Edgartown’s venerable landmark hotel, the Harbor View Hotel, will close later this month for extensive renovations, probably not to reopen until late spring next year.

Work on the kitchen, restaurant and rooms is expected to cost around $25 million and be done by May. It is the first phase of a two-year, $77 million project to refurbish and expand the hotel, which first opened in 1891.

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.

Innkeeper Stephen Caliri chats about golden retrievers with his
guests in the parking lot of the Victorian Inn after directing them to
lemonade and cookies on the back patio. The cordless phone on his belt
rings, and Mr. Caliri begins rattling off room rates to a prospective
guest on the other end of the line. He even mentions the third-floor
mahogany deck he laid over the winter.

This commodious hotel is now open to the public. The proprietor, Mr. Joseph Kelley, is a gentleman every way worthy of the confidence of visitors, and one who will spare no pains to make his patrons comfortable, and so well pleased as to desire to prolong their stay. We trust the “Vineyard” may be prospered under this new administration.