Our Cottages Tell a Story

Built in the 1930s, our cottages have been home to thousands of vacationers over the years.

Built

TO LAST


In 2021, Cooper Cottages underwent a complete renovation designed to bring together the best in coastal comfort, the quaintness of our beach community, and mid-century vintage accents that honor the legacy of these historic cottages.

The goal of our design and landscape team has been to recapture the nostalgia of simpler times while ensuring our guests have every modern comfort at their fingertips.

Swing on your screened porch on a summer night. Stroll the nearby beach and boardwalk town. Play a record on the turntable. Simple pleasures abound.

Cooper Cottages invite you to get away from it all — this summer and every summer.

 

Cooper Cottages were built in the 1930s and have been lovingly maintained over almost a century by three generations of the Cooper family. They are one of the last surviving examples of how vacationers first enjoyed the beaches of Rehoboth.

We believed these cottages offer a unique experience and deserved to be preserved for future generations.

Rehoboth Beach has seen a great deal of redevelopment in the last decade. Many of the historic cottages and dwellings have been razed to accommodate new mcmansions tailored to the vacation rental market. 

In 2021, Cooper Cottages underwent a complete renovation designed to bring together the best in coastal comfort, the quaintness of our beach community, and mid-century vintage accents that honor the legacy of these historic cottages.

The goal of our design and landscape team has been to recapture the nostalgia of simpler times while ensuring our guests have every modern comfort at their fingertips.

Swing on your screened porch on a summer night. Gather around a warming fire. Bike around town. Play a record on the turntable. Simple pleasures abound.

Cooper Cottages invite you to get away from it all — this summer and every summer.

 

Cooper Cottages were built in the 1930s and have been lovingly maintained over almost a century by three generations of the Cooper family. They are one of the last surviving examples of how vacationers first enjoyed the beaches of Rehoboth.

We believed these cottages offer a unique experience and deserved to be preserved for future generations.

Rehoboth Beach has seen a great deal of redevelopment in the last decade. Many of the historic cottages and dwellings have been razed to accommodate new mcmansions tailored to the vacation rental market. 

Rehoboth Beach

HISTORY


Since 1925, vacationers have flocked to Rehoboth Beach.

 

The Boardwalk, now a mile long, was originally built in 1873 on high ground between the beach and Surf Avenue, which ran the full length of the ocean front. Many storms have changed the configuration over the years, but in 1879, the original Henlopen Hotel was built on the site now occupied by a hotel of the same name.

With the coming of the railroad —which ran right down Rehoboth Avenue — the second block of Baltimore Avenue became the new center of camp meetings and city life. Many of the original tent houses (small one-room buildings surrounding a center structure) were moved there with new ones constructed as well.

In 1925, a paved highway was completed from Georgetown to Rehoboth Beach. It helped link the resort with the paved roads towards Washington, D.C., and many legislators, diplomats and government employees began to visit and vacation here. It wasn’t long before Rehoboth Beach came to be known as the “Nation’s Summer Capital.”

From its beginnings as a spiritual center to the publics embracing of the seacoast as a mecca for leisure activity, Rehoboth Beach has developed as a close-knit seaside town.

It’s a nod to the past that the city’s present day charter includes words that are nearly identical to several words from the 1872 charter of the Camp Meeting Association: “the maintenance of a permanent seaside resort and the furnishing of proper conveniences and attractions requisite to the same.”

 

Downtown Rehoboth Beach came of age in the era of Victorian influences and evolved throughout the 20th century to change with the times. Both the residential and commercial area, despite their growth and maturation, have retained the warm and friendly charm and ambiance that reflect Rehoboth Beach’s historic past.

According to information from the Rehoboth Beach Historical Society, in 1872, Reverend Robert W. Todd of St. Paul’s M.E. Church in Wilmington visited a Camp Meeting area on the Jersey Shore. He soon pursued the idea of starting a camp area here on the Delaware coast. In 1873, on 414 acres purchased from local farmers, the Rehoboth Camp Meeting Association was formed.

The grounds were laid out in a fan-shaped design with wide streets, parks and specific building lots. That design remains largely intact today.

While the Association discontinued its formal meetings by 1881, other groups utilized the site for services until about the turn on the 20th century. In 1891, Delaware’s General Assembly established a municipality for the territory, naming it Henlopen City. In 1891, it was renamed Rehoboth Beach.

 

For more fantastic historical illustrations, postcards and photos like those on this site, visit the Delaware Public Archives, whose mission is to identify, collect, and preserve public records of enduring historical and evidential value. The Archives holds more than 95,000 cubic feet of government records and historical documents.

 

 

The Boardwalk, now a mile long, was originally built in 1873 on high ground between the beach and Surf Avenue, which ran the full length of the ocean front. Many storms have changed the configuration over the years, but in 1879, the original Henlopen Hotel was built on the site now occupied by a hotel of the same name.

With the coming of the railroad —which ran right down Rehoboth Avenue — the second block of Baltimore Avenue became the new center of camp meetings and city life. Many of the original tent houses (small one-room buildings surrounding a center structure) were moved there with new ones constructed as well.

In 1925, a paved highway was completed from Georgetown to Rehoboth Beach. It helped link the resort with the paved roads towards Washington, D.C., and many legislators, diplomats and government employees began to visit and vacation here. It wasn’t long before Rehoboth Beach came to be known as the “Nation’s Summer Capital.”

From its beginnings as a spiritual center to the publics embracing of the seacoast as a mecca for leisure activity, Rehoboth Beach has developed as a close-knit seaside town.

It’s a nod to the past that the city’s present day charter includes words that are nearly identical to several words from the 1872 charter of the Camp Meeting Association: “the maintenance of a permanent seaside resort and the furnishing of proper conveniences and attractions requisite to the same.”

 

Downtown Rehoboth Beach came of age in the era of Victorian influences and evolved throughout the 20th century to change with the times. Both the residential and commercial area, despite their growth and maturation, have retained the warm and friendly charm and ambiance that reflect Rehoboth Beach’s historic past.

According to information from the Rehoboth Beach Historical Society, in 1872, Reverend Robert W. Todd of St. Paul’s M.E. Church in Wilmington visited a Camp Meeting area on the Jersey Shore. He soon pursued the idea of starting a camp area here on the Delaware coast. In 1873, on 414 acres purchased from local farmers, the Rehoboth Camp Meeting Association was formed.

The grounds were laid out in a fan-shaped design with wide streets, parks and specific building lots. That design remains largely intact today.

While the Association discontinued its formal meetings by 1881, other groups utilized the site for services until about the turn on the 20th century. In 1891, Delaware’s General Assembly established a municipality for the territory, naming it Henlopen City. In 1891, it was renamed Rehoboth Beach.

For more fantastic historical illustrations, postcards and photos like those on this site, visit the Delaware Public Archives, whose mission is to identify, collect, and preserve public records of enduring historical and evidential value. The Archives holds more than 95,000 cubic feet of government records and historical documents.