My architecture firm has designed about a dozen houses on Martha’s Vineyard in addition to the Middle Line affordable housing project in Chilmark. Some of these houses are large, so I have frequently been asked what I think about the discussion now taking place, not only about large houses, but also about the future of the Vineyard in general.

In this discussion I have often heard people say that they want the Island to remain the same as it is today for their children, grandchildren and beyond. New construction reminds them of change; the larger the construction, the more the change. And they recoil.

We are probably all susceptible to such sentiments, but we should get beyond them. Change is not going to end. For more than 300 years Martha’s Vineyard has been in a constant state of evolution, and it would only be ignoring history to believe that this ceaseless process can be brought to a halt. The Vineyard is an Island, but it cannot fend off the forces that engulf our culture. And by the way, change does not necessarily mean more and more development. The Vineyard has alternated between periods of prosperity and decline. The Island’s many caved-in cellar holes and overgrown walls are eloquent reminders of how transitory many forms of human settlement have been.

Even if we could make time stand still, there are important reasons not even to try to do so. The state of mind that underlies such an impulse is based in fear — fear of modernity in all of its manifestations and ramifications. That strain of thought has deep roots in our culture. But fortunately there has been another, more optimistic, and indeed better vision, one summarized in Thomas Jefferson’s words: “The earth belongs to the living.” Future generations should not be burdened by the dictates and institutions of their ancestors. Let’s have more confidence in our children and grandchildren to chart their own paths and the future of the Vineyard as they envision it.

I have attended many of the meetings about the large house issue. At one of the first of these meetings, at the Martha’s Vineyard Commission, I heard something unsettling. It was not said explicitly, but it was latent in words, phrases and intonations. In effect, I heard that the problem may not be so much large houses themselves, but instead it may be the kind of people who want to build large houses. That thought was made explicit in the flurry of e-mails that circulated this past winter among about 40 people, mainly seasonal residents of Chilmark. The e-mails concerned a house that my firm had designed. They were not meant for my eyes, but the Internet being what it is, they were forwarded to me nevertheless. These messages contained many offensive remarks, but the most offensive of all was the comment that my clients and their children should be treated as “pariahs.” In effect, they said such people do not belong on Martha’s Vineyard.

Those who harbor such thoughts need to learn a basic lesson about our history and the role of land in it. The many waves of people who came and continue to come to this country, and to this continent well before it was a country, did so primarily for two reasons. They wanted to escape the persecution of their beliefs and the suppression of their folkways. They also sought opportunities that had been denied them by those who had considered themselves their betters. That has often meant the ability to own land and to play out their own destinies on their land as they see fit, not as others determine for them.

From early childhood I heard disparaging whisperings that certain people looked differently, spoke differently, dressed differently, lived differently. To that we learned a simple and effective rejoinder, one which still rings true: “It takes all kinds.” Thus, when I designed a house for my family in Chilmark, a house which my wife calls “the last of the camps,” we did not include an indoor equestrian facility, 10 bedrooms for an extended family, a pottery studio, a gallery for a collection of contemporary art, an expansive greenhouse and the like. But when our clients ask my firm to incorporate such spaces into a house, I do not get moralistic and try to dissuade them from something they have thought long about and is important to them. If the inclusion of such facilities tip the project in some people’s eyes into the large house category, which no one has yet to define, so be it. Our laws — land use and otherwise — should extend the limits of our adventure in freedom, rather than curtail them.

One such freedom that should be protected is the freedom of architectural expression. Suggestions are now afloat to make large parts of the Vineyard historic districts or to establish design review boards to enforce a “Vineyard style” in new residential construction. The trouble is that no one has been able to define what this Vineyard style is. For more than three centuries architectural styles on the Vineyard have been changing, from period to period, from town to town, and even within towns at any given period. Part of the Island’s architectural heritage is also the inventive houses that Eliot Noyes, Edward L. Barnes, Charles Gwathmey and their successors have designed here in the past half century. Shall we simply write them out of our history?

Even how to design a new building in an historic district is a complicated subject. Many of the local and state ordinances that have been written on this issue now discourage what in preservation circles is called “fake history.” They instead recommend designs that are “of our own time.” Being of our own time and a deep understanding of the history of architecture are not incompatible. The great masters of modern architecture were all steeped in the history of architecture. But when people first encounter a work that looks new or different, they generally do not understand what is at its root. They fixate on the fact of unfamiliarity, and, whether it is a work of literature, art, music or architecture, they often treat it with derision and even contempt. However, after a while, when these works become more recognizable, they are accepted into the culture, and some of them even become much-loved. Some Impressionist paintings that initially were reviled are now selling for many millions of dollars.

So let’s keep our eyes open. Even more important, let’s keep our minds open.

The author of two books and many articles on the history of architecture, David Handlin has been a seasonal resident of Chilmark since 1985. His architecture practice is in Cambridge.