The Martha’s Vineyard Commission voted 10-1 on Thursday to allow Amelia Hambrecht to move the whaling-era Caleb Prouty house from downtown Vineyard Haven to her property on Lagoon Pond Road.
Ms. Hambrecht still must obtain town permits before she can have the boarded-up house moved from the Stop & Shop property on Cromwell Lane and installed on the subdivided lot where she lives half a mile away.
Stop & Shop has not yet submitted an application outlining its plans for the Cromwell Lane site once the house is gone.
Ben Robinson was the only commissioner to vote against Ms. Hambrecht’s plan, saying he could not support removing the historic house without an understanding of what would replace it on the Stop & Shop lot.
“Without us knowing what that redevelopment looks like, it seems like a mistake,” Mr. Robinson said.
“It feels like we’re making a decision without all the information,” he said.
Stop & Shop has been seeking for more than two decades to rid itself of the Prouty house, which the grocery giant bought in 2012 with the intention of tearing it down to expand the adjacent supermarket.
The company changed its plan after the Massachusetts Historical Commission determined that the Greek Revival house, built around 1838 for mariner Caleb Prouty, is eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places.
The town of Tisbury’s historical commission also supports preserving the house, which survived the fast-moving fire that demolished dozens of downtown buildings in August, 1883.
Ms. Hambrecht’s application first came to the commission in 2019, but was sidelined during the pandemic before its public hearing got underway early this year.
She intends to renovate the Prouty house as a residence for her son and his family, Ms. Hambrecht told the commission.
The two houses together will not exceed the five-bedroom limit on the lot’s septic system, according to her application.
Some abutters in the Lagoon Pond Road neighborhood objected during the public hearing that began in March, saying the house was out of character with their neighborhood.
But commissioners determined that preserving the neglected structure as housing will be a net benefit for the community.
Thursday’s approval includes a condition that the bricks from the Prouty house chimney be offered for reuse and another requiring both Stop & Shop and Ms. Hambrecht to post historical monuments to the house at the edge of their properties.
Stop & Shop also will have to have the Massachusetts Historic Commission investigate the Cromwell Lane site before any excavation work can begin there.
The Prouty house is scheduled to be relocated in September by the same house mover who handled the Safe Harbor Marina office building last year, Ms. Hambrecht told the commission.
Among other business Thursday, commissioners vote 8-4 to approve the installation of three undersea power cables for the New England Wind 2 wind energy project.
Like previously-approved cables for the Vineyard Wind project, the export lines will run from wind turbines south of the Island, through Muskeget Channel to Cape Cod.
Commissioners voiced mixed feelings about the project, which will require dredging the seabed to more than five feet deep.
“We need to acknowledge that digging up the seafloor is not a good thing,” Linda Sibley said.
“We have acknowledged that, [and] that’s going to be offset by the energy output,” chair Fred Hancock said.
Commission members Kate Putnam and Brian Smith both said they distrust the wind energy trade.
“I’m a straight-up no for this industry,” Mr. Smith said.
“I agree with Brian,” Ms. Putnam said.
Greg Martino and Clarence (Trip) Barnes joined Mr. Smith and Ms. Putnam in voting no on the cables.
Also Thursday, the commission opened its public hearing on a revived application to subdivide Flat Point Farm in West Tisbury.
Members of the Fischer family, which has owned the 110-acre farm on Tisbury Great Pond for generations, are seeking to create two agricultural parcels and 13 residential parcels, two with allowances for guest houses.
Two large parcels of the farm are already under agricultural preservation restrictions and one of them is leased to the Martha’s Vineyard Land Bank for the next century.
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