The Martha's Vineyard Preservation Trust confirmed yesterday that it will buy the Old Sculpin Gallery - the landmark building that fronts Dock street in Edgartown and was a grain mill turned boat building shop turned art gallery and education space.
The trust will pay the Martha's Vineyard Art Association $1 for the property, and in exchange the art association will receive permanent occupancy.
Christopher Scott, executive director of the preservation trust, said yesterday that he expects the deal will close sometime this fall.
The Martha’s Vineyard Preservation Trust announced this week that it will buy and preserve the Norton property on the Edgartown harbor that includes the Osborn building, the oldest structure on the Edgartown waterfront.
The trust will buy the Dock street property owned by the Norton family which includes two buildings and a dock adjacent to Memorial Wharf. The boathouse was built after the 1944 hurricane. The Osborn building is much older and dates to the 1830s.
A historic catboat named Edwina B. is the most recent acquisition of the Martha’s Vineyard Preservation Trust. The 22-foot wooden boat, built by Manuel Swartz Roberts in Edgartown in 1931, is possibly the last of three catboats he built still in the water.
The nearly 80-year-old boat has had a circuitous life with different names and different ports of call. She has been part of the Edgartown waterfront for at least the past 20 years. The former owners see the boat’s journey bringing her to Edgartown to stay.
It took a gentle push and a firm pull of many hands to get the 1,590-pound bronze bell back into position. But last Friday, after months of work and preparation, the Old Whaling Church bell was again in its place high above downtown Edgartown.
On Monday the 1,590-pound church bell that has rung the hour for Edgartonians for five generations was temporarily relieved of duty. The bronze bell, cast in 1843 and installed in the Edgartown Whaling Church in 1889, was gingerly removed from atop the clock tower by crane, for the first time, on the coldest day this winter.
The new pews are still empty, and the fresh pine they are built from won’t begin to creak until parishioners arrive later this month, adding their imprint to the long history of the Union Chapel in Oak Bluffs.
