Historic Nantucket, Summer 2001, Vol. 50 No. 3

SUMMER 2001

VOL. 50 NO. 3

NANTHCKEf

THE NANTUCKET HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION BOARD OF TRUSTEES Arie L. Kopelman President

Peter W. Nash

Barbara E. Hajim

Alice F. Emerson

Bruce D. Miller

Patricia M. Bridier

First Vice President

Second Vice Prestdent

Third Vice President

Treasurer

Clerk

Alfred Sanford Isabel C. Stewart John M. Sweeney Richard F. Tucker Marcia Welch David H. Wood Robert A. Young

Mary F. Espy Thomas C. Gosnell Julius Jensen III L. Dennis Kozlowski JaneT. Lamb Carolyn B. MacKenzie Albert L. Manning Jr. Arthur I. Reade Jr.

Sarah Baker Rebecca M. Bartlett Laurie Champion Nancy A. Chase Prudence S. Crozier John H. Davis JosephS. DiMartino

Frank D. Milligan Executive Director

ADVISORY BOARD William B. Macomber Paul Madden Robert F. Mooney Jane C. Richmond Nancy J. Sevrens Scott M. Stearns Jr. John S. Winter Mary-Elizabeth Young

Nina Hellman Elizabeth Husted Elizabeth Jacobsen Francis D. Lethbridge Reginald Levine Katherine S. Lodge Sharon Lorenzo Patricia Loring

Walter BeineckeJr. Joan Brecker Patricia Buder Helen Winslow Chase Michael deLeo Lyndon Dupuis Martha Groetzinger Dorrit D.P. Gutterson

RESEARCH FELLOWS Dr. Elizabeth Little

Nathaniel Philbrick

Patty Jo S. Rice

Renny A. Stackpole

EDITORIAL COMMITTEE Mary H. Beman Susan F. Beegel Richard L. Brecker

Thomas B. Congdon Jr. Robert F. Mooney Elizabeth Oldham

Nathaniel Philbrick Sally Seidman David H. Wood

PROPERTIES OF THE NHA Oldest House Hadwen House Macy-Christian House Robert Wyer House Thomas Macy House 1800 House Greater Light Old Mill Old Gaol

Old Town Building Thomas Macy Warehouse Fire Hose Cart House Quaker Meeting House Whaling Museum NHA Research Library Peter Foulger Museum Museum Shop

Bartholomew Gosnold Center and Anne Folger-Franklin Memorial Fountain, Boulder, and Bench Settlers Burial Ground Tristram Coffin Homestead Monument Little Gallery Eleanor Ham Pony Field Mill Hill

Cecil Barron Jensen

Helen Winslow Chase

Elizabeth Oldham

Claire O'Keeffe

EDITOR

HISTORIAN

COPY EDITOR

ART DIRECTOR

Historic Nantucket welcomes articles on any aspect of Nantucket history. Original research, first-hand accounts, reminiscences of island experiences, historic logs, letters, and photographs are examples of materials of interest to our readers.

Copyright© 2001 by Nantucket Historical Association Historic Nantucket (ISSN 0439-2248) is published quarterly by the Nantucket Historical Association, 15 Broad Street, Nantucket, MA 02554.

Second-class postage paid at South Yarmouth, MA and additional entry offices.

Postmaster: Send address changes to Historic Nantucket Box 1016 • Nantucket, MA 02554-1016 • (508) 228-1894; fax: (508) 228-5618 • nhainfo@nha.org For a map of our walking tour and historic sites: www.nha.org

NANTUCKET SUMMER2001

VOLUME 50, NO.3

4 Foreword

by Frank D. Milligan

7 The Atheneum:

8 48 West Chester Street:

Born /rom Ashes

A Stucco Bungalow on Nantucket

by Robert A. Frazier

by Margaret Moore Booker

10

12

73 Main Street:

141 Cliff Road: Nantucket's Geodesic Dome

The Eliza Starbuck Barney House

by Betsy Lowenstein

13 New Home, Old Soul

by Donna Smith Fee

18

OM: The House · on Hither Creek

by Renny Stackpole and Julie Beinecke Stackpole

15 Salvaged Materials: Unique Artistic Vision and Economic Constraints Lend Historic Context to Two Special Nantucket Houses

by James Sulzer

by David H . Wood

20 Historic Nantucket Book Section Maria Mitchell: A Life in Journals and Letters

NHANews

Reviewed by Elizabeth Oldham

On the cover: Built in 1847 and literally born /rom the ashes ofthe Great Fire, the Atheneum was indeed a brave building.

Photograph by JeffreyS. Allen

HISTORIC

NANTUCKET

SUMMER

2001

3

F R 0 M

THE

EXECUTIVE

DIRECTOR

Foreword " N ANTUCKET TOWN," WROTE THE LATE

Clay Lancaster in his classic study of Nantucket's old buildings, The Architecture of Historic Nantucket, "is an architectural miracle." Lancaster's book records the early architecture of an island that is blessed with hundreds of late-seventeenth to mid-nineteenth-century buildings, an island that in the author's view had been spared the advent of "modern constrictions." Yet, when it comes to Nantucket architecture there is much that is bold and brave.

The "brave buildings" that are presented in this issue of Historic Nantucket are intriguing counterparts to Nantucket's seventeenth-century "English" saltboxes and later eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Federal and Greek Revival buildings that Lancaster so masterfully chronicled. From West Chester Street's early stucco house, to Cliff Road's Geodesic Dome and the Siasconset Casino; from Main Street's "Blue Victorian" to a modified saltbox house built with salvaged materiRobert Leach's als, Nantucket's brave buildings represent both stylistic sketch views of individuality and models of contextualism. On the 1732 Great Nantucket, as elsewhere, the architecture of each era reflects the owners' needs and the taste of its time. fu Meetinghouse in 1764, Lancaster wrote, the full "life-size statement of after the porch Nantucketers' culture persists in the homes built and

lived in, and the practical structures in which they conducted their affairs."

In the early 1730s, for example, Nantucket Quakers gathered to worship in their new meetinghouse, one of the largest buildings in the northern colonies outside of the cities of Newport, Boston, and New York. This immense structure, situated on the site of the Quaker Burial Ground at Caton Circle, would be expanded at least twice more before being recycled into meetinghouses at other Nantucket locations. In this instance, Quaker modesty and opposition to ostentation gave way to the functional need to seat a thousand worshipers.

And so a community need was met and another "brave" building built - but built in sympathy with the historic town or rural vista. The structures described here have a rich history on Nantucket and represent visually stimulating companion pieces to our beloved concentration of shingled, center-chimney buildings.

-Frank D. Milligan

and extensions were added.

THE NANTUCKET Fr.IENDS MEETING HOUSE-1732--1792

The Front View-Porch Built in 1739

4

HISTORIC

NANTUCKET

THE NANTUCKET FRIENDS MEE':?ING HOUSE-1732-1792

A View from the North

SUMMER

2001

The Casino N 1899, IF THE SIASCONSET SUMMER CROWD wanted to hold a dance or stage a musical they had to use the railroad station just over the bluff on Low Beach. Organizers decorated the station with Japanese lanterns; Walter Folger, the expressman, hauled a piano down the embankment for the ladies; and the stationmaster played the violin.

By the turn of the century the sleepy fishing village had grown into a summer resort with 2,000 residents and had a reputation as an art colony with many actors, painters, writers, and musicians attracted by its simple charm.

Tired of squeezing into the small railroad station, a group of 'Sconseters formed the Siasconset Casino Association that year and raised $3,000 to build a "Hall of Amusement" on New Street. Despite its grand name, the building, designed by architect John Collins, was to be of a simple design that provided a large main room with a stage and several small antechambers for setbuilding, dressing rooms, and smoking. Two clay tennis courts were planned for the backyard.

Casinos (which comes from the Italian word cascina or "little house") were popular on country estates in the eighteenth century and were built for recreational and sporting activities. Later, casinos were formed as private clubs. When the Siasconset Casino opened in July of 1900 it instantly became 'Sconset's social center, and remains one today. The Casino, along with the Sankaty Golf Club, also established in 1900, solidified 'Sconset as a summer vacation destination by providing athletic and cultural activities for the summer leisure class.

It became a place where people could go for a card game or to attend a dance. A place where people from all over the island once traveled to see top Broadway actors of the day share the stage with local residents and commercial fishermen. And later where they came to see movies. The Pacific Bank even tried opening a branch in the casino in 1912, a venture that lasted only one season.

And always it has been a place to play tennis, a sport so popular at the tum of the century that the association

I

HISTORIC

NANTUCKET

added four more courts in its first nine years.

Over time, the Casino purchased abutting pieces of property and added even more. Today it maintains eleven tennis courts.

Like so many of 'Sconset's cottages, the Casino's design has evolved a porch and a wart at a time.

Originally, it was a simple building with none of the epic Victorian rococo so popular in late-nineteenthcentury architecture. It looked like a large barn, including two cupolas along the roof peak, and had a covered front porch.

Today the building retains its simplicity, but has acquired an established patina of elegance with its shingled buttresses, enclosed front and side porches, several additions, and dense landscaping.

The most dramatic renovation occurred in 1923 when Mr. and Mrs. David Gray paid $32,000 to have the interior remodeled. Gray hired architect Frederick Hill, of the firm McKim, Mead & White, the New York architects credited with designing many of the grand shingle-style mansions in Newport, Rhode

by Amy Jenness

The Siasconset Casino, June 2001.

Photograph by Rob Benchley

SUMMER

2001

5

Top: Matchplay c. 1910.

Island, including the Newport Casino. There seems little doubt among historians and preservationists that Hill patterned the interior of the Siasconset Casino after Interior views of the eponymous Newport tennis club. His intricate and the Casino's elaborate design of latticework, which covers the walls latticework walls and ceiling and whose edges are stained green, strongly and ceiling. resembles features of the Newport Casino, built in Bottom:

1880. Hill, who married a Nantucket Starbuck and summered in 'Sconset, is credited with respecting the local desire for keeping the Casino simple as well as for vastly improving the acoustics in the big room.

The interior of the Casino remained intact, but unfortunately the bowling alley didn't survive. In 1909 the association constructed a second building to house a two-lane bowling alley and hired local boys to set the pins. Teams competed with members of the Nantucket Athletic Club and soon the association added billiards and pool tables. In 1918 the bowling alley was opened to the public, but even that couldn't reverse its financial decline. The building was sold in 1920 to the Coffin family and moved across the street where it was used for storage.

Although still a private club and managed now as a members-only institution, the Casino remains one of the island's most popular spots for gatherings.

Its founders wearying of the train station has provided a spacious and charming venue for a century's worth of fund-raisers, weddings, dances, festivals, and meetings of all kinds.

Amy Jenness is the Nantucket Historical Association's in/ormation and systems coordinator and a free-lance writer /or island publications.

HISTORIC

NANTUCKET

SUMMER

2001

The Atheneum: Born /rom Ashes ULY 14, 1846. PICTURE THE SMOLDERING RUINS of Nantucket on the morning after the Great Fire. Picture at its heart a lot at the corner of India and Federal Streets, where the skeleton of a large building stands black against the hazy red sunrise across the harbor. Gone are the rare volumes and artifacts of a seafaring life. Gone where Frederick Douglass first spoke against slavery. Gone the town's cerebral pulse.

January 3, 1847. Picture a tall Greek Revival wonder: sleek Ionic columns footed on a wide porch and steps, two full floors, a painted front with no windows or openings save for massive double doors that seem to invite the gods down from Olympus. Reeling from total disaster, the town dedicates a new Atheneum. The simple Quaker aesthetic that had ruled Nantucket gives way to a grand gesture.

Consider the obstacles to such a phoenix-like transformation. The building's fire insurance had lapsed.

The proprietors themselves suffered financial losses.

The entire infrastructure of the town, from dry goods stores to clothing shops to ship chandleries, needed rebuilding during the same time frame.

Yet the library's founders dug deep, scrambled for donations, sold shares, and by October of 1846 employed the island's premier architect, Frederick Brown Coleman, and used a resourceful builder named Charles Wood. After three months of furious carpentry, a completed structure housed a speaking hall on the second floor and room for plenty of books on the first.

And, of no less significance, America's first professional woman librarian, Maria Mitchell, had her beloved library back. Less than six months after the fire, a great building stood.

Picture this. An unplanted lot of mud, char, and sawdust. Within it the fire-scarred foundation of the original church that held the Athenuem. Upon the old foundation, new, a structure worthy of the name of its sister institution in Boston. And surrounding it, a town

J

HISTORIC

NANTUCKET

still struggling to house its homeless and get back on its feet. This is more than a mere library, more than a monolithic symbol of the island's whaling prosperity and proof of its determination to rapidly rebuild.

Picture this, at its most basic, most dramatic: brilliant white against soot black. Today, standing before its fas;ade, you can't help but feel a twinge of awe. It must have felt like a miracle to Maria.

by Robert A. Frazier

Robert Frazier is art director of Nantucket Magazine, a free-lance writer, and island artist and poet.

Nantucket Atheneum.

Photograph by

JeffreyS. Allen SUMMER

2001

7

48 West Chester Street:

A Stucco Bungalow on Nantucket by Margaret Moore

Booker

8

HISTORIC

s

ITUATED IN ONE OF THE ISLAND'S OLDEST

neighborhoods is one of Nantucket's most remarkable early modern buildings: Number 48 West Chester Street. Built about 1916 in the "Craftsman bungalow" style, it is distinguished by a bright white, relatively sparse stucco fac;ade with dark green trim, dramatic overhanging eaves, and a redshingled roof. The stark and modern feeling of this stucco house is a startling departure from the historic styles that dominate the area. Within a few minutes' walk are many typical early gray-shingled Nantucket houses and lean-to structures, including the Oldest House of 1686 on Sunset Hill Lane and the Richard Gardner House built in 1722-24 at 32 West Chester.

West Chester Street, formerly called West Centre Street, is considered to be the oldest road on the island.

It once ran from the original settlement at Capaum (now Capaum Pond) to the Great Harbor.

Upon approaching 48 West Chester, at the corner of New Lane, one of the most visually striking features is the stucco-on-wood-frame construction - it is one of only three stucco houses on the island. The other two are in 'Sconset: a bungalow at 15 Baxter Road, also built about 1916, and a Mediterranean Revival-style house on Low Beach Road. Another unusual feature of 48 West Chester is the strong Oriental influence present in the building: the upswept gable peaks and elaborate dormer windows are reminiscent of Japanese pagodas. Also rare for Nantucket are the massive porch columns, which resemble those of the Prairie-style houses developed by Frank Lloyd Wright and other Chicago architects around 1900 to 1920.

The Oriental influence and use of stucco - a durable finish generally composed of cement, sand, and lime that gives a textured, handcrafted appearance are frequently seen in Craftsman bungalows, a style of building that was predominant in America from about 1890 to 1940. The West Chester Street home has many of the typical characteristics of this style, including low NANTUCKET

dimensions (one-story), gently pitched broad gables, wide window openings, ridge beams that extend beyond the wall and roofline, a gabled dormer window, and a front porch tucked beneath a gable. It is not known who designed or built this bungalow; however, there were many contractors, builders, and masons working on the island in 1916. Among them was Leo P. Quigley, who advertised his services as a "practical mason" who specialized in brick, stone, and concrete construction, and no doubt was versed in the use of stucco as well.

The small size, simple and informal design, and inexpensive building costs made the bungalow an attractive style for vacation cottages, and bungalows began appearing on Nantucket in the early 1900s and continued to be built through the 1940s. There are quite a few shingled "cottage" bungalows around town and a particularly large group in the neighborhood of Easton Street. As one 1908 design book states, bungalows were perfect holiday homes because they had "restfulness of appearance [that] refreshes the tired city dweller" and were "homey ... that ideal you have seen in the dreamy shadows of night when ... you have yearned for a haven of rest."

Craftsman bungalows like 48 West Chester became popular during the Arts and Crafts movement in America, which advocated a revival of handcrafted furniture and objects and in architecture a return to fine craftsmanship in the design and building of homes. In the early decades of the twentieth century the Coffin School on Nantucket helped spread the Arts and Crafts aesthetic on the island. The school offered classes in manual training (woodworking, metalwork, etc.) to public schoolchildren, as well as evening classes in advanced woodworking for adults, in which students learned the principles of craftsmanship and made furniture and objects in the Arts and Crafts style.

I Photographs of the school's interior from about 1904 show the handcrafted furniture being made, and the SUMMER

2001

school's library included such design books as Artistic Bungalows: Unique Collection of 208 Designs, Best Modern Ideas in Bungalow Architecture, published by Radford's Architectural Company in 1908.

48 West Chester Street- a lone white stucco bungalow that was an outgrowth of the Arts and Crafts movement on Nantucket - spices up an otherwise banal though historically noteworthy island streetscape.

As the Radford design book states, artistic bungalows are "a tangible protest of modern life against the limitations and severities of humdrum existence."

H I STORIC

NANTUCKET

Margaret Moore Booker is associate director and curator of the Egan Institute of Maritime Studies at the Coffin School. She has written for Historic Nantucket and is the author of The Admiral's Academy: Nantucket's Historic Coffin School and a recent biography ofartist Elizabeth Rebecca Coffin.

48 West Chester.

Photograph by Margaret Moore Booker

The author wishes to thank Patricia Butler of the Preservation Trust for assistance in researching this article.

SUMMER

20 0 1

9

73 Main Street: The Eliza Starbuck Barney House by Renny A. Stackpole and Julie Beinecke Stackpole

Renny and Julie Beinecke Stackpole at the dedication of the NHA's Research Library in Apri/2001.

Photograph by Jordi Cabre

l O HISTORIC

E

LIZA STARBUCK BARNEY'S FAMILY MADE I

lasting contributions to Nantucket's Main Street. Her father, Joseph Starbuck, quite possibly the island's most successful businessman, oversaw the construction of the "Three Bricks" in 1835 for his sons George, Matthew, and William. Mter Eliza and her sister, Eunice Starbuck Hadwen, were married they moved with their husbands to a "double" house at 100 Main Street. Later, Eunice and her husband, William Hadwen, built the two Greek Revival houses at 94 and 96 Main Street. And in 1871, after the death of her husband, Nathaniel Barney, Eliza and her son Joseph built the Victorian house at 73 Main Street. The house, to this day, is still referred to as the Eliza Starbuck Barney House and reflects her nod to the architectural style of the time. But more than that, Eliza joined her family in leaving her mark on Main Street.

The house was built in what is termed the H style.

The wide front steps lead to large decorative double doors that were carved by James Walter Folger. The doors open into a hall and a full stairway that leads to bedchambers (front and rear) on both sides of the second story. On the first floor, there is a formal parlor with a marble fireplace (which came from a demolished brownstone in Brooklyn), French doors, and a bay window facing east. It adjoins a large dining room. The west side of the first floor contains a library, butler's pantry, and a kitchen ell.

Originally, what is now one large parlor was two much smaller rooms. The present dining room at center rear was the kitchen, and the ell was a series of pantries and service rooms. The third story, originally once a large attic, has ample space for a stu-

NANTUCKET

dio bedroom, attic, and a stairway to the cupola, which provides views of the harbor and access to the central portion of the roof.

Eliza Barney made her own statement with the construction of 73 Main Street. One day Nantucket would experience its own revival, and this structure would again provide a break from the stately, more formal houses of Main Street. But in her day, Eliza entertained friends and guests in her new home. It was at 73 Main Street that she also provided new leadership for the women of Nantucket and recorded the genealogical information of generations of Nantucketers.

Following Eliza's death in 1889, the house passed on to her son, Joseph, who owned it until his death in 1905. In later years, new owners would eventually divide the home into two apartments, upper and lower.

By the late 1930s, the house was owned by the Mendonca family and leased out. During World War II, the first floor of the house was occupied by one of Renny Stackpole's aunts, Marie Larson Thurston, and her husband Hartwell Thurston. Renny remembers the weddings of two other aunts in the house; Helen Larsen and Dorothy Larsen married servicemen in 1942 and 1943 . In the postwar period, other island families continued to rent the apartment spaces.

Unfortunately, the structure had experienced serious lack of repair over a period of a half century.

In about 1962, Julie Beinecke Stackpole's parents, Walter and Mary Ann Beinecke, bought the house at 69 Main Street - known as Church Haven - and restored the brick structure to the style and grace of the era of the 1830s. The Beineckes also removed the Tirrell house at 71 Main Street to provide more space for gardens. Because Julie loved the Victorian era, her parents asked if she would be interested in working with them to restore 73 Main Street. The house was purchased in 1965 and artfully restored by using the resources of the Nantucket Historical Association's manuscript and photograph collections and other local SUMMER

2001

The Eliza Starbuck Barney House, c. 1950.

Photograph by John W. McCalley

sources. Philip Graves was the architect, Daniel Ponton was the craftsman/contractor, and James Hendrix was hired as the interior designer.

As the cupola had been removed years earlier and the fences had also disappeared, the restoration attracted considerable comrmmity interest. Perhaps the most controversial aspect of the restoration arose when permissions were being sought from the Historic District Commission, which had been formed ten years earlier. Many members of the commission objected to the proposed gray, white, and blue exterior paint colors, but Jim Hendrix successfully argued that, historically, a Victorian house required a paint treatment different from one of an earlier architectural style. After much thoughtful debate, the HDC eventually sanctioned the colors. Interestingly, the blue paint was inspired by the color of the slate slabs in the sidewalk in front of the house.

HISTORIC

NANTUCKET

While Julie was in college and abroad pursuing her studies in bookbinding, the house was often used to entertain visiting artists, actors, and writers who came to the island to participate in cultural events.

Architectural historians lecturing at the Preservation Institute: Nantucket stayed there, and among the wellknown guests were actors Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy and Viveca Lindfors. Julie came back to live in the house in 1975. After Julie and Renny Stackpole were married in 1977, their daughter Jenny (born in 1979 and now a graduate of Bard College) was the first newborn to live at 73 Main Street for many years.

Renny and Julie Stackpole moved to Thomaston, Maine, in 1985. Renny is the director of the Penobscot Marine Museum in Searsport and chair of the Maine State Museum Commission. Julie works as a fine hand bookbinder and book restorer at her studio in Thomaston.

SUMMER

2001

11

141 Cliff Road: Nantucket)s Geodesic Dome by Betsy Lowenstein

Geodesic dome.

Photograph by Rob Benchley

T

0 A VIEWER PEERING OVER THE BLUFF AT

Tupancy Links, the house at 141 Cliff Road looks like a molecular model: three circular units joined at a central axis. What is there, however, is a geodesic dome, unique on Nantucket.

A geodesic dome is a structure that roughly approximates a hemisphere. Its sides and roof are composed of a collection of triangles and there are no load-bearing interior walls to support the roof. In contrast, most of today's homes are a combination of rectangular and triangular shapes. Traditional houses use more building materials than a geodesic dome and are not as energy efficient. With no formal front, back, or sides, the dome allows environmental stress such as earth movement, wind , and snow loading to be evenly distributed throughout the structure. The dome shape also integrates better into the natural environment.

In the case of 141 Cliff Road, the geodesic dome nestles unobtrusively (except for the visual surprise of its hexagonal roof) into the surrounding green. Unlike a traditional geodesic dome, the Cliff Road dome's

bottom has been replaced by walls with conventional doors and windows.

I The house is presently owned by Gary and Healy Cosay of Beverly Hills, who purchased the geodesic dome and surrounding land in 2000 from Virginia Giese. Mrs. Giese bought the house in 1967 from Richard and Molly Morgan. Mrs. Giese, who now lives outside of Washington, D.C., was attracted to the house's spare and open living arrangements and to the ocean views, beach, and enveloping land. She recalled how when she and her husband, Oscar, first purchased the house, the roof over the three rooms leaked constantly, but she fondly remembers how the bunkbeds in one of the bedrooms were regularly filled with grandchildren and guests. She misses the house terribly.

The construction date and builder of the house are unknown. The Assessor's Office lists the construction of the house as 1970, but clearly the house existed in 1967, when Mrs. Giese purchased it. A quitclain1 deed from 1959lists the land as "vacant." The house therefore must have been built some time between 1959 and 1967, presumably by the Morgans. (If a reader knows when the house was constructed, please let us know.)

It was in 1951 that Buckminster Fuller first applied for patents on geodesic domes. Since then, "the most efficient building system known to man" has grown in popularity. Suppliers and manufacturers of geodesic domes can be found on the Worldwide Web and prefabricated dome kits can be purchased. It is tantalizing to wonder about the builder of Nantucket's only geodesic dome and how the unusual and unconventional structure came to be built on Nantucket, a place better known for roofwalks than for domes.

Betsy Lowenstein is director of the Nantucket Historical Association's research lzbrary and a frequent contributor to Historic Nantucket.

12-

H I S T 0 R I C

N A N T UC KE T

SUMMER

2001

New Home, Old Soul

A

RCHITECTURAL STYLE INFLUENCES THE

form of all structures but, with a bit of luck, it can also be seduced into originating a new home with a soul. This can be accomplished by imagining the feeling you get when you are in a space. That is exactly how Joe Paul and Sabine Liebmann achieved their year-old shingled Craftsman-style bungalow that feels warmly old.

While researching historic houses for ideas to use in their new home, Paul and Liebmann hit on a key characteristic that they loved about old houses. "One of the things we like about historic houses is that they are so compartmentalized. You have to walk through one room to get to another one or down a hallway, so there is a real sense of discovery. We wanted to be able to achieve that in this house but have it feel open," said Liebmann.

"That was the genesis for the framework of the house," added Paul, an architect. Based on those beginning ideas of interconnectiveness accompanied by the thrill of discovery, Paul and Liebmann designed a house that fits into the landscape of Nantucket yet is unlike any other.

Located in Tom Nevers among the ubiquitous upside-down houses that reach skyward looking for that coveted water view, the Liebmann/Paul home took the exactly opposite tactic. The roofline pulls the house closer to the earth and the surrounding moors. "We made the decision early on that we wanted to be tied to the ground," said Paul. Because of the low rooflines, the design allowed for many angles to be incorporated, which improves the character of the house dramatically.

The same angles that add dimension to the outside provide private retreats inside. In the living room two bays extend out from the house, each providing a cozy nook in which to read or nap. The owners could have made the house larger by making all the rooms square, but they would have lost the intimate character. As you meander through the rooms on the main floor, each new opening provides the sense of discovery the couple so loved about older houses.

HISTORIC

NANTUCKET

Another consideration of their design was what they wanted to do in the house. "Our favorite things to do are to read and to have a few friends over for dinner, so we wanted to provide a nice space for those activities.

The center of the house is a two-story dining hall that opens up to the library space above," said Liebmann.

They consider this the heart of the house, and indeed it is. An entire space devoted to books and food is a room that will see a lot of appreciative company over the years.

During the design phase they made the crucial decision to forget about resale value. Paul remarked, "If we ever want to sell this house, people are either going to love it the way we love it or they're not going to want to buy it. " Setting priorities about what they wanted their house to feel like led them to the decision to forgo more traditional home elements. "Big closets and big bathrooms weren't important to us," said Paul. They both recognized that historic houses have tiny closets and utilized beautiful furniture for a variety of purposes.

"When you walk into a room and you see a beautiful armoire, it'll evoke a certain feeling. You never look at a closet and say 'Oh wow! That feels cool,"' said Liebmann.

by Donna Smith Fee

Low roo/ lines

and many angles add character to the exterior.

SUMME R

2 0 0 1

13

Clockwise /rom near right: With six windows and a roomy couch tucked into this bay, it's the perfect spot /or reading or napping.

A view from the kitchen into the dining room and the bay area beyond; a closer look at the dining room and the unique architectural details that set this house apart.

Photographs by Joe Paul

14

HISTORIC

The house is less than 3,000 square feet, yet it feels much larger and can sleep several guests in perfect comfort and coziness.

Their own bedroom on the second floor is a perfect example of how personal passions can be incorporated into a home's design. "Ever since Joe and I met, we've been camping together. We bought a VW bus as our engagement gift to each other. We would literally camp every weekend. So we said that when we designed our own house, we wanted our bedroom to feel like a tent.

Joe made it so it's under a low gabled roof with a few windows," said Liebmann. "We were wondering how literal to get," laughed Paul. Above the bedroom is a private loft that Paul uses as an office.

Incorporating reclaimed pieces into their house, such as stained-glass windows and wood trim from former decks, adds to its soulfulness. An old mahogany NANTUCKET

door from Vermont Salvage, complete with metal mail slot, will soon become their everyday entryway.

"Historic houses feel like they have a soul.

Something has happened in that space that you don't know about so you have a sense that you are part of something greater. We wanted to get that feeling in this house," said Paul. Mission accomplished in an intimate space called home.

Donna Smith Fee runs Henry's Sandwiches with her husband, Andrew. In her spare time, she is a free-lance writer.

SUMMER

2001

Salvaged Materials: Unique Artistic Visions and Economic Constraints Lend Historic Context to Two Special Nantucket Homes

T

WO SPECIAL NANTUCKET HOMES, THE

products of the strong artistic visions of their creators, share an unusual feature: they were both built and furnished largely with materials salvaged from the Nantucket dump.

After poet Ole Lokensgard bought a piece of land on Derrymore Lane in 1976 (a "virtual gift," he says, from his friends Matilde and Louisa Pfeiffer), he knew he could afford a house only if he built it himself - with the help of his wife Mary Heen and a few friends and with a tiny budget for materials. He had built nothing at all since the few forts he had made as a child, but his lack of experience didn't daunt him. He knew that one way or another he would complete his dream home.

Lokensgard didn't know at first that salvaged materials from the dump would not only make the house affordable but would give it its unique soul. He arrived at the building site with just one tool, an axe, after hitchhiking down from Cambridge, where he was a student. The idea of salvaging came to him gradually as he hauled off load after load of brush and debris to the dump in an old jeep borrowed from the Pfeiffers.

"I would come back with more stuff than I took to the dump - stockpiles of things ... windows, bricks for the fireplace, chests of drawers .... " Knowing almost nothing about building, he found some books on home construction and sketched out a very simple plan, based on a "tic tac toe" square design of nine boxes measuring 10 feet by 10 feet each. As they began work, he and his wife realized they wanted the house to be simple (so they could build it), efficient in the use of space (which a square design allowed), and historic.

HISTORIC

NANTUCKET

Lokensgard and Heen came up with a modified salt box design, employing a gable front and a shed dormer in back. With their small budget they bought framing lumber, plywood for sheathing, and cement blocks for the foundation.

As they began building, Lokensgard kept looking for salvageable materials at the dump. While he found many windows, he never located more than three of a kind that matched. As a result, each wall of the house ended up with its own window style.

Lokensgard decided to build the interior of the house "on a ship model," with three "masts" or supporting posts, a captain's ladder to an upstairs sleeping and storage area (which became the "bridge"), and a "crow's nest," or small reading area at the top of a reverse bowsprit. Using a space-saving design he had noticed on boats in the harbor, he hand-cut semicircles of bronze as little handholds and footholds for climbing up to the craw's nest.

As he incorporated the salvaged materials - windows, doors, stained glass, old metal, and eventually pieces of furniture - Lokensgard claims he did not have "a purist's attitude." The process was "serendipitous," he says, and he felt he was "kind of editing in terms of what we were able to find ... we would have various design problems to solve, and there was this stuff, and that stuff . . . what would work?" But a look inside the house confirms that his "editing" was guided by a masterly sense of space and proportion. The upward sweep of masts and captain's ladder toward a cathedral ceiling of dark -stained pine, the artful placement of stained-glass windows between interior walls, the juxtaposition of painted wooden fish with a plastic

by James Sulzer

S U M M E R

2 0 0 1

15

Ole Lokensgard and his son Erik; the interior is dominated

by three masts; a closeup reveals the crow's nest complete with bronze handholds.

Photographs by

Jeffrey S. Allen

dinosaur as window ornaments, all create a home as comfortable as it is lovely.

In their work on the house, Lokensgard and Heen developed a personal, authentic understanding of the term "historic." For them, Lokensgard says, "historic" meant that the house should not be too complicated, that it should not be beyond their skill means, and that it should meet their living needs. More than anything, perhaps, the term defined the scale and purpose of their project: "It was the simplicity of early history, a life style inherent in the story of the pieces,"

he explains. He says the pieces that he found dictated how they were to be used.

"Once you have these objects , it's as if they have their own auras of history. They become part of the fabric, of the structure. For instance, the windows, which are the eyes of the building, have the slightly rippled effect of old glass."

Given the beautiful result, it is no surprise that Ole Lokensgard discov-

16

HIS T ORIC

NA N TU C K E T

ered his life's work in the course of this project and later went back to school to become an architect.

Quidnet Retreat Ten years later, Doug Pinney carne to the construction of his home in Quidnet from a different direction. H e was already a master craftsman working as a furniture restorer in his shop, with his own table saws and two lathes. The exquisite home that he would design and build reminds visitors today of a ship - though he was not conscious ly guided by a ship model as w as Ole Lokensgard.

In 1986, a few years after purchasing a piece of land in Quidnet with his wife, Karen Pelrine, Pinney began construction of their home. At first it was "just a pile of stuff in the yard, " he says. He had already built his shop entirely out of salvaged materials; and in building his new home, for both economic and aesthetic reasons, he would again rely on salvaged material from the dump.

"I would be there first thing in the morning; it was all hit or miss," he remembers. "I was spending more time than I would like at the dump." There he not only found "more historic architecture than I could bring back in my truck," including doors and wall sconces and a sterling silver doorknob, but also the two-by-six pieces of lumber that he used for framing and the boards he would use for diagonal sheathing. He also rescued a generator from the dump - once he put in a new set of rings, it provided his electricity before he was hooked up to town power - and a gas stove about to be discarded by the Upper Crust restaurant.

Pinney designed the house as a T when seen from the air, with the living room forming the stem of the T and the dining room, kitchen and small guest bedroom filling out the cross stroke . Winding stairs with mahogany treads and matching rails lead up to a small second floor with a master bedroom and bath. Pinney was guided in his sense of the historic by what he had learned while doing restoration work; for instance, borrowing a design from the Hadwen House, he incorporated a curved detail at the turning point of the stairs to avoid an acute corner.

The interior of Pinney's home has the perfect inevitability of an artistic vision so strong and so painstakingly rendered that every detail, paradoxically, feels completely natural and unforced. The fact that most of the materials were salvaged from the dump somehow enhances this natural feeling. For instance, S UMM E R

2001

the marble tiles on a kitchen counter came from a large piece of marble he found at the dump and later cut into squares, giving texture and beauty to the counter. The mahogany leaves from a table that he found at the dump, stripped and cut to size, now serve as panels in cabinet doors. He turned other salvaged pieces of mahogany on his lathe to create the delicate balusters for his stairway. The rippled old "seed" glass that he found lends charm to the glass cabinets in the kitchen.

Brass hooks by the fireplace also came from the dump, as did most of his furniture. Much of the exterior cedar trim came from packing crates from Island Lumber, which he beaded and installed with the one good side facing out.

Built-in window seats, reading nooks, and numerous closets create a sense of space in his original 1,000square-foot design. To make sure he met code, while preserving the low ceilings he wanted, Pinney cut a bow into the joists so that the ceiling of the living room curves upward toward the center of the room. The thick walls define a deep sill for the windows, allowing a place to display some of the treasures he has salvaged; and the amber pine floors, painted and shellacked over, complete the sense of elegance and age.

In the mid-90s Pinney crafted an addition to the house - a new, larger living room and another guest bedroom complete with an "eyebrow" window. The original T design is now an H. By this time Pinney could afford to specially order the unusual curved window for the bedroom. "I'd paid my dues," he says, adding, "It was my first house - I never want to do it again." But he still thinks fondly of his days at the dump: "It was a wonderful era, born out of necessity and excitement and curiosity."

Access to the dump (renamed a "landfill" in the 1980s and a "recycling center" in the 1990s) is restricted now. Sadly, it is doubtful that homes will ever again be built on Nantucket using salvaged materials. The beauty and depth of feeling of these two buildings remind us that the soul of a home can be found as much in our interaction with the past as in our dreams for the future.

The dining room, living room, and exterior of Douglas Pinney and Karen Pelnne's Quzdnet home.

Photographs by Rob Benchley

James Sulzer is the author of the novel Nantucket Daybreak and has written a number ofarticles /or local and national publications. Currently a producer /or NPR stations WNAN and WCAI, he has also taught at Nantucket Elementary School /or the past fifteen years.

HISTORIC

NANTUCKET

- - - -2001 - - 17 SUMMER

OM: The House on Hither Creek by David H. Wood

OM is hunkered down in the greenery beszde Hither Creek.

Beverly Hall's and Sascha Illich's great "cathedral" room.

Photographs by

I

TIS AN ORGANIC HOUSE: IT GREW NATURALLY

from a hunting shack into what can only be called a magical place. What was essentially a one-room lodge used only for shelter for hunters and fishermen has become a home - a long, low series of rooms and areas where its owners, Beverly Hall and Sascha lllich, live in a world of their own designing.

Through a handsome gateway designed and built by local craftsman John Petrie and set into a high impenetrable hedge, straight ahead is a tiny building with weathered shingles and a low-pitched roof in the Nantucket tradition, marking what has been here for decades and the spot where this house started.

"We moved here from New York," says Beverly.

"We brought everything and just piled it into this one room. It just went on from there." Sascha, who constructed the entire house by hand, began work on the additions in 1988 and OM is still not finished, though it is so immensely livable one could settle down happily anywhere within its walls. If you had looked carefully before entering this camp-like building, you would have

Beverly Hall

18

HIS T 0 RIC

NANTUCKET

seen a quarterboard mounted on the gray shingles, the board weathered now so as to be almost illegible. But the letters "OM" can be seen. "We wanted a Nantucket quarterboard with HOME carved into it. But it was expensive and we settled on only the middle two letters." The owners are mindful, too, that these letters have another significance as a mantra for contemplation.

Once they had started, the additions went in several directions: first a screen porch was enclosed and a bedroom and small kitchen were added to the shack. The upstairs room is all windows that overlook the creek and marshes. It is full of light and air and a true sense of belonging - as if these additions were just waiting to be discovered.

Next came the great room, or as Sascha and Beverly call it "the cathedral." It is a marvel, a feat of Sascha's design and construction genius. The ceiling soars in cathedral fashion, beams exposed. The room is broken into areas: a fireplace hearth, built-in window seats, water fountains, Mission furniture that looks dwarfed in this giant of a room. This great room space is like that of early baronial homes where, often, one room served a variety of functions in the process of living.

And, the owners say, it has been used for a number of things: a dance floor, arm-chair theater, a roller-skating platform (in the early-construction days), a conference room,

SUMMER

2001

a labyrinth. Books line the walls on all sides, as they do all through the house.

A modern kitchen and dining area are next and they snuggle under a low ceiling in stark contrast to the high-roofed great room. Beyond is a passage leading to Sascha's working studio and a flight of stairs constructed with risers so that, again, one looks through them to the ever present creek. "Hither Creek has changed," says Beverly. "My 'navy' of ducks has dwindled over the years now that there is more boat traffic."

Four built-in cabinets display a fascinating collection of Oriental objects, mostly snuff bottles, the remains of a remarkable collection of these lovely objects. Every space in the house is used, yet there is a sense of spaciousness - as well as the tempting desire to explore much of what the house seems to hide.

Outside, the house is surrounded by gardens and the musical, comforting sounds of trickling water over

rocks and into pools filled with colorful fish and blooming pond lilies. A beautiful grape arbor, above which are the engraved words "Deep Peace," serves as a kind of wall and, with the many trees, keeps the always present Nantucket wind to a breeze. There is a sense of peace and restfulness in this home.

Walking down through the marsh to the creek and looking back at this singular house, one sees a series of low buildings giving the sense of their having hunkered down, as if they had always been there.

The original shack (left) used by hunters and fishermen has been added to by its owners over the years.

Davzd H. Wood is a member of the Nantucket Historical Association's board of trustees, a member of the editorial committee, and wzlling contrzbutor to Historic Nantucket.

BooK WISH LisT SuMMER 2001

T

HE FOLLOWING BOOKS WOULD

be useful additions to the NHA' s research library. If you are interested in contributing funds for a book, please contact Betsy Lowenstein, library director, at (508) 228-1655.

Windows on the Past: Four Centurz¡es of New England Homes. Jane C. Nylander, Diane Viera, and Wendell Garrett.

Bullfinch Press, 2000. $36.20

Materials & Techniques in the Decorative Arts: An Illustrated Dictionary. Lucy Trench, ed. The University of Chicago Press, 2001. $64.00

HISTORIC

NANTUCKET

0'ahu Cemetery: Burzal Ground and Histone Site. Nanette Napolean Purnell.

Honolulu, Hawaii: 0' ahu Cemetery Association, 1998. $31.95 Nantucket whalemen are buried here.

The Victorian Home/rant: Amerzcan Thought and Culture, 1860-1880.

Louise L. Stevenson. Cornell University Press, 2001. $20.95

Power and Prestige: The Arts of Island Melanesia and the Polyneszan Outliers.

Text by Norman Hurst. 1996. $20.00

Descendants a/David Coltrane & James Frazier a/North Carolina. Robert H.

Frazier, compiler. North Carolina, 1961.

$25.50 The volume contains in/ormation on a number of Coffin /amzly members who migrated to North Carolina in the eighteenth century.

Walking in the Way a/Peace: Quaker Paci/iasm in the Seventeenth Century.

Meredith Weddle. Oxford University Press, 2001. $42.00

Costume Close Up: Pattern & Construction ofAntique Clothing, 1750-1790. Linda Baumgarten.

The Pine Tree Shilling. $30.45

SUMMER

2001

19

Historic Nantucket Book Section Maria Mitchell: A Life in Journals and Letters Edited by Henry Albers College Avenue Press, 2001 Hardcover

Review by Elizabeth Oldham

F

OR SOME OF US WHO EARLY ON GOT LOST IN

the maze of mathematics and never got out, it's difficult to imagine being able to teach oneself the discipline. But to others, a love of the subject comes naturally, and so it was with Maria Mitchell. Enthralled with astronomy, she knew she would have to master calculus, so she just went ahead and did it.

William Mitchell, her father, reported of his wife Lydia, "She was an intense reader," and Maria wrote, "We always had books, and were bookish people. " So the habit of reading was well established when Maria, in 1836 at the age of eighteen, became the first librarian of the Atheneum. She would never have what might be considered the advantages of being formally enrolled in an institution of higher learning, but, oh, how educated she was.

The bare bones of her lifeher years at the Atheneum, the discovery of her comet, her appointment as professor of astronomy at Vassar-are well known. But not since sister Phebe Mitchell Kendall's 1896 publication of excerpts from Maria's diaries has the inner being of our illustrious townswoman been so meticulously explored.

Henry Albers was fifth in line of progression (and so far the only man to have held the post) as director of the Vassar College NANTUCKET

Observatory, holding the Maria Mitchell Chair in Astronomy as well. His admiration for Miss Mitchell led him to every possible repository of her original diaries, letters, lecture notes, and other memorabilia, most of them in the collection of the Nantucket Maria Mitchell Association.

How her intelligence and wit shine through these documents! When she first went to Vassar she was greeted by the "Lady Principal," I Iannah W. Lyman, of whom Maria would later write: "[She] is a bigot, but a very sincere one.... She is very kind to me, but had we lived in colonial Massachusetts, and had she been a power, she would have burned me at the stake for heresy. " Miss Mitchell traveled all over Europe, her reputation opening doors everywhere, even in Rome, where she was the first woman ever to be permitted inside the Vatican Observatory, although at first she was given to understand that "my woman's robe must not brush the seats of learning."

The letters included in this wonderful book are those written to and from the distinguished scientists, academics, and notables of her era, with whom she corresponded all her life. But there are also letters and journal entries centering on her family. She, the only one of them who never married, maintained loving relationships with all her siblings and their childrenand of course was the companion of her beloved father for the last eight years of his life.

Maria Mitchell in her own words. There could be no more rewarding acquaintance with the life of this extraordinary hun1an being.

Elizabeth Oldham is research associate in the Nantucket Historical Association's Research Library.

She is also a/ree-lance copy editor and writer.

SUMMER

2001

N H A

Research Library Dedication The Nantucket Historical Association Research Library officially opened on Friday, April 27. It was a glorious spring day with a large crowd of well wishers filling the Quaker Meeting House and spilling out to the front lawn. Library director Betsy Lowenstein received accolades from executive director Frank Milligan for her vision, hard work, and attention to detail throughout the entire project. Board president Arie Kopelman greeted guests and first vice president Peter Nash gave a capital campaign update. Keynote speaker was Thomas Farel Heffernan, author, academic, and longtime patron, who spoke eloquently about the strengths (and surprises) of the library's remarkable holdings.

In all, it was an unforgettable opening of a gracious old building with a new purpose.

Exhibitions Openings On Thursday, May 24, the association held a membersonly opening for all of its new exhibitions in the Peter Foulger Museum and the Whaling Museum.

Henry S. Wyer: Views of Old Nantucket and Signals /rom 'Sconset were featured in the Peter Foulger Museum and are representative of Nantucket a hundred years ago. The new exhibition in the Whaling Museum is Whaling: Then and Now, offering a look at the changing perception of whales. This thought-provoking exhibition was designed and mounted by nine Nantucket High School students who volunteered their time and creative energies to see the project to completion.

Also open for viewing in the Whaling Museum was the South Seas Room with artifacts collected by whalers cruising the South Pacific; Maritime Folk Art including scrimshaw and baskets; and a small display presenting The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex. Members were also treated to maritime music performed

N E W S

by David Coffin and Kent Allyn. The NHA is grateful to Pacific National, a FleetBoston Financial Company, for its support of the 2001 exhibits. It was a good start to the season!

Museum Gallery Opens During the first week in July, the Nantucket Historical Association opened the Museum Gallery on Straight Wharf. The Gallery offers reproductions of historic Clockwise /rom lower left: photographs found in the association's collection.

Ribbon cutting at the Housed in the Little Gallery at 10 Straight Wharf, the Museum Gallery is a satellite shop of the NHA's NHA Research Lzbrary Museum Shop at 11 Broad Street and is the perfect includingArie Kopelman, location to purchase a wide variety of Nantucket images Betsy Lowenstein, dating from 1880 through 1910.

Trish Bridier, and "We wanted to expose the public to the wide variety of images found in the association's photograph Frank Mzlligan. archive," said Museum Shop manager Georgina Photograph by Winton. "The images are so popular."

Jordi Cabre Winton said that the new exhibition, Henry Wyer: Whaling: Then and Views of Old Nantucket in the Peter Foulger Museum, 15 Broad Street, was the catalyst for the idea to sell Now exhzbit team: historic images. "Wyer so beautifully documented the Lindsay Petrosino, island at the tum of the twentieth century," she said. Amelia Roberts, "His photographs, including those found in the exhibiJessie Lambrecht, tion, will be available in the gallery along with the work Amanda Nicholas, of other photographers of the same time period."

Some of the chosen Emily Hall black and white images are Amber McMullen, the railroad, hotels, lightLaura Coffin, houses, lightships, people, birds-eye town vistas, land- and Prinzka Brewer scapes, and 'Sconset cot- (missing: Liz Huberman). tages. The photographs will Photograph by Jim Powers be sold in three sizes (8xl0, Island friends llx17, and 20x25), and can be purchased framed or Ruth Chapel Grieder, unframed.

Carol Coggins Powell For further information and Jane Ray Richmond about the Museum Gallery at the spring exhibit openings. or to inquire about purchasing prints, please call the Exhibitions designer gallery at (508) 325-6116.

Claire O'Keeffe with chief curator Niles Parker.

SUMMER

2001

21

N H A

N E W S

Declaration of Independence

Pat Gardner in her studio.

On Sunday, July 8, the Nantucket community was invited to celebrate the opening of the exhibition

Photograph courtesy of

Nantucket and th e Declaration of Independence, featuring a rare

Jim Powers

177 6 copy of the Declaration of Independence. It was a spectacular event with 1,200 guests filing through the exhibition and into the garden at the Peter Foulger Museum where NHA staff members handed out Rocket Popsicles to young and old.

Chief curator Niles Parker, curatorial intern Tony Dumitru, and exhibition designer Oaire O'Keeffe were pleased by the community's response. The NHA would like to thank board president Arie Kopelman for orchestrating the loan of the document; Norman Lear and David Hayden for allowing us to have it for a month; and Joel Brown and Pacific Bank, a FleetBoston Financial Company for supporting the exhibition and opening.

SAVE THE DATE Friends of the NHA Lecture Leigh Keno and Leslie Keno, American Furniture Specialists Methodist Church, 5 P.M.

MONDAY

JULY 30

Antiques Show Preview Party Nantucket High School, 5:30-8 P.M.

THURSDAY AUGUST2

FRI.-SUN. AUGUST3-5

24th Annual August Antiques Show Nantucket High School, 10 A.M.-5 P.M.

SATURDAY

Harvest Fair at the Old Mill

OCTOBER 13 NOV.12-17

Celebrating 150 Years of Moby-Dick

NOVEMBER 23-25

Festival of Wreaths & Silent Auction Sherburne Hall, 11 Centre Street

THURSDAY

Festival of Trees Preview Party Whaling Museum, 6--9 P.M.

NOVEMBER29 NOVEMBER30 DECEMBER

1,2,8,&9

22

H I S T 0 R I C

8th Annual Festival of Trees Whaling Museum

In Memoriam Bird sculptor and painter Mary Patricia Gardner, 75, died in May at her Hummock Pond Road home.

Born on Nantucket in 1926, she was the daughter of Edouard Oberempt Gardner and Helen Harris (Powers) Gardner. A descendant of several original Nantucket settlers including Richard Gardner, she grew up on her parents' Mount Vernon Farm where she learned the daily rhythms of the dairy farm, pasteurizing and bottling the milk from the herd of cows that grazed freely across the then largely unpopulated west end of the island.

Her father passed along his interest in art to his daughter and the two took art classes together. She studied painting with well-known island artist Ruth Haviland Sutton, graduated from Nantucket High Shool in 1944, and from Skidmore College in 1948.

An avid birder, in the '60s she began to work in wood, developing the style that would later produce her signature shorebird carvings, sold for many years from Nantucket Looms on Main Street. In recent years, as atthritis limited her catving, she returned to watercolor painting and pastels.

The NHA is especially grateful for the significant gifts she made to the collection: a logbook from the vessel Houqua and two portraits of Gardner ancestors, attributed to William Swain.

- Virginia Kinney

Nantucket Historical Association Office Extensions I E-mail This year we ' ve made reaching the Nantucket Historical Association and obtaining information simpler by improving our telephone system and expanding our Internet capabilities.

When calling the administrative offices, just enter the extension nwnber of the person you're calling as soon as you hear the greeting ( ee the list on the next page). If you get voicemail and would rather speak to a person, press 0 to return to tl1e main menu and press 0 again to reach the operator. Upon calling the offices, the automated attendant also provides information on hours, ticket prices, and programs as well as connections to the research library and the museum shop.

Our website, www.nha.org, is filled with information about our properties, events, and programs .

Researchers can access the library's on-line databases by going to the research library section of the site.

N A N T U C KE T

SUMMER

2001

N H A

Members can renew by printing out a form found in the membership section. And, members can always e-mail us at nhainfo@nha.org or at any of the addresses listed below.

NHA Main Office

(508) 228-1894

Allen, Jean Interpretation Spedalist

ext.123 jallen@nha.org

Boynton, Ed Properties Manager

ext.l13

Grimmer, Jean Assoczate Director & Director ofDevelopment

ext.111

Jenness, Amy In/ormation Systems Coordinator

jgrimmer@nha.org ext.l17 ajenness@nha.org

Jensen, Cecil Barron Public Relations & Publications Manager Kinney, Virginia Membership Coordinator

ext.l16 vkiruoey@nha.org

Lanza, Johanna Finance Manager & Human Resources Manager Milligan, Frank Executive Director

ext.115 cbj@nha.org

ext.118 jlanza@nha.org ext.121 fmilligan@nha.org

Orellana, Bonita Administrative Assistant Parker, Niles Director of Museums & Chief Curator

ext.O bonita@nha.org ext.120 nparker@nha.org

Roach, Liz Spedal Events & PR Assistant

ext. 130 lroach@nha.org

Slavitz, Jeremy Public Programs Coordinator

ext.112 jslavitz@nha.org

Widger, Judy Finance Assistant

NEWS

If only we had known ...

A

NOTIIER OF TIIOSE WONDERFUL SURPRISES THAT MADE US

and sad occurred again last month. Happy, because we learned from a letter sent by an attorney in Petaluma, California, that Jean Boyce Courtney, in her lifetime, chose to include the Nantucket Historical Association in her will Our sadness grew from the fact that we did not have an opportunity to thank Ms. Courtney and tell her how important her gift is to the association's future.

Although she had never been a member, we learned from a friend, Diane Perera, that the Nantucket connection was through Ms. Courtney's aunt, Helen Hussey Ludolph. Both women were WAVE officers during World War II, and later, according to Ms. Perera, they lived together in Hyde Park, New York. Ms. Courtney was from Poughkeepsie, New York, while Ms. Ludolph, who grew up in California, was descended from the McCleave family, who had left Nantucket for the Gold Rush in 1849 or 1850. During the ensuing years the two women traveled back and forth to California, ultimately making a permanent move to Sonoma in 1978. During the same period they also visited Nantucket a number of times to reestablish Ms. Ludolph's family connections on the island. Both women decided to leave their estates to charity, and we are grateful to Ms. Courtney for including the Nantucket Historical Association among her favorites.

The Nantucket Historical Association's Heritage Society recognizes all those who have included the association in their estate plans. Please let us know if you would like to be enrolled or would like to receive information on estate planning by using the form below.

If you would like to personally discuss your giving plans, call Jean Grimmer, associate director/director of development, at (508) 228-1894, ext. 111. All contacts will be kept strictly confidential.

HAPPY

~----------------------------------------------------------

0 0

Please send me literature about making a wzll.

I have already provzded a bequest /or the NHA in my will.

ext.119

Winton, Georgina Museum Shop Manager NHA Research Library

gwinton@nha.org (508) 228-5785 Fax: (508) 325-7046 (508) 228-1655 Fax: (508) 325-7968 library@nha.org

Betsy Lowenstein Libby Oldham Ralph Marie Henke

betsy@nha.org eo@nha.org ralph@nha.org

NAME (PLEASE PRINT)

ADDRESS

CDY

STATE

ZIP

Mail this form to:

Jean Grimmer, Nantucket Historical Association, P. 0. Box 1016, Nantucket, MA 02554-1016

HISTORIC

NANTUCKET

S

U M M E R

1999

23

NHA Exhibitions 2001 IN CONGRESS, JuLY,,,,,.

A DECLARATION 'BY' TUB REPRESENTATIVES OF·Ttut

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, lN

GENERAL CONGRESS

A $ 1ENILED,

Nantucket and the Declaration of Independence July 8- August 5

Signals from 'Sconset: TheDawno/ Wireless Communication Through November

~':10 • • ..

0 0

C~ A : ~U

...,;. . . .... .,. ...

c::.~

. ... ..

JOHN HANCO C K,

0

~:~::.~:;,::,,, ' '

THOW IO :: ..

TilE llOCI.AllATIO'! 0 ..

I'OD'E.l~DI:!'IC£

( c - - / . FOI.I17,._.,..._olm.Dodo.-

Pat: S IOENT.

h•• • • ·• ••

.,.._...,._ole_._~,.~--·

Views of Old Nantucket: The Photographs of HenryS. Wyer Through November

.......

Maritime Folk Art Whaling: Then and Now created and installed by Nantucket High School students

South Sea Artifacts The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex

with generous support /rom Pacific National, a FleetBoston Financial Company Joel Brown of Pacific National, a FleetBoston Financial Company, with NHA director of museums and chief curator Niles Parker(!.) and executive director Frank Milligan (r).

PETER FOULGER MUSEUM 15 Broad Street

WHALING MUSEUM 13 Broad Street