Bethany Beach/Fenwick Island

They still earn their nickname, the "Quiet Resorts"--Bethany, South Bethany, Fenwick Island. Almost as if they were intentiooally designed to provide a respite between Ocean City and Rehoboth/Dewey Beach, these neat and reticent neighborhoods have stunning views of the unadorned Atlantic to the east and the golden-grassed marshes to the west.

But while both Fenwick and Bethany take their tone from their public riches--the quiet strands of Delaware Seashore State Park (Route 1, north of Bethany; 302/227-2800) and Fenwick Island State Park (Route 1 south of Bethany)--increasingly they see their private riches put on public display, with the gap between Fenwick's small fishing cottages and trailer parks and Bethany's upscale scene-snatching subdivisions growing ever more obvious.

Along the Coastal Highway, especially south of the town center, Bethany's huge super-saltbox resort homes loom over the marshes, with their pre-weathered grays and hydra-headed bay windows. (For years, there was a sign that hilariously announced "Mansions-sur-Mer" in front of an empty lot, but the houses going up there now live up to the advance notice.) The ocean side is lined with small, rigorously private residential communities, many built as cul-de-sacs or visually "gated" with hedges. Farther north, Bethany's west side, facing into the marsh, has a simpler, almost Old World-ly feel, thanks to its neat parallel canals, small boats at three-foot moorings and easy two-stories.

Fenwick has marsh views, too; but its landscape is dotted with the simple second-generation homes of mechanics, fishermen and charter captains who worked, raised families and retired here, leaving the cottages to their children to expand or cash in on. The trailer and RV homes are retirees, too--symbols of the decades of summers that middle-class Delmarvans spent driving to the public beaches of Ocean City. The shops on and near Coastal Highway may be touristy, but the real Fenwick Island businesses, marinas and outboard repair shops and convenience stores, are back out of sight near the solid brick ranch houses the children of the charter captains have built--a little farther out of sight now, still modest, still reticent.

Accommodations

Bethany Beach and its surrounding communities are the place for rental homes, from modest three-bedroom "bayside" homes that rent for $1,000 a week to grand six-bedrooms-and-up sand castles that can go for $6,000 and more a week during prime beach weeks. There are a few motels in Bethany Beach and even more in Fenwick Island, where the prices are a bit lower. For more information, contact the Chamber of Commerce or visit the Web site (listed on Page 44).

Beyond the Beach

The Bethany-Fenwick Island scenery could double as the background for those J. Jill clothing catalogues, the ones where the models all live along the beach and rock on porches in distressed chairs, are confidently athletic (even the silver-haired ones), socially secure, gifted in the arts (they paint and write) and dressed in unwrinkled drifty natural fabrics in colors with names like "nutmeg" and "periwinkle" and "sage." The shops of Bethany--such as Clouds for Women (in the Bethany Town Center on Garfield Parkway at Atlantic Avenue; 302/537-6845) and Japanesque (16 Pennsylvania Ave.; 302/539-2311)--are stocked with serenely layered, almost weather-beaten pastels that won't rough up a sunburned shoulder and let through a sunset breeze. They're ideally suited to the bright and quirky jewelry at TKO (in the town center; 302/539-6992), a jewelry boutique whose asymetric and sunny pieces have a sleek metal and pastel palette.

In Fenwick Island, shopping is very low-key. Best bet is to head across the Route 54 bridge to the Seaport Antique Village (Route 54 just west of the beach area; 302/436-8962), a long contiguous warren of display cases and whole rooms of antique and semi-antique furnishings, some set up almost as museum restorations and color-coded (the Rose Room, the Green Room, etc.).

Other old-but-interesting stuff can be seen at the DiscoverSea Shipwreck Museum (706 Ocean Highway; 302/539-9366 or 888/743-5524), which displays an intriguing collection of mostly 18th-century artifacts: firearms, shells and cannon; pottery, silver and pewter; personal effects; and hundreds of coins, including a chestful of British and Irish ha'pennies from the Faithful Steward, which went down in 1785 near Lewes on its way from Londonderry to Philadelphia.

For quiet diversions, explore nature at the Assawoman Wildlife Area, a 2,000-acre parkland with ospreys, waterfowl, marshes, fields and forests that offers spots for picnicking, fishing and clamming. (Take Route 54 west from the beaches and follow signs to Camp Barnes. For information, call the Bethany-Fenwick Area Chamber of Commerce, 302/539-2100.)

And for a look at this beach's history, visit the Indian River Lifesaving Station Museum on Route 1 just north of Indian River Inlet (302/227-0478), which showcases the life of the men who served in the United States Life-Saving Service around the turn of the century. The pumpkin and burgundy two-story structure, built in 1876, displays old photos of the service members, rescue gear and safety harnesses and period uniforms.