The Namesake

Conrad Ferla holds a picture of his grandfather holding him and the secret recipes for Rocky Point chowder and clam cakes. Photo by Wolf Matthewson

Growing up in Rhode Island with a name like Conrad Ferla meant always hearing about Rocky Point.

“I’d constantly hear, ‘Oh, Rocky Point! Rocky Point!’ You must be his son, his grandson,” Ferla says. 

Conrad Ferla Sr. on his famous scooter. Photo by Wolf Matthewson

It’s to be expected when you’re the grandson of Mr. Rocky Point himself, Conrad Ferla Sr., who ran the park for thirty-seven years until retiring in 1986. You could often find him cruising around the park on his scooter, making sure everything was running smoothly.

The younger Ferla has fond memories of the elder one, whom he’d visit every weekend up on the house on Narragansett Bay Avenue, just south of the park in Warwick Neck. As the grandson of Mr. Rocky Point, he lived a life other Rhode Island kiddos merely dreamed of: He went behind the scenes of all the rides and attractions, rode any ride he wanted, and had the arcade all to himself for his seventh birthday. 

“I can still smell Rocky Point,” says Ferla, a Wakefield resident and surfer who’s a fierce shoreline-access advocate. “I can still smell the kitchen. I can still smell the Palladium, the Windjammer. I can still smell the Haunted House.”

Conrad Ferla Sr. with the Three Stooges. Photo by Wolf Matthewson

His grandfather came from Siracusa, Italy, to work for an older brother, Vincent — whom he’d never met — in 1949 after a stint in the Italian Army. When Vincent retired and sold Rocky Point in 1960, Conrad stayed on, running the park, booking all the entertainment, and making sure the Shore Dinner Hall — his baby — had the supplies and manpower needed to feed thousands of hungry patrons a day. He died in 1996 and was inducted into the New England Association of Amusement Parks & Attractions’ Hall of Fame in 2010.

His wife, Anita, passed away in January at the age of ninety-five. Which means that the younger Ferla now has bins, buckets and boxes of Rocky Point mementoes that his grandparents collected throughout the years, including the handwritten recipes for the park’s famous red chowder and clam cakes, which are securely tucked away in a safe. Those copycat recipes you see floating around on the interwebs? They’re all fake, he says. 

A tureen used to hold the park’s iconic red chowder. Photo by Wolf Matthewson

He recently went clamming and scaled down the eighty-gallon chowder recipe to make a gallon of the red nectar. It was delicious. 

“I nailed it,” he says. “It shocked me a bit.”

He’s not sure what he’ll do with the recipes. Maybe share them to raise funds for shoreline access, or collect more recipes into a cookbook. But until then, he’s grateful that if his family can no longer be the stewards of Rocky Point Park, at least the space can be open to everyone who wants to visit. 

“I’m glad it’s a public park for all, with a public shoreline for all, and that everybody can still enjoy it.”