Hull, MA Neighborhoods: Pemberton to Nantasket
Hull packs its neighborhoods onto just 2.8 square miles of land — the rest of its 26.9-square-mile town area, a full 89.6%, is water. An 1867 Massachusetts gazetteer described the settled town as "five small hills, connected by very narrow necks of land," and that description still holds: Hull is a chain of glacial drumlins, strung along a narrow peninsula that runs roughly seven miles from Nantasket Beach at the southern end up to Pemberton Point at the northern tip. Each named place below sits on its own hill or cove along that chain, with its own character and, in a few cases, its own genuinely distinctive history. This page is a starting orientation, not a substitute for walking each neighborhood yourself or working with a Massachusetts-licensed real estate agent who knows the specific streets.
Hull Village and Telegraph Hill: The Historic Core
Hull Village, near the base of the peninsula, is the town's historic core, built up around Telegraph Hill and Fort Revere. The hill takes its name from a 19th-century role as communications infrastructure: by the 1840s it carried semaphore and, later, electric-telegraph signaling that notified Boston of approaching merchant vessels, decades after the hilltop's original Revolutionary War fortification — first built in 1776 and known then as Fort Independence — had been deactivated in 1782. The site was rebuilt as the modern Fort Revere between 1898 and 1906 as part of the nationwide Endicott program of coastal defenses, and its 8-acre park, now run by the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation, still preserves a water tower with a public observation deck alongside the old gun batteries.
Hull Village is also where the town buries its own: Hull Village Cemetery is the resting place of Joshua James, the Point Allerton Life-Saving Station keeper credited with saving more than 500 lives over a six-decade career on this stretch of coast before his death in 1902. Hull marks "Joshua James Day" at his grave every May 23, a small, still-observed piece of civic memory tied directly to this neighborhood rather than to any of the town's other named places.
Pemberton Point: The Peninsula's Northern Tip
Pemberton Point is the far northern end of Hull's peninsula, and it has carried its current name only since the 1820s — before that, it was known as Windmill Point, after two brothers' seawater-pumping windmills, once used to harvest salt for preserving fish. Little of that windmill-era economy is visible today; the point's modern identity is built around a cluster of civic and transportation infrastructure packed into a small area. Hull High School has occupied the point since it opened there in 1957, and the active Point Allerton Coast Guard Station, commissioned April 18, 1970, replaced an 1889 life-saving station building on largely the same site.
Pemberton Point is also Hull's own ferry stop — the MBTA's F1 and F2H boats connect Pemberton to Rowes Wharf and Long Wharf in Boston, meaning Hull residents can walk onto a direct-to-Boston ferry without leaving town, a genuine practical amenity given Hull has no commuter-rail station of its own. Pemberton Point Pier is a popular public fishing spot along the same stretch. Until December 2025, the point was also home to one of Hull's two municipal wind turbines, installed in 2001 as one of the first commercial wind turbines on the East Coast; both of the town's original turbines have since been taken out of service and demolished, so a visitor today will no longer find one standing here.
Allerton and Allerton Hill: Boston Light Views and a Kennedy Prequel
Allerton, sometimes called Allerton Hill, is a quiet residential hill neighborhood with water views toward Boston Light, named for Isaac Allerton, one of the Mayflower's original Pilgrim passengers and a leading figure in early Plymouth Colony, commemorated today with a plaque at Point Allerton.
The neighborhood's best-documented single property is a Tudor Revival mansion built around 1901 for a wealthy New Yorker, its "stately proportions" set apart from the shingled cottages typical of the rest of the peninsula. Boston mayor John F. Fitzgerald — Rose Kennedy's father, known as "Honey Fitz," and maternal grandfather of President John F. Kennedy — bought the house in 1915 as a summer retreat for his family, and a young JFK spent time here as part of that extended-family gathering before the Kennedys' summer life shifted to the Cape Cod property that became the famous Hyannis Port compound. Hull's Allerton house predates that compound; it was the family's original South Shore summer base, not a footnote to the later, more famous one.
Gunrock: Cottages, Custom Homes, and a Thin-Inventory Snapshot
Gunrock sits along Hull's southeastern shore, named for the rocky outcrop at Gunrock Beach. One real-estate-marketing source describes the neighborhood as embodying "the essence of a classic New England beach town," and its housing stock backs that up with a genuine mix: older beachfront cottages alongside newer custom-built homes, within walking distance of both the Hull Lifesaving Museum and Fort Revere Park.
That same source put Gunrock's median list price at $519,000 in a July 2026 snapshot — but with only one active listing on the market at the time. A single-listing median for a neighborhood this small tells you almost nothing about the going rate for a Gunrock property generally; treat it as a thin-inventory marketing snapshot rather than an authoritative figure, and pull current, neighborhood-specific comparables (or work with a local agent) before using any number like this to gauge what a Gunrock home is actually worth today.
Nantasket Beach and the Southern End
Nantasket Beach anchors the peninsula's southern end and gives Hull its older, pre-English place name — the Massachuset word Nantasket, generally translated as "at the strait" or a closely related meaning. European farming reached the area by around 1624, and by the mid-19th century Nantasket had grown into a genuine resort destination, drawing steamboats from Boston and, later, summer visitors that included the Fitzgerald and Kennedy family described above, along with Calvin Coolidge. The Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation now administers the beach itself as the Nantasket Beach Reservation, a protected state park.
The resort-era amusement park that once stood beside the beach, Paragon Park, operated from 1905 to 1984; today its site is mostly condominiums, and its signature coaster was relocated to Maryland. But one original piece survived: the Paragon Carousel, built in 1928 by the Philadelphia Toboggan Company, with 66 wooden horses inside a distinctive twelve-sided building. When the park closed, a local preservation effort bought the carousel's pieces at auction rather than let them scatter, and it has run at its current Wharf Avenue location since 1986 — listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1999 as the sole surviving element of Paragon Park.
The Rest of Hull's Named Places
Beyond those five, Hull's own place-name inventory includes a string of smaller named neighborhoods and coves running along the peninsula: Green Hill, Straits Pond, Crescent Beach, Atlantic Hill, Rockaway, Sagamore Hill, Hampton Circle, Sunset Point, and Stony Beach. Several of these carry real, dated infrastructure stories of their own — Crescent Beach's deteriorating seawall, for example, was rebuilt and raised by two feet in a project protecting 73 homes along that quarter-mile barrier beach and the neighboring Straits Pond, funded through a mix of state coastal-resilience grants. Stony Beach has its own separate seawall-replacement project, reported at roughly $11 million, though that figure comes from search-result reporting rather than a source this page can point to directly, so treat it as a reported-but-unconfirmed number pending independent verification.
Hull's low land area and high repetitive-loss flood history (295 FEMA-tracked repetitive-loss properties townwide) mean that seawall and shoreline-protection projects like these are a live, ongoing feature of life in several of these smaller neighborhoods, not a one-time historical event. Anyone considering a purchase in Green Hill, Rockaway, Sagamore Hill, or any of the other named coves above should ask directly about flood-zone designation, seawall condition, and any pending assessment for that specific street — a real estate attorney and a Massachusetts-licensed home inspector familiar with coastal properties are worth the cost before signing anything.
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Get a Free Agent Referral →Independent research. No ads. No sponsored listings. Hull's total area (26.9 square miles, 2.8 land/24.1 water, 89.6% water) and its neighborhood list (Hull Village, Pemberton/Pemberton Point, Telegraph Hill, Allerton/Allerton Hill, Gunrock, Green Hill, Straits Pond, Crescent Beach, Atlantic Hill, Rockaway, Sagamore Hill, Hampton Circle, Sunset Point, Stony Beach, and Nantasket Beach) are per Wikipedia's "Hull, Massachusetts" article, cross-checked against an 1867 Massachusetts-gazetteer excerpt (accessgenealogy.com) for the "five small hills, connected by very narrow necks of land" description and the 1644 incorporation date. Pemberton Point's former name, Windmill Point, and its 1820s renaming are per a dedicated Wikipedia fetch. Fort Revere's Revolutionary-War-era origins as Fort Independence (1776-1782), Telegraph Hill's 1840s signaling role, and the 1898-1906 Endicott-program rebuild are per Wikipedia's "Fort Revere" article and fortrevere.org. Joshua James's lifesaving career, his burial in Hull Village Cemetery, and the town's May 23 "Joshua James Day" observance are per Wikipedia's "Joshua James (lifesaver)" article. Hull High School's 1957 opening and the Point Allerton Coast Guard Station's April 18, 1970 commissioning are per Wikipedia and Section 4/8 of this site's own Hull research file. The MBTA F1/F2H ferry routes from Pemberton Point are per the MBTA's own ferry guide. Hull's municipal wind turbines (installed 2001 and 2006) were taken out of service and demolished between 2024 and December 2025, per Wikipedia and a December 2025 Hull Times headline; this site's research could not fully reconcile the exact final demolition date between those two sources, so it is presented here only in general terms. Allerton Hill's Isaac Allerton namesake and its Boston Light views are per HullNext's neighborhood guide. The Honey Fitz/Kennedy summer house — built around 1901, purchased by John F. Fitzgerald in 1915, and predating the Hyannis Port Kennedy compound — is per Buildings of New England's "Honey Fitz Summer House" page, corroborated by Wikipedia's "Nantasket Beach" article and JFK Presidential Library photo captions. Gunrock's namesake, its housing mix, and its July 2026 median-list-price snapshot ($519,000, one active listing) are per coastalneighborhoods.com, a real-estate-marketing source whose figures should be treated as a directional, thin-inventory snapshot rather than an authoritative market read. Nantasket Beach's resort history, Paragon Park (1905-1984), and the Paragon Carousel's 1928 construction, 1986 reopening, and 1999 National Register listing are per Wikipedia's "Nantasket Beach," "Paragon Park," and "Paragon Park Carousel" articles. Crescent Beach's seawall project (73 homes protected, a two-foot raise) is per Mass.gov's "Hull: Atlantic Avenue Storm-Damage Adaptation" page. The Stony Beach seawall's reported $11 million figure could not be confirmed via a primary source in this site's research and should be independently re-verified before use. Hull's 295 FEMA-tracked repetitive-loss properties are per the Town of Hull's own 2024 Hazard Mitigation Plan update. Nothing on this page is real estate, legal, or financial advice; confirm current flood-zone status, seawall condition, and listing availability directly with the Town of Hull and a Massachusetts-licensed real estate agent or attorney before making a purchase decision in any of these neighborhoods.