Down to the Square Inch

Owning an historic home in a landmark district takes a certain kind of person: one who knows a potential renovation will require time and, in the case of the Martha’s Vineyard Camp Meeting Association in Oak Bluffs, the use of every square inch. But architect Scott Slarsky had a vision from the moment he bought his cottage in the Camp Ground, believing a renovation could bring new life to the home while respecting the historical character and small footprint.

Slarsky purchased the almost 900-square-foot, three-bedroom, one-and-a-half-bath cottage in September 2016, sight unseen. He and his two children had stayed in a rental home in the neighborhood for several years prior, and Slarsky had the goal of buying his own. “I was drawn to the Camp Ground by the safety and the bucolic landscape, perfect for children,” he said.

Built in 1868, the cottage is uniquely situated between two open lots on the corner of Butler Avenue and Jordan Crossing. The lots were used for parking by the previous owners, but Slarsky envisioned converting them into green spaces. Before he could work on the outside areas however, the cottage needed immediate upgrades on the inside to prepare it for the upcoming summer season.  

At the time of his purchase, the house was virtually untouched – even the 100-year-old mattresses remained. “The most important thing about the condition of the cottage when I bought it was that it had benefited from benign neglect,” said Slarsky. “[This] is a major thing with historic buildings, because if the roof is good and doesn’t leak and nothing else is touched, it’s kind of like you’re buying a time capsule.” 

Work on the house began in October 2016, including the installation of new plumbing and electrical. The uninsulated cottage needed a propane heater and a propane stove, and the shower room was retiled and a stackable laundry unit was added. The addition of an outdoor shower made the home summer-ready. 

The following year, Slarsky’s friend and Island native and botanist Alicia Lesnikowska began creating a usable green space. “She said, ‘We need to create garden beds that don’t allow people to back up into your yard,’” Slarsky recalled with a laugh. (The cottage is directly across from “The Pink House,” the most photographed home in the Camp Ground, which means dozens of people would walk onto his property in order to take a picture.) Lesnikowska created a natural perimeter with stones and plantings to define the yard and the street edge, bringing in soil and sod to replace the sandy lots. The front lot already had three mature trees – a holly, maple, and oak – and the side lot was shaded by one large post oak tree. 

Once the work was finished, Slarsky, his now-husband Alex Adkins, and Slarsky’s two children enjoyed the cottage for three extended summers, returning to their primary residence in Boston each fall. Then came Covid. They arrived on the Vineyard in March 2020 and ended up staying through October. “Being forced to work remotely changed everything,” Slarsky said. “We began to envision ourselves down here full-time as a retirement option and we thought about what it would take to make it a four-season cottage.”

Before taking on yet another renovation project, the couple purchased a townhome near Sengekontacket Pond in Oak Bluffs to make sure year-round Island life was for them. After two years, they decided it was. They started the design phase to ready their Camp Ground cottage for winter living while still preserving its architectural integrity and character.

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Slarsky and Adkins, who is also an architect, anchored the home’s latest renovation around adaptive reuse – a sustainable practice that prioritizes the use of existing structures and adapts them to the twenty-first century. It is a strategy that has defined much of their careers in both residential and institutional projects. “The practice also provides an embodied history, which strengthens social and generational ties to a community and the history that would be lost through demolition,” explained Slarsky.

While their renovation plans were considerable in a structural sense, they were modest in additional square footage: only forty-two square feet would be added to the main floor to accommodate a bigger kitchen and create a television area. Once the final plans were drawn, including creating a model of the proposed renovation to accurately show the new roofline, the approval process began. 

As a designated National Historic Landmark, the Camp Ground has a two-step review process involving the Architectural Review Committee (ARC) and the Buildings & Grounds Committee (BGC). “The goal of that process is to manage alterations and modernizations of the cottages so they remain consistent with the historical character of the [Martha’s Vineyard Camp Meeting Association],” said Slarsky. The town of Oak Bluffs does not grant permits until the homeowner receives a Certificate of Appropriateness from the ARC. And because the renovation included digging out a basement that is situated in the FEMA 100 Year Flood Zone, the plans would have to be submitted to the Oak Bluffs Conservation Commission. The couple submitted the plans in spring 2024, received approval in August, and construction began in September. 

While Slarsky and Adkins focused on maximizing storage space with their design, builder Don E. Turnell, owner of Haven Homes, faced his own set of challenges. “That house was much more complicated than you would think looking at it,” said Turnell. “There are seven different rooflines!” The logistics of modernizing a historical home also tested Turnell and his team. “The biggest challenge for us is to have the home function properly and retain the character of an actual cottage,” he said. “Aesthetics are very important but performance is just as important, even when you don’t see it.” 

Both Turnell and the homeowners wanted to reuse and recycle everything possible, which included lumber and every interior door and its hardware. When the back staircase was removed, for example, Turnell used the wood in other parts of the cottage. He also salvaged original cabinetry, including the pantry cabinet.

Upgrading the utilities was another crucial project. But installing new recessed electrical and water lines required lifting the cottage and digging a basement, adding to the timeline. Insulation was the next step, with spray foam used for the perimeter and rigid foam for the roof. 

The interior was completely reconfigured, all while respecting the required setback of two-and-a-half feet from the lot line – which happened to be the first floor of a neighbor’s house. “We used every inch,” said Turnell. On the first floor, a half-bath was relocated to accommodate a mudroom, and a wall was removed to make an open kitchen. A sleeping nook that doubles as a television area was created and wallpapered in a colorful fish pattern from British design house Cole & Son.

Upstairs, they maintained the three functional bedrooms and added a small bathroom with a blush-colored tiled shower and laundry unit, which replaced the shower room and laundry area on the first floor. They created an open gallery space that looks down to the kitchen, where a propane Franklin stove runs straight up to the roof and provides ample heating to the entire second floor.

Maintaining the historic windows was another non-negotiable for the couple. “The windows are the eyes of the cottage,” Slarsky said. Original cottage windows are single-pane wavy glass with thin muntins (the vertical dividers that separate glass panes within a window). But this poses a problem for winterizing a cottage, Slarsky said, because the two-pane insulated glass affects the look of the window. “An insulated glass unit makes the muntins bigger and visually takes away from the historic character,” he said. The ARC and BGC regulations require that original windows be refurbished and repaired with an interior storm panel, “so, from the outside, the single-pane window can look untouched,” said Adkins. 

A required “summer construction pause” within the Camp Ground created an unusual opportunity too: the couple was able to live in the unfinished space for two months while also allowing the contractor to address settlement issues due to the new foundation. “We figured out places where we could store things and created the linen closet upstairs in a space hidden under the roof line,” explained Adkins. 

Work resumed in September 2025 and ended on Christmas. Slarsky and Adkins moved in the following day – after a very Vineyard moment of spending the holiday in a Falmouth motel when boats were cancelled.  

The updated cottage is a masterful blend of history and modernity. The four complementary shades of exterior paint from Benjamin Moore are a hint of the whimsical interior. Inside, the walls are entirely painted wood – all done by Slarsky and Adkins – and the spaces are furnished with vintage finds and artwork from the couple’s travels and outings to antique markets. A Josef Frank couch made by Swedish design house Svenskt Tenn is the focal point of the front parlor, upholstered in an eye-catching floral print. Custom floor-to-ceiling curtains in fabric by Kravet frame the front Gothic windows, providing both privacy and warmth in the winter. The reflective lighting scheme adds to the cozy, calm feel; aside from a single overhead kitchen light, only vintage table lamps and uplighting illuminate the spaces.

But modern comforts coexist seamlessly: a handmade concrete sink in a pigmented forest green color by Concretti Designs and a heated floor in the upstairs bath bring the cottage into the year 2026. 

The kitchen is the heart of the home for this foodie couple, and the custom dining table is the star. They commissioned a woodworker in Boston to design a table with built-in silverware drawers and uneven leaves that can seat six, eight, or twelve people. Curry-yellow tiles add a warm glow behind the Thermador stove. Above the soapstone countertops, the custom shelving is secured with brass brackets that complement the brass drawer pulls on the cupboards and the natural brass deVOL kitchen faucet. The sleek twenty-four-inch-wide Fisher & Paykel refrigerator fits snugly by the back door and includes a must-have for Adkins: an ice maker. 

Two small but important details presented themselves during the renovation. The first was preserving the flowers and shrubs planted back in 2017 so that they wouldn’t be destroyed when the construction equipment came onto the 2,200-square-foot lot. The plants were carefully dug up and moved to Turnell’s brother’s yard to store until construction ended.

The second detail was creating privacy for the new outdoor shower. With only a few feet separating the cottages, the couple ordered a custom mesh sailcloth to hang above it to shield the view from a neighbor’s window. But sometimes the most
obvious solution is the best one: “That’s what curtains are for!” said Adkins.

Now complete, the gray and lavender cottage is not just a four-season home; it is their forever home. It is the place where Slarsky and Adkins relax on the porch on a summer day while the bells of the nearby churches ring, and where they cook a meal for friends on a winter evening – all in a cozy, compact footprint.

The Team
Architects: Alex Adkins + Scott Slarsky
General Contractor + Custom Woodwork: Haven Homes
Electrical Contractor: Welch Electric Co.
Plumbing Contractor: C Kurth & Sons
Landscape Design: Alicia Lesnikowska
Appliances: Crane Appliance

This article appears in Fall-Winter Home & Garden 2026-2027.