Atlantic House (A-House)

The Atlantic House — universally known as the A-House — holds a claim no other gay bar in America can match: it has been operating as an openly gay venue on Masonic Place in Provincetown since the 1940s, in a building that dates to 1798. The recorded history of the A-House as a bar goes back further; its transformation into an openly gay establishment happened in the decade after World War Two, when Provincetown's artistic community had already established the town as a place of relative freedom. Tennessee Williams was a regular. Jack Kerouac visited during his Cape Cod summers. Eugene O'Neill, who launched his career at the nearby Provincetown Players, drank on these premises. The A-House is not trading on history alone — it remains the anchor of Commercial Street's nightlife, a multi-room venue with a main bar, a smaller leather-oriented downstairs room called the Macho Bar, and an upper lounge. Entertainment runs nightly throughout the summer season: drag shows, cabaret acts, DJs, themed events. The physical space has the density and texture of a place that has actually been used for eight decades of gay social life, not the curated vintage aesthetic of a newer venue attempting to suggest history. For first-time visitors to Provincetown, the A-House on Masonic Place is the obligatory stop.