From the August 14, 1981 edition of the Vineyard Gazette:
As usual it didn’t dare rain for the Edgartown Open House Tour which benefits the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital.
Dr. and Mrs. Robert W. Nevin opened their house on Pease’s Point Way and visitors were immediately confronted by a huge American flag. Inside, the change of times and ways of life were visible. Originally, the house had a front parlor (a speaking room) and behind it a keeping room. Later, with the advent of the cook stove, or range, kitchens popped out behind and the old keeping rooms turned into dining rooms.
Next on the tour was the home of Mrs. Winston L. May Jr. on School street. This house is a bit later, sort of a post-Greek with its gable end facing the street, but the front door on the side.
The indoor-outdoor porch opened from the kitchen out onto a small terrace beautifully planted and surrounded by a small treasure of a garden.
Mrs. May wanted to open the upstairs, but one of her family doused that idea by saying, “With three of us here we talked her out of it. There’s no place to hide everything.”
Without a doubt the star of the tour and certainly the most controversial was Mr. and Mrs. Peter Weisman’s house, if you can call it that, on School street. This is the former Baptist Church which was the former Masonic Hall. Once it had a big tower which was lost in the 1938 hurricane. Now it is just a lovely strong pure Grecian temple, columns, pediment, architrave and all.
The downstairs where once the Masons cooked dinners has been made into a children’s playroom, but it is the upstairs in the church itself where the transformation has been wrought.
“Fabulous, what they’ve done to this! This is marvelous!” swooned one woman. And another almost shrieked, “I think that was so exciting,” but the old-time Edgartonians had funny expressions on their faces which couldn’t be diagnosed.
Across School street, Miss Nancy Haskell opened her lovely little unadulterated Greek Revival. This is the four bay type of house which Carroll Meeks described as an Island house as opposed to the Cape Cod house.
Inside, all the floors have been painted and stenciled by Miss Haskell herself. A pineapple, that ancient New England sign of welcome, is right inside the front door.
Over on South Water street, Mrs. Suzanne S. Whittemore opened her Greek Revival Island house. This too is a four bay, story and a half, only larger in scale. It has been furnished in a style similar to Mrs. May’s house, with lots of white, lots of color and bright quilted chintzes. Mrs. Whittmore, too, has turned her front parlor into a dining room, but has added a kitchen off to the side, so that also is on the street. For some reason the old door casings which were lovely and Greek, have been removed and barn boards added to give a rusting farmhouse look to what was once a townhouse.
Mr. and Mrs. John B. Ashman opened their lovely old house, certainly the oldest on the tour, as the tea house. It was perfect. The house reputed to have been built in 1682 was an old single Cape. This is the type of house usually built for an unwed daughter (to encourage a suitor) or by a young couple starting out. In the case of Mr. and Mrs. Ashman’s house it was added to, but not within the lifetime of the original owner, so that the Half Cape never became a Full Cape. Instead, a large dining room shoots off on its own, creating a wing.
Of course, it is a post and beam house. The posts are properly chamfered while the summer beam is very neatly beaded so that either this was a very dressy house, or updated.
The front door faces the harbor sensibly because there was a road along the waterfront when Cooke street was Commercial street and led to the main wharf in town. There are five lights over the front door, suggesting that these were added a good while after the house was supposed to have been built.
Outside the front door are interesting pilasters, probably also newer than the house, and all this is surrounded by a wide, delicious veranda exposed to the full glories of the bright, busy harbor. The grounds and gardens are spacious if not slightly overpowered by a linden tree which has been made to grow out not up and is lovely.
The old servants’ house has been made into a guest house and the old kitchen beneath the house now seems marvelously spooky.
It was here that a nice teatime (no tea involved) was served.
The whole tour was marvelous but it did not just happen. Houses have to be divested of all living appendages and cleaned, then lovely bouquets have to be placed on tables in halls, on stairs, corners and porches. Under the direction of Mrs. Peter K. Clough, a group did these arrangements while Mr. William E. Sorensen gathered hostesses who stood in all the rooms answering questions and making sure that no one swiped anything. That delicious teatime (without the tea) was chaperoned by Mrs. Douglas B. Bowring and Mrs. E. Gordon Rossiter.
Compiled by Hilary Wallcox
library@vineyardgazette.com