Roadside marker to celebrate floating bandstand in Alton Bay will be unveiled this weekend

ALTON BAY — The Water Bandstand has stood a picturesque sentry in the town’s narrow bay on Lake Winnipesaukee for nearly a century. 

This Saturday, rain or shine, the Water Bandstand Committee, chaired by Nancy Merrill, will unveil a roadside marker pointing to and signifying the bandstand. The event will take place at 11 a.m. near the train station across from Pop’s Clam Shell on Route 11.

Only accessible from the water, the bandstand is a quintessentially New England, gazebo-like structure. When the bay freezes over in the winter, it can be accessed by foot. It is one of few surviving on-the-water structures of its kind in the U.S., according to Merrill. The addition of the marker comes during its 95th year.

In the 1920s, speedboat racing was popular in the protected, often flat waters of the bay, and a half dozen residents formed an association there. They decided to build a bandstand at the heart of the bay that would house both musical performances and a judges stand for races.

Atop the ice in the early months of 1928, they built a cribbing that, when the ice melted, settled onto a large, shallow ledge underwater. In the spring, they filled the crib with rocks, built a foundation and constructed the bandstand atop. 

Flash forward to 2018, and the bandstand found itself in need of intense repair. Though town voters had set aside $15,000 in reserve for the renovations, progress was slow. Merrill, whose father Lester and uncle Edward Downing were part of the association that built the bandstand, led an effort to follow through.

By early summer 2019, the town celebrated completion of the near total renovations, which included a new roof, replaced decking and siding, new electrical wiring and lighting and a new flagpole. 

Though the bandstand is today largely ornamental — its cousin ashore is the usual venue for band concerts and the like — it remains an icon of its quaint corner of the big lake.