Along the rural driveway approaching Stillpoint in West Tisbury, a sign reads “Time to Slow Down.”
The message to drivers could double as a slogan for the new educational center, whose founders hope to foster deeper connections among Islanders from every background through classes, talks and face-to-face conversations.
“[It’s] a space where the community can find common ground, understand differences, have empathy towards other people, get off of online discussions and sit around a table in a room,” said Ben Robinson, a member of the Stillpoint programming committee, who helped create the nonprofit with executive director Thomas Bena.
Located on Stillpoint Meadows Lane off State Road just north of Polly Hill Arboretum, the new center is a 3,000-square-foot, multi-purpose barn with a carpentry shop and a native plant garden just outside, surrounded by wooded land.
Mr. Bena, a longtime Islander and filmmaker who founded the Martha’s Vineyard Film Festival in 2001, established the Stillpoint nonprofit in 2021 with the goal of fostering curiosity and community.
Since the facility got the final sign offs from the town of West Tisbury earlier this winter, Stillpoint has hosted a solstice celebration for the Plum Hill School and a memorial ceremony for a beloved Misty Meadows therapy horse.
A men’s discussion group and a series of meditation classes with Elliott Dascher are set to begin in January, and the Martha’s Vineyard Chamber Music Society has booked the barn for a concert Feb. 17.
“It is a community space that will create itself … through what the community wants to offer here,” Mr. Bena said earlier this month.
In 2022, the new organization took part in a three-way purchase of 52 acres between State Road and North Road from longtime owner Claudia Miller, who had given it the Stillpoint name.
The Martha’s Vineyard Land Bank now owns 26 acres of undeveloped property along Crocker Pond and Priester’s Pond, where it plans to create walking trails. A married couple bought an existing home and land and Mr. Bena’s Stillpoint took ownership of 14 acres and the barn.
Environmentalists hailed the transaction for keeping most of Ms. Miller’s former land undeveloped and protecting the Mill Brook watershed. In the 1980s, the Martha’s Vineyard Commission had approved a subdivision on the property that would have allowed 12 septic systems.
The Stillpoint nonprofit, however, met some resistance to its emerging plans, with West Tisbury and Martha’s Vineyard Commission officials pressing for more specific details about what would happen there.
Along with classes, talks and other gatherings for up to three dozen or so people, Stillpoint initially sought permission to rent out the property for larger private events such as weddings.
While the Martha’s Vineyard Commission approved the proposal in May, 2023, Stillpoint faced further opposition from West Tisbury residents who said it would commercialize the rural property.
The nonprofit ultimately dropped the request to host weddings or any other “off-mission” events, leading a majority of the West Tisbury zoning board of appeals to approve Stillpoint in August, 2023.
Since then, Mr. Bena said, his group has renovated the barn to be fully accessible and begun networking with other Island nonprofits, teachers and community groups.
Mr. Bena has formed an advisory board for Stillpoint that intentionally reflects the Island’s diversity, with members of differing backgrounds and opinions.
“That’s just part of what we’re hoping to do, is just keep connecting with people whether or not we share the same politics or religion or socioeconomic status,” Mr. Bena said shortly before Christmas during a round-table conversation with several Stillpoint staff and advisory board members.
The overall mission, they said, is to forge authentic human connections regardless of more superficial differences.
Members of the advisory board include Dana Nunes, who started the Beetlebung Corner kneel-ins that began after George Floyd’s death in 2020, Wampanoag tribal members Jen Randolph and Carole Vandal, recovery coach Eric Adams and Brazilian Islander Levy Aguiar, who worked at the Miller property for years.
“We’re going to be as brave as we have to be to carry it as far as it needs to go,” said Matt Larsen, another board member who was recruited by Mr. Bena after Mr. Bena spotted his conservative bumper stickers.
Staff and board members hoped the new center could create a better place for discussion that can move past the liberal-versus-conservative lens and toxicity of social media. Mr. Aguiar also said Stillpoint would offer Brazilian families a gathering place and an opportunity to forge connections with the larger Island community.
“When I talk to my friends about this place, they are excited to know and excited to see the project this is going to be,” Mr. Aguilar.
The Stillpoint barn is available for public use through rentals, sponsorships and collaborations with the nonprofit, Mr. Bena said. Collaborations, he said, could take many forms depending on Islanders’ ideas and proposals.
“There will be joyful learning here,” Mr. Bena said.
Comments (9)
Comments
Comment policy »