Kurtz’s Beach Celebrates 85th Anniversary

Today, countless new brides and grooms rave about Kurtz’s Beach as a magical waterfront venue with fabulous food and an excellent staff. Others visit to enjoy crab feasts, family reunions or fundraisers.

Kurtz’s Beach is owned by two cousins, John Mason and Bonnie Kurtz, who are celebrating its 85th anniversary. Yet they aren’t the only people who have fond memories of the venue.

When longtime locals hear the name Kurtz’s Beach, they immediately think “swimming” and they remember the old name, Kurtz’s Pleasure Beach. They smile and say, “I remember.” They picture simple fun on the sandy beach at the north shore of the Fort Smallwood peninsula. They share stories about being children — about laughing and swimming, about being flirtatious teenagers on the sand, or as young adults watching their children play. For years, the beach was a haven to beat the heat and get away. For some folks in Baltimore, it was a weekly destination.

The original Kurtz brothers who founded Kurtz’s Beach were bakers from Austria who acquired the land as a payment for a loan. They did well in the Baltimore market, but as a result of the Great Depression, baking supplies became scarce and the brothers needed to find another way to provide for their families. They opened the beach in May 1933, the year after Franklin D. Roosevelt became president. The beach became a destination of peace and fun through two world wars, 13 more presidents, and from swing to rock. The eastbound span of the Bay Bridge wasn’t built until almost 20 years after Kurtz’s opened.

In addition to the beach, there was a concession stand, a full kitchen and bar, live entertainment, pony rides and slot machines before the machines became illegal in the late ‘60s. Business was booming.

Second and third generations were running the operation in the ‘70s and ‘80s, but it was a trying time. Fewer visitors came to the beach, and more people were heading to the ocean, thanks to construction of the westbound span of the Bay Bridge making it easier for folks to get to and from the Eastern Shore. There were also issues with the quality of the bay water. The family sold 40 acres of the original 64 and opened the beach exclusively for private events from 1986 to 1989. In the early ‘90s, Mason and Bonnie Kurtz teamed up to once again transition the property and to continue the legacy. Today, Kurtz’s Beach Ltd. hosts a variety of public and private events and festivals.

Many Anne Arundel County residents have great memories of bygone years at the beach, and when they visit Kurtz’s for special events, they feel like kids again.

Severn resident Pat Edwards, who lived in Brooklyn Park as a child, said, “We plopped in dad’s jalopy to head to Kurtz’s. I remember I was squished in the middle. Mom made sandwiches for us and we spread blankets on the sand. You could walk out so far in the water. It didn’t get deep ‘til you really got out there,” she said. Later, she and her now husband, Will, went to the beach together.

Warren Henley, also a Glen Burnie resident, lived in Brooklyn growing up and was always invited to go with a large family in the neighborhood that headed to Kurtz’s on the weekends. “It was shallow for a long way out,” he agreed. “We got these boards 12-by-2 feet long, and we’d use them like surf boards, going around all day. Parents sat around at an outside bar while we had a blast.”

Pasadena resident Glenda Bailey said, “We went there every weekend from the time I was young. It was our own little Ocean City. We’d stay from afternoon to dinnertime. I can still see the picnic benches, and the swings and grills. There was a teeter-totter for kids. It was a family gathering place.”

Glenda and her husband, Phil, have visited through the years while attending weddings and fundraisers. “It’s very different, not the open space it was, but I still get that feeling when I walk through that wooden gate,” she said wistfully.

Mason remembered coming to the spot as a kid. “All the family came,” he said. “For me, it was always a very special place.”

Even now, walking through some of the buildings, Mason said he will get a faint whiff of summer – the suntan oil, sand and dampness. He says it’s the smell of his youth. “I don’t know if it’s real or if it’s in my head.”

But it’s magical, and for a moment, he’s a child, playing at the beach.

Now, he and Bonnie are thrilled to continue the heritage that has been passed on to them. While the beach is closed to swimming, generations are still enjoying the property and the magnificent view.

“It’s still about coming down and having fun on the shore,” Mason said. “We are but stewards of this place. There were people here through time, and for now we’re here, and others will be here after us.”