One of the more interesting houses up-Island is 231 State Road in Chilmark. It is an unusual house for Chilmark: a Queen Anne style Victorian, painted yellow, with a turret.
I don’t know of any other such houses in Chilmark, whose charm lies in its serene and lovely rolling hills, hidden houses and beaches. It is a very common type of house elsewhere in the United States, the reflection of the prosperity of the late 19th century. Prosperity that had passed Chilmark by and which it was not to achieve until well past the midpoint of the 20th century.
Last Sunday afternoon, under wintery skies, there was yet another pilgrimage to Lucy Vincent Beach. For many it was a solemn moment as they stood and looked without saying a word.
Pam Bunker, chairman of the Chilmark beach committee, was there taking stock of how nature had once again changed the landscape of the beach.
“The whole eastern seaboard, from Plum Island all the way down the coast, is eroding . . . . It is a melancholy feeling,” she said.
Every once in a while, a trap door opens and another world of knowledge and experience disappears forever. Or almost. We’ve all seen it happen with the passing of a friend — particularly those friends who have been so curious about their surroundings that they unearthed wonders and made their patch of ground seem as exotic as any place on earth. The Vineyard just lost such a man, Preston Gray Harris, who many of us knew as P.G.
The historic 17th century Barn House in Chilmark, famously home to an avant-garde communal colony of Vineyard artists, writers and intellectuals, is being considered by the Massachusetts Historical Commission for nomination to the National Register of Historic Places.
