Center Harbor's Halloween Moves to the Beach Pavilion. The Pumpkins Finish Where the Senter House Stood.

On Sunday afternoon, the open shelter at the Center Harbor Town Beach will have pumpkin innards on its picnic tables and cookie frosting on small hands. A few days later, the pumpkins carved there will be sitting on the bandstand on Main Street, watching Halloween Week traffic go by.

The beach sits on Lake Street. The bandstand stands on Main Street, where the Town Band plays on summer Fridays. A century and a half ago they were one property, the grounds of a grand lakeside hotel. This year's Halloween plan connects them again.

One afternoon replaces one night

The Town of Center Harbor posted the change on September 28. The Community Pumpkin Carving runs Sunday, October 25, from 2 to 4 p.m. under the pavilion at the Town Beach. The town's event notice is direct about what it replaces:

"This event is taking the place of the Halloween Night Party at the Town Hall. This year there will not be a Halloween Night event."

So families who have planned around an evening at Town Hall on October 31 now have a Sunday afternoon by the lake a week earlier. The notice lists four things to do:

• Pumpkin carving. Bring your own pumpkin or carve one of the town's. Its supply is limited.
• Cookie decorating for young bakers.
• Arts and crafts for all ages.
• Snacks and candy while you carve.

When the carving is done, you can take the pumpkin home or leave it on display at the Band Stand for Halloween Week. The display is where the history comes in.

The beach and the bandstand used to be one lawn

The New Hampshire Division of Historical Resources keeps a detailed survey of the Center Harbor Town Beach. It starts the story in the 19th century, when the land that is now the beach was developed as the grounds of the Senter House Hotel. From that survey, the land changed hands roughly like this:

1. 1887. The first Senter House burns.
2. After 1887. A new, grander hotel goes up on the south side of Main Street, at about the spot where the Center Harbor Bandstand stands today. Its manicured gardens run down to a boathouse on the lake.
3. 1919. The second hotel burns, and the property goes back to farming.
4. 1921. The Dane family buys the grounds.
5. 1964. The property is deeded to the Town for a Town Beach.
6. Early 1970s. New outbuildings and structures are added around the old boathouse as the land becomes a public park.

The survey says nobody knows for sure whether the hotel built the current boathouse just before the fire or the Danes built it after 1921. What it can say is that the boathouse is at least the third one on that spot.

That puts this year's plan in a new light. You carve at the lake end of the old hotel grounds, then carry the pumpkin up to roughly where the hotel itself stood. The lawn between them was once a formal garden.

A 1971 shelter with a dirt floor

The pavilion where Sunday's carving happens dates from the park's early-1970s buildout. The state survey describes it as an open picnic shelter, 22 by 40 feet, built in 1971 just west of the swimming beach, between the bath house and the boathouse. It has a wood frame on Sono-tube footings and an asphalt-shingle roof, it is two bays wide and five bays long, and it has a dirt floor. The town's recreational facilities page gives its address as 24 Lake Street and notes that picnic tables are provided.

A dirt floor and open sides are made for a July picnic, so dress the kids for late October by the water. One more timing detail matters. The town's regular public beach season runs daily, 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., from May 1 through October 15. That means the carving falls ten days after the beach closes for the season. If you have questions about parking or access that afternoon, the town office can answer them.

The park around the pavilion has had steady upkeep. In 2020 the boat-ramp area got a brick patio, perennial gardens and built-in benches. The 2024 work included window and roof repairs on the Canoe House, LED lighting, tennis-court work and security cameras.

Halloween Week on the hotel's old footprint

The town lists the bandstand at 36 Main Street. It is best known as the home of free summer concerts paid for by the town. The Center Harbor Town Band plays Fridays from early July to mid-August, and guest concerts carry on through August.

The band is far older than the bandstand it plays in now. A local memoir of Center Harbor dates the band's founding to 1878. The same memoir describes an earlier octagonal wooden bandstand that sat between the old firehouse and the Congregational Church, with Center Harbor Band concerts every July and August. In other words, a town band was playing in the village while the Senter House was still taking guests.

The bandstand usually goes quiet once the August concerts end. For Halloween Week this year it will hold whatever the town's carvers bring up from the beach.

The rest of the week around the carving

Sunday's event sits inside a busy stretch for Center Harbor and the neighboring towns. Here is how the dates line up from publication day through Halloween:

The library item is closest to home. On October 8, Nichols Memorial Library introduced Ms. Joan as its newest library assistant. She works Thursdays and Saturdays, and her Thursday Pre-K Story Time starts the morning this post goes up. The library is open Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Tuesdays from noon to 6 p.m., and Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Right now the library says it can't get to voicemails left at (603) 253-6950, so email or a visit is the better way to reach staff.

The two Meredith dates come from the Lakes Region's 2026 Halloween roundup. The Playhouse's Saturday matinee falls on October 31 itself. With no Halloween Night event at Center Harbor's Town Hall this year, that afternoon show is one Halloween-day option nearby.

If the carving runs into an early supper, two local spots are close by. Rubbin' Butts BBQ at 313 Whittier Highway sits across from the Town Beach. Canoe Restaurant & Tavern at 232 Whittier Highway has dining rooms and a porch that looks out on the lake. Fall hours change this time of year, so check either one before you go.

I love that this year's pumpkins will cross the old Senter House grounds on their way to Main Street. In Center Harbor, much of a property's story comes from what used to stand there. If you've ever wondered what was on your lot or the land next door before it became what it is today, I'm happy to dig into it with you. Reach out to Martha Trepanier any time. Let's Connect.