The Chilmark historical commission has approved the demolition of a well-known house thought to have been a British headquarters during the Revolutionary War, despite calls by the Martha’s Vineyard Commission to have the project reviewed as a development of regional impact (DRI).

The MVC compliance committee agreed last Friday that the two-story colonial on State Road, often referred to as the Great House, should undergo mandatory review because the town historical commission and master plan both identify it as historically significant.

Catie Fuller, whose family has owned the house since the 1960s, said in a letter last week that it had remained on the market for more than eight years without a single offer. She finally applied for a demolition permit from the historical commission in March, triggering a six-month waiting period that ended Oct. 7. In the letter to the commission, she said she has pursued a number of alternatives since April without success, and she cited experts who say the house is beyond even the point of salvaging for materials.

Jim Malkin and Lenny Jason at historical commission meeting Tuesday. — Alex Elvin

The item in the commission’s checklist for review that relates to the demolition of historic buildings excludes houses that are located within historic districts and subject to review by historical or architectural commissions that may permanently deny a project. But Chilmark has no historic district, only a list of important buildings, and in the case of demolitions, its historical commission may require only up to a six-month delay to pursue alternatives.

In a letter to the commission on Tuesday, DRI coordinator Paul Foley noted his disagreement with MVC commissioner Lenny Jason, who also serves on the Chilmark historical commission, about whether the exclusion in the DRI checklist applies to the Great House. At their meeting Tuesday, historical commissioners agreed to seek legal counsel on the matter, but to continue operating as usual.

Mr. Jason alluded to the many similar permits the commission has issued in the past, and seemed to wonder why the MVC was only now stepping in. “We have yet to have a house that could survive,” he said of the past demolitions.

Historical district commission secretary Chuck Hodgkinson agreed that demolition was the only realistic option for the Great House, although he said Mr. Foley had mentioned the possibility of requiring that it be registered with the National Register of Historic Places, which could qualify it for tax benefits to offset the cost of preservation.

“That’s ridiculous,” commission chairman Jane Slater said of the idea.

The Martha’s Vineyard Preservation Trust expressed an interest in restoring the house last spring, but Ms. Fuller believed the preservation trust’s conclusion was that the house has “changed so much that it’s difficult to tell what it originally looked like.” Two Island contractors said it wouldn’t be worth the time and effort to salvage wood from the house, and no one was willing to assume the risk of moving it to a new location, she said.

“I need to reiterate that this process started because I had been trying to sell the property for years and was being pushed by the insurance company to do repairs that were cosmetic in nature and out of my price range,” Ms. Fuller said in the letter. “[T]he insurance company did in fact cancel my homeowners insurance and I was at risk of losing my home when the bank recalled my mortgage.”

Ms. Fuller and her fiancee, Erik Blake, plan to build a three-bedroom colonial on the property, using features that echo the Great House in its early days. Plans call for traditional wood shingles and a central chimney, along with buried utility lines and exposed stone walls.

Among the changes made to the Great House over the years were two bay windows that look out through a front porch toward the road, the porch itself, and a rear ell. A smaller house was built on the property in 2003.