Last week, Nantucket Preservation Trust put out a call asking Nantucketers, or anyone who loves Nantucket, to send us artistic representations about what they love most about their Nantucket home, or any building on Nantucket. So far, we have received dozens of fantastic pieces. To submit your own, please email an image with a brief caption to rcarr@nantucketpreservation.org.
RL Smith: My grandmother built this simple cottage on Dionis in 1957 and it is still in the family. One of the very best places to nap, read, or just chill is this daybed in the northwest corner. Open the sliding windows, listen to the waves lapping at the shore and feel the soft summer breeze enfold you. Heaven.
Continue reading below to see more photos, paintings, and drawings.
Michelle Whelan: The house has as many windows as could possibly fit into it. …on the south wall in the second-floor master bedroom, there’s a triple arched window that allows one to lie in bed on moonlit nights and watch the moon traverse the sky… . And a bonus: the front porch is covered with roses in the summertime so that when our upstairs windows are open (all the time in summer, except when it is raining), the house is filled with the smell of roses.Cynthia Stenta Porrini – The front door of my bungalow built in 1926. Every time I drive up Orange St I get excited! Looking forward to many happy years.’Doug Rose – Main Street at dawn c. 2013… If it weren’t for the traffic sign, it’s easy to imagine that it’s c.1890.Doug Rose – 22 Fair Street at dusk, late summer 2018. If this house had been flying a flag when it was built c.1750, it would have been the Queen Ann.Doug Rose – Gardner Street, spring 2015… but imagine it could be c.1915.Barbara Gookin – I have long loved this Nantucket home at 11 Baxter Road in ‘Sconset. What I like most about the house is that it is still standing, overlooking the Atlantic as generations of occupants and bluffwalkers enjoy her embellished craftsmanship from a bygone era. This summer I was happily surprised to see restoration efforts in progress. I spoke with the current owners, who are doing much of the work themselves. Nobody loves the home more than they do.AJ Heath – The Bluff Path and Idlemoor. This beautiful and fragile relic was holding on when I walked the Bluff Path last summer. Hope it still is.Susan Beaupre – Little Bear. I was so proud of that house. I bought it when I was a 36 year old single woman – scraped together every penny I had to do it. It had been a foreclosure so I got a good price. It was a mess and I made it into a little doll house. I loved waking up there in the spring and summer – hearing the birds and the wind rustling in the trees. And in bad weather I could hear the fog horn which would lull me to sleep on foggy nights.Susan Beaupre – Little Bear. This was my Christmas card for my first holiday on-island. It has since been torn down and a bigger house is there now.Susan Beaupre – Little Bear. This my last Nantucket Christmas card, 1998. And then I moved to Switzerland. But my heart still yearns for Nantucket.Mary Wade – Coast Guard Station, 1990Mary Wade – Washington StreetMary Wade – Nantucket Yacht ClubMary Wade – Sankaty LightMary Wade – WharfRay K. Saunders – One of our favorite structures on island is our home. A post and beam house with lovely wood floors. Our cat Sylvester enjoys the sun that fills the house with light in the evenings.Ray K. Saunders – Baskets in the window of a shop on Main Street.Ray K. Saunders – The Unitarian Universalist Meeting House is reflected in the window of a house across Fair Street with hydrangeas in bloom. The UU is a beautiful an historic building inside and out. As well as a welcoming house of worship.Ray K. Saunders – The Gay Head freight boat passes by Brant Point Light under a full moon, March 2020. My wife Susan and I had our wedding ceremony at Brant Point in September 2019. So it’s a very special place for us.Frances Karttunen – I love the door at the top of the stairs in my house at 67 Centre Street. The door was pieced to fit the frame, and the sloping ceiling was carved out to accommodate the opening and closing of the door.Frances Karttunen – Wonderful old Nantucket ingenuity.Clark Graff – My wife and I have been coming to Nantucket since 1976. Though we don’t have a place of our own on Nantucket our friends Tina and Bob Miklos do, so we are able to see them and this special island on a fairly regular basis. Their house is just down the street from the Pony Field and these houses.Clark Graff – Though I painted these pictures a while ago the memory of the time spent here with our friends never gets old.Leslie Forbes – The steps into the Downtown Post Office, the ones at the side door entrance off India Street. The Post Office was built as part of the New Deal, and opened in 1936. These steps speak volumes to me. Think how many residents have trudged up and down those stairs for such deep curves in the treads to develop. I think on the residents who have come before me and made daily trips to Town to check their mailbox, to send letters to far away family, to catch up with neighbors, to “see what’s going on.” It has been and continues to be a center-point of our community. It is community made visible. May it continue playing this role for decades.Michael Murphy – One of my favorites.Judy Belash – Original paneling on our living room fireplace wall.Andrea Kinsley – The barn at Sanford Farm.Andrea Kinsley – Sankaty Head LightAndrea Kinsley – Madaket Beach houses at sunset.
Thank you to all who submitted their Nantucket memories!
