The northeast corner of Somers Garden was one of the last lots granted in the town. In 1726 the land was given to mariner Joseph West, who built a ‘new mansion house’ which he left to his wife a decade later. This building has survived with few alterations and is now known as Chandler’s Cottage. The roof of today has replaced an earlier one, but the massive chimney against the eastern end of the house clearly dates to the 18th century. After West’s widow died ownership becomes unclear, but in 1796 Englishman James Service and his wife Eleanor purchased the L-shaped building and ran a tavern out of their home, dividing their time between tending bar and raising three children. Later, during the American Civil War, the cottage was the home of Joseph Johnson, a merchant from Liverpool and one of the principal blockade-running agents in Bermuda. At the end of the war, Johnson fled the colony and the house and all its furnishings were auctioned to pay his debts. ‘Chandlers’ (retail grocers or shopkeepers) Albert Inglis and Charles Rankin later owned the house, and their profession gave the house its name.

A stable once spanned the western edge of the lot, used by Banana Manor resident Joseph Martin to support his horse livery business in the 1890s. From the late 1960s until 1992, the southern wing of Chandler’s Cottage adjoining Shinbone Alley was in a ruinous condition, but Thomas Wadson, its 2003 owner, restored it and added the Flemish gable on the house’s southern end.