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☀️ The Snowball that Led to Marriage

☀️ The Snowball that Led to Marriage

Plus: Tiki Port's 50-year run ends

Cape Coddah
December 26, 2025

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Good morning Cape Cod. Happy day-after-Christmas. Whether you're nursing a food coma, battling wrapping paper cleanup, or already plotting your escape to the stores for post-Christmas deals, welcome to the glorious no-man's-land between Christmas and New Year's. 🎄

In this week’s Cape Coddah:

Four families built their own homes
$50K scammer extradited from Texas
Events and live music

Let’s get to it.

💍 From Snowballs to Wedding Vows

A Sandwich couple who've known each other since grade school in 1950s Melrose finally married on October 24th, nearly 70 years after Bill Maheris first hit Karen Martino with a snowball while walking home from kindergarten.

Bill, a friend of Karen's brother, was forbidden from dating her in high school and resorted to teasing instead. They lost touch after graduation, both married others, and reconnected in 1998 when Bill walked into Karen's favorite Melrose restaurant.

Bill proposed 27 years ago, but wedding plans kept getting delayed by their daughters' weddings and grandchildren arrivals. They finally eloped in Florida at ages 77 and 78.

Together they have five daughters and 12 grandchildren, splitting time between Cape Cod and Florida. Read more»

🚧 The Hotel That Became Housing

Falmouth's Lyberty Green apartment complex will open in early January after nearly a decade of legal battles, neighborhood opposition, and multiple revisions since initially being proposed as a 110-unit Marriott hotel in 2014.

The Chapter 40B development offers 104 units including 26 affordable apartments at 80% area median income, with over 215 people on the waitlist. Affordable rents range from $1,770 to $2,402 monthly, while market-rate units cost $3,100 to $4,400.

The project faced rejection by the Cape Cod Commission in 2016, ZBA approval with 98 conditions in 2017, appeals through 2021, and a 2023 settlement removing two townhouses to preserve abutters' deeded access along Lantern Lane.

The two buildings now total over 130,000 square feet—double the originally proposed hotel's size. Read more»

SPONSORED BY CHATHAM HARVESTERS

Join the Chatham Harvesters Community Fish Share and enjoy the freshest local seafood while supporting Cape Cod fishing families.

Your membership keeps small-scale fishermen on the water and brings you responsibly harvested fish you can trust. Straight from the dock to your table.

🔨 Finally: A Place to Call Home

Four Habitat for Humanity families will move into new deed-restricted homes on Old Kings Highway in Wellfleet in mid-January after contributing 250 hours of "sweat equity" building the houses themselves.

The homeowners include three single mothers and one couple, many working in social services and dealing firsthand with Cape Cod's housing crisis. Lisa Davis, a therapeutic mentor, lived in a tent and rented rooms after losing her year-round rental in 2021. Bridget Badams works as an intake coordinator at the Homeless Prevention Council and serves on Wellfleet's housing authority.

The homes were dedicated December 9th following a 15-month construction period. Wellfleet acquired the land in 2008, but three lawsuits from abutters delayed building permits until 2023.

Residents are excited about basements, kitchens, stability, and knowing their neighbors after building together. Read more»

📸 @tbradlee | 📍Eastham

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🏖️ Following Thoreau's Footsteps, 175 Years Later

A Boston Globe reporter and a friend retraced Henry David Thoreau's 1849 walk along Cape Cod's Outer Beach, covering 24 miles from Marconi Beach in Wellfleet to Race Point in Provincetown in a single day.

Starting at dawn, they walked the same sprawling coastline where Thoreau once wrote that "a man may stand there and put all America behind him." They encountered seals surfing breakwater, remnants of a shark-eaten seal, moon snail collectors, and towering bluffs that Thoreau called Cape Cod's "backbone."

For 15 miles, the beach remained largely deserted. But approaching Provincetown, where vehicles are allowed on a 5-mile stretch, the solitude vanished into crowds, pickup trucks, and RVs.

After 59,000 steps, they finished exhausted but rewarded with croissants from a Wellfleet bakery. Read more»

The Barnstable County Sheriff's Office delivered fresh bread baked by inmates enrolled in a vocational baking program to Lower Cape Outreach Council and other Cape food pantries.

A rare purple gallinule native to Deep South wetlands was found exhausted and underweight on a New Bedford woman's air conditioning unit and is now recovering at the Birdsey Cape Wildlife Center in Barnstable.

Marcel Breuer's 1949 modernist masterpiece in Wellfleet, an L-shaped cabin where the Bauhaus alumnus hosted artists like Max Ernst and Alexander Calder, has been restored by the Cape Cod Modern House Trust.

🥡 Last Call at Tiki Port

Hyannis's Tiki Port Restaurant, a Chinese restaurant and Polynesian lounge operating since 1977, will permanently close December 31st after nearly 50 years following a decision between the business and landlord WS Development, which is developing The Landing shopping plaza next door.

The restaurant faced difficulties after Barnstable Licensing Authority found it violated multiple regulations following a March 23rd altercation where a man hit two women with his truck in the parking lot after an indoor patron fight. Around 40-50 patrons were being served food and alcohol after the 1 AM license-mandated closing time.

The Authority imposed a one-month license suspension and restricted hours to 11 PM through January 2026. Police also investigated reports of after-hours parties where bouncers in bulletproof vests vetted patrons entering through the back door.

WS Development will likely redevelop the location. Read more»

A 50-year-old cardiologist vanished from her Nantucket vacation home in January 1980 after claiming she'd made a Nobel Prize-worthy medical discovery, her fate still unknown 46 years later.

A 354-square-foot, one-bedroom Carpenter Gothic cottage built around 1876 in Martha's Vineyard's historic Wesleyan Grove campground is for sale, asking price: $640K.

Nantucket's Board of Health voted to schedule a special meeting to consider banning synthetic turf fields, potentially overturning the School Committee's 4-1 vote to install turf at the high school's athletic complex.

A rufous hummingbird, a species native to the Pacific Northwest, was spotted for the first time on Martha's Vineyard at a Chilmark home in late November, surviving recent snowfall and high winds with help from a heated feeder.

🏋️‍♀️ FEELING THE HOLIDAY SPIRIT?

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🚨 Texas Man, Cape Scam, $50K Gone

A Texas man was arraigned in Barnstable District Court after scamming a local resident out of nearly $50,000 by posing as an FDIC member claiming their bank account was compromised.

In August 2025, 22-year-old Deterrjon Johnson of Missouri City allegedly stayed on the phone with the victim while they withdrew funds from multiple locations and deposited them into a fraudulent "safe and secure" account under "D. Johnson Global LLC."

Detective Erik McNeice conducted an extensive investigation involving search warrants that identified Johnson as the account creator who made large cash withdrawals. Though funds were gone, evidence linked Johnson to the crime.

Johnson was extradited from Texas and charged with larceny over $1,200 by false pretense and receiving stolen property. He's being held on $2,500 bail. Read more»

👋 Meet: Mia
🐾 Yorkshire Terrier
🎂 7 years old
♀︎ Female
Available to adopt at MSCPA-Cape Cod

FRIDAY - DECEMBER 26

Story Time @ Hyannis Library | 10 AM
Public Skating @ Charles Moore Arena | 11:30

SATURDAY - DECEMBER 27

Chess Club for Kids @ Centerville Library | 11 AM
Pokemon & Magic @ Brewster Ladies Library | 1
Lego Club @ Hyannis Library | 2 PM

SUNDAY - DECEMBER 28

Fiber Arts Circle @ Wellfleet Library | 11 AM
Bingo & Brunch @ Naukabout | 11 AM

SUNDAY - DECEMBER 28

Rose Clancy @ Chatham Squire | 4 PM

_{Nothing in this section is sponsored. We'll let you know when something's sponsored.}

Friday

29 🌡️ 26 | ☁️ | 💧 0% | 💨 N 10 mph

Saturday

33 🌡️ 27 | ❄️ | 💧 75% | 💨 NNE 12 mph

Sunday

39🌡️ 32 | 🌤️ | 💧 0% | 💨 WNW 7 mph

💧🌡️ Water temperature = 39ºF

3 Boardwalk Road, Sandwich
Asking $2.2M
3 🛏️
3 🛁
3,795 sqft
2.95 acre lot

_{Nothing in this section is sponsored. We'll always let you know when something's sponsored.}

Thanks for reading The Cape Coddah today. If you found something useful or entertaining, please share it with a couple who got married this year.