'Mayor of Hampton Beach' mourned: Casino’s Jake Fleming leaves lasting legacy

HAMPTON — For more than 40 years at the Hampton Beach Casino, the face and voice of the building and its many attractions was general manager John “Jake” Fleming.

Fleming, 71, died Sunday, April 14, in his Hampton home after a year of fighting esophageal cancer. He was responsible for making the complex and its many games and eateries run all summer long. He had a hand in moving the Seafood Festival from Hampton Beach State Park to Ocean Boulevard, and he and his wife Maura owned the Purple Urchin together for 25 years.

Maura Fleming said her husband never let his illness keep him from enjoying life.

She said his chair at home felt to him just like his office at the Casino Complex. According to his obituary, Fleming at the Casino was known to many as “the mayor of Hampton Beach.”

"Until the day Jake passed, the Casino or the beach was a daily conversation,” Maura Fleming said. “He really loved it.”

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Fleming was a fixture at Hampton Beach

Fleming was born and raised in Lowell, Massachusetts. Bob Preston, whose family has managed rental properties in Hampton and Seabrook for years, said Fleming's family had property at Seabrook Beach.

Fleming was introduced to Hampton Beach at a young age. He operated the Ocean House hotel in college, according to his obituary, before working with longtime friend Terry Sullivan at the Casino.

Fleming and Sullivan first worked at the Casino for John Dineen, who owned the complex until 1976. The two were tasked with construction work like ripping out flooring in the winter to prepare for the summer season, Maura Fleming said.

Jimmy Trainor, the owner of the Boardwalk Café, said he grew up on the beach with Fleming and Sullivan and also worked for years in the Casino. He recalled when a group of owners, including Fred Schaake, purchased the Casino and how, at a young age, Fleming was given the job of general manager. He said the young workers became close with Schaake.

“Jake and Terry and I were kind of like Fred’s kids down at the Casino,” Trainor said. “Today, nobody would put a 25-year-old in charge of the Casino, but Fred was just that way.”

Trainor said Fleming became a sort of “mouthpiece” for the group that ran the Casino, which also included owners Sam Waterhouse, Paul Grandmaison, Norman Grandmaison, James Goodwin, Sr., and James Goodwin, Jr. The Casino was the centerpiece of the beach with various games, food stands and the Whale’s Tale restaurant.

It was Fleming’s responsibility to make sure each vendor was running smoothly.

Former Hampton Area Chamber of Commerce president Glen French said Fleming also made sure that the games had variety so no one was competing with each other but rather helping attract more people.

“John (Fleming) was the one that was making sure everyone was doing what they were supposed to,” French said. “John was Fred Schaake’s eyes and ears.”

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Fleming remembered as a friend, promoter of the beach

As a fixture of the Casino, Fleming eventually began running his own businesses in the complex – Casino Mini Golf and the Purple Urchin restaurant, which he ran with his wife Maura. The Flemings started as just good friends, according to Maura Fleming. By the time they went into business together to run the Urchin, she said they became more public as a couple.

The Flemings sold the restaurant in 2020, and Fleming retired from his job at the Casino. Still living in Hampton, Maura Fleming said her husband continued to enjoy memories and stories of his old beach days, like when he helped move the Seafood Festival from the State Park to Ocean Boulevard, where it is today.

The Seafood Festival started in the 1980s at Hampton Beach State Park but proved unsuccessful in that location, according to French. Fleming, a member of the Seafood Festival committee, was a strong advocate for bringing it to the middle of Ocean Boulevard.

Trainor, who ran Boardwalk Fries inside the Casino at the time of the move, recalls being skeptical about the move.

“We might have thought Jake was foolish at the time, but he was not,” Trainor said. “He was the one that just believed in that.”

Fleming continued to see friends at his home throughout his last year as he dealt with his illness. His friends like Trainor and Preston agree that his stories were the best, though not necessarily fit to print.

“He has so many, and he has an ability to deliver them,” Preston said. “It was always great when Jake got on a roll.”

Maura Fleming said family and friendship were the roots of what Fleming loved most about the beach as he oversaw the food booths, mini golf, movie theater, shooting gallery, and countless other attractions that have come through the Casino.

“Jake loved everything about the beach,” Maura Fleming said. “He really believed that the Casino itself was all about family.”

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Hampton Beach Casino manager, Purple Urchin owner mourned