After 149 summers of delighting audiences from down-Island bandstands and stages, the Vineyard Haven Band will perform on street level for its first-ever winter concert Dec. 16 at 1 p.m.
At Owen Park, in downtown Vineyard Haven, a little red trailer is hitched to the back of a Chilmark Spring Water van. On the side of the trailer, painted in expansive gold script, it says: The Vineyard Haven Band Est. 1868.
Frank Dunkl, owner of Chilmark Springwater with his brother and sister, serves as the band’s board president, french horn player and passionate historian.
Frank, Peter and Heidi Dunkl produce Chilmark Spring Water, the Island’s own bottled water. But this winter, the siblings’ attention went beyond water.
They’ve been working on one of the Island’s most revered 19th century buildings, the old bandstand at Ocean Park in Oak Bluffs. From their plant at the Martha’s Vineyard Airport Business Park, they’ve worked on five new oak replacement posts.
The new posts are critical pieces for the troubled 19th-century building.
