Project on Hold

Tabernacle Is Battlefront on Camp Ground

By CHRIS BURRELL

Don't let the tranquillity of the Camp Ground fool you.

When residents got wind of plans to put the Camp Ground in debt in
order to finance a $1.9 million, full-scale restoration of the
Tabernacle, things turned political quickly.

Opponents started writing letters and collecting signatures for a
petition. An anonymous three-page letter questioning the plans and Camp
Ground leadership landed in the mailboxes of all 320 households.

Last Saturday, when the 21-member board of directors of the
Martha's Vineyard Camp Meeting Association convened for their
quarterly meeting, it was supposed to be an unveiling of a financial
roadmap - how to pay for an ambitious overhaul of the landmark
Tabernacle.

Instead, the resistance effort inside this historic community paid
off. Leaders decided to put the restoration on the back burner and focus
on fixing just one piece of the 124-year-old structure - the
cupola.

"There's some serious resistance within the Camp Meeting
community," said Fred Sonnenberg, the only year-round member of
the board. "We certainly are concerned about the general feeling
in the Camp Ground and not wanting to risk our land ... without a
payback plan that looked very viable."

Board member Douglas West - who is a vice-president with
Toyota Motors based in Washington, D.C. - was the man in charge of
creating a financial plan.

He could not be reached for comment, but Mr. Sonnenberg explained
that Mr. West's ideas for financing offered several options,
including borrowing the $1.9 million, building new cottages on
undeveloped land and levying fees on new residents in the Camp Ground,
where houses may be purchased but the land is held in common by the
association.

The board meeting was held in closed session, but there was no
denying the growing opposition.

"What you see is a lack of planning," resident and
letter-writer Earle Engley told the Gazette in a telephone interview.

Clearly, much of the disgruntlement was rooted in the fact that Camp
Ground leadership had miscalculated what was needed to restore the
Tabernacle.

Three years ago, Camp Ground leadership mounted a fund-raising
campaign for about $2 million. They raised almost $1.8 million.

The first million was meant to pay for a basic renovation -
new stained-glass windows, re-flashing the roof and a paint job of the
rusty iron structure. The second million was supposed to be for an
endowment.

But planners ran into unexpected problems.

A new architect and engineer hired on for the job determined that
the Tabernacle needed cement footings for the load-bearing iron columns
at a cost of $400,000. Other funds were poured into a Steinway grand
piano, a new sound system, electrical wiring upgrades, new stained glass
in the upper clerestory and new sidewalls on the backstage.

Now, they have about $400,000 left in the coffers.

Last summer, leaders told Camp Ground leaseholders they had a full
set of plans from a Providence architect and needed almost twice the
money - $1.9 million more - to do the whole job.

One major bone of contention is the need for a new roof. The
architect declared it's a necessity and would cost almost
$600,000.

Alfred Jacobsen 3rd, a Camp Ground resident and a lawyer in Bedford,
N.Y., wrote a letter to the board, questioning the track record of a new
roof made of a new material.

Roofs with moss, he wrote, "are deemed charming." Mr.
Jacobsen also criticized the borrowing idea to pay for the restoration.

"Board members who vote to do things are not personally
liable," he wrote. "Who would be personally liable on the
note and mortgage if the ‘faith' is wrong and the money does
not come in?"

A joint letter from Ernest and Nancy Fay and Allan and Annabelle
Tait cut straight to the money issues and illustrated a growing lack of
confidence in the leadership that made promises they didn't keep.

"You are seeking ... a 300 per cent increase over what was the
original projected cost," they wrote. "To our knowledge,
nothing has been put in the endowment fund. This is not what we were
told initially."

The letter writers also cautioned that any new fees levied on
leaseholders to pay back a mortgage might force some residents to rent
their cottages for much of the summer season and "drastically
change the make-up of the Camp Meeting Association."

The board of directors has hired a Cape-based consultant to gauge
the fund-raising support on the Vineyard for the Tabernacle.

But the anonymous letter sent out to leaseholders raised serious
concerns about collecting donations in the face of competition from the
Oak Bluffs library and possibly the Martha's Vineyard Hospital.
"What will take priority with the money people?" the letter
asked.

Camp Ground general manager Bill McConnell acknowledged the rising
tide of criticism to the project. "There's been a lot of
concern on the part of leaseholders, some of it well-founded," he
said. "We're taking a few steps back and making sure
leaseholders are comfortable with what decisions might be made."

The next step appears to be biting off one small part of the project
and seeing if it helps to restore not just the Tabernacle but also the
faith in people running the show.

"The first thing that would be done would be the cupola and
the cross on top," said Mr. McConnell. "It would be a good
example."

That phase calls for new flashing and louvres, a new carbon-fiber
cross illuminated externally with fiber optic lights and a zinc-plated
copper roof for the cupola.

No doubt, there's some anger in the Camp Ground. "You
have a lot of houses that have been sold in here - not some
$20,000 cottage - they're selling for $250,000 and
$300,000," said Mr. Engley. "You have people who spend that
kind of money, and you're not going to pull the wool over their
eyes."

Mr. Engley's letter also called for some board members to be
popularly elected, instead of only being nominated from within the board
itself. "This isn't a democracy," he added.
"This is despotic."

Mr. Sonnenberg tried to bring the discussion back to the basics.
"The main issue is we want the building to be there another
hundred years," he said. "We can't ignore [problems],
which is what's been done an awful lot in the past."