Ivan Abrams, a local teen working toward his Eagle Scout badge.

Bartolomei is another link in the creation of a Coonamessett River greenway and is just downriver (and across Sandwich Road) from The 300 Committee's 10-acre River Bend Conservation Area.