On Monday this week the Edgartown selectmen approved a liquor license transfer for the Kelley House, which includes the Newes from America, a pub at the corner of Kelley and North Water streets.
The lobby of Point B Realty doesn’t look like a place of serious business these days. Behind the reception desk sits Edgar, a six-foot-tall teddy bear. On the other side of the lobby, owner and principal broker of the firm, Wendy Harman, fluffs the fur of two-year-old Chappy, a teddy bear named by “fans” last year through Facebook and blog votes and posts.
Nathan Gould is on a mission to prove that all hotel food is not created equal. The bland chicken breast is out and a sous vide Good Farm chicken roulade is in.
“We’re continuously moving towards sourcing locally, which a lot of hotels don’t,” Mr. Gould said walking through the doors of the Harbor View Hotel where he is the new executive chef. “A lot of hotels that have to do volume rather than take the time to have a relationship with Island farmers and fishermen, they’ll go to a corporate account and get stuff moved in from wherever. Hopefully, we can change that.”
The Harbor View Hotel was aglow Monday night as revelers ushered in the New Year at the Edgartown hotel's annual bash. It was a night of food, glitz, champagne and even cotton candy.
The polished hardwood floors, outdoor showers, stone countertops and crisp white paneled walls would be unrecognizable to Captains Bradley, Luce, Collins, Morse, Osborne, Rowley and Huxford, the whaling captains for whom the cottages at the Harbor View Hotel are named. Nor would the hotel employees who rented rooms in the cottages in the 1960s recognize them now.
A Nantucket-based investment group closed on a deal last week to buy the Harbor View Hotel and Kelley House properties in Edgartown; total sale price was $45.1 million. The sale provided a tidy windfall for the Martha's Vineyard Land Bank, netting the agency just over $900,000 in fees. The sale closed Dec. 20 with four separate transactions. Scout Real Estate Capital LLC purchased the turn-of-the-century Harbor View Hotel for $32.5 million and the Kelley House pub and inn complex for $12.6 million.
The Harbor View Hotel, a shingle-style turn-of-the-century hotel that graces the entrance to the Edgartown harbor at Starbuck's Neck, is set for sale to a Nantucket-based investment group, along with the Kelley House, an 18th century tavern that is now a pub and inn complex spanning Water and Dock streets.
The properties represent a significant piece of downtown real estate in Edgartown, as well as two of the best known resorts on the Vineyard.
In the second phase of a $77 million multi-year renovation plan for the historic Harbor View Hotel and Resort in Edgartown, the Harbor View, the Coach House restaurant and the Carlos Fuente Club House closed Oct. 21.
All hotel, restaurant and catering operations have shifted to the Kelley House and The Newes from America pub until the improvements are completed. Renovations are scheduled for completion by late next spring.
