Each year, the open houses are the highlights of the August Fête. This year, we’ll be exploring the School Street neighborhood in the Fish Lots. Here is a sneak peek at two of the houses that will be open for guests to tour.

Henry Coffin, Mariner | 22 Fair Street c. 1749-1756

The land at 22 Fair Street was originally owned by James Coffin (1640-1720) son of Tristram Coffin and Dionis Stevens Coffin. James Coffin was granted ownership of the 4th Fish Lot in 1717 but died three years later. His youngest son, Jonathan Coffin (1692-1773) appears to have inherited much of the 4th Fish Lot at age 29. Jonathan Coffin then granted the land to his son Henry Coffin (1716-1756) when Henry was a 33-year-old mariner. Henry Coffin married and had five children. A deed from 1808 in which Henry Coffin’s two oldest sons sold their interests in a piece of land “and a dwelling house” describes the property—including the house—as having been formerly owned by their late father from 1749 until his death in 1756.

Thomas Macy | 3 Tattle Court c. 1690-1700

The house at the end of Tattle Court was once the residence of Thomas Macy, which accounts for the earlier name of the court, Macy Lane. One of the oldest houses in the Fish Lots and perhaps on island, it is believed to have been moved from the original settlement at Sherburne and rebuilt at its present location soon after the neighborhood was laid out in 1717. Like most Nantucket houses from the early period, it faces south. The house was labeled “old and vacant” on the Sanborn Insurance Company map dated 1904 but was restored mid-century by Stewart and Maude Mooney.

Check out the story on our ‘Sconset walking tour in this month’s issue of Bird’s Eye View, Cape Air’s in-flight magazine. Available everywhere Cape Air flies, or read here.

This June, go behind closed doors with the Nantucket Preservation Trust symposium workshop Decisions in Preservation: Understanding, Repairing, and Preserving Historic Nantucket Homes. We will look at antique houses in various stages of the preservation process. Learn more at www.nantucketpreservationsymposium.org.

For many years, the Nicholson-Andrews house at 55 Union Street (ca. 1834) sat vacant in need of rescue. A casual and uniformed observer might consider a property in the state 55 Union was in beyond the pale. Nothing could be further from the truth!

A notable example of transitional Federal/Greek Revival architecture, the Nicholson-Andrews house was unoccupied and unmodified for almost sixty years. Because of this, many of its interior features were undisturbed. As architectural historian Brian Pfeiffer wrote of the house, “Among the significant architectural elements that remain are the house’s floor plan, lime plaster walls and ceilings, softwood floors, paneled doors, molded and paneled interior window trimmings, molded baseboards, mantelpieces and balustrades.”

In other words, don’t judge a house by its shingles.

Two interesting features of the Nicholson-Andrews house found during a recent restoration show us how living on an island impacted building methods.

Decorative painting was found on the underside of one of the floorboards. This points to the importance of using salvaged materials. It appears that timbers from the upper floors were a mixture of salvaged and newly-milled timbers from 1834. Puritan and Quaker ideals of thrift would have influenced building on Nantucket at the time, as well as the realities of transporting building materials to the remote island.

Eelgrass insulation was found in the west wall of the main block of the house. Yes, eelgrass, the very stuff our tasty Nantucket bay scallops like to hang out in. When dried, eelgrass is light, fire and rot resistant, and forms many small air pockets when packed into a wall which helps trap warm air. Eelgrass was plentiful in costal New England, until a disease killed nearly 90% of the eelgrass beds of the North Atlantic in the early 1930s.

Today, the house serves as a beautiful example of a typical Nantucket house and reminder of what can be accomplished with hard work and know-how.

Register today for our 2018 Symposium Workshop to see 55 Union and other historic properties firsthand. Click here to register, or call 508.228.1387.

Early Registration & Scholarship Application Now Available for the 2018 Nantucket Preservation Symposium Workshop

“You already know a lot about buildings,” architectural historian Brian Pfeiffer said to attendees at the Nantucket Preservation Trust’s inaugural Preservation Symposium, “You live in them, you visit them.” In our busy lives, how often do we take the time to consider the buildings around us, the commonalities they share, and the idiosyncrasies that reveal their unique stories?

This summer, join us for an evening reception and one-day Nantucket Preservation Symposium Workshop on Wednesday, June 6, 2018 and Thursday, June 7, 2018. Last year’s event attracted preservationists from around the island and across the country to celebrate and learn from Nantucket’s living classroom.

Early registration begins today and runs through April 2, 2018. Click here to register for a reduced registration rate of $295 per attendee.

Decisions in Preservation: Understanding, Repairing and Preserving Nantucket Houses is a one-day intensive session that focuses on the difficult decisions property owners, architects, and builders face in restoring houses, and how they balance preserving features and making a home livable in the 21st century.

While the workshop will focus on Nantucket’s architecture, lessons learned from Decisions in Preservation will be useful to anyone who works with or owns a historic home. Whether you’re an architectural historian, a local history buff, or just want to know more about the buildings you pass by every day, we’d love you to join us on Nantucket this summer.

The NPT is offering a limited number of scholarship tickets to the workshop.

To apply: please submit a one-page letter of interest detailing how the symposium would benefit you and if applicable, how it would advance your career or studies.

Applications are due by May 1, 2018.  Recipients will be selected and notified in early May.

Applications can be submitted via email to info@nantucketpreservation.org.

Questions? Please contact 508.228.1387.