Vanderhoop homestead. Aquinnah
The Vanderhoop homestead, nestled in the cliffs at the far western edge of the Vineyard, is an Aquinnah icon that Abrams has always admired. But it is the recent history of the building that pushes it onto his top five. Built in the 1880s by Edwin DeVries, a whaling captain and the only Wampanoag ever elected to the state legislature, the five-bedroom home remained in the Vanderhoop family for several generations before it went on the market in 2003. To prevent the home from falling into the hands of private developers, the town of Aquinnah joined forces with the Martha’s Vineyard Land Bank Commission to purchase and preserve the homestead and surrounding land. Plans to turn the building into a cultural center and museum emerged as a joint effort between the town and Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah). Through a combination of town funds, volunteer work, and private donations, the $300,000
restoration effort has been a success, recently receiving an award as one of the most creative and effective community preservation projects in the state. The cultural center is slated to open in June, “and I’m sure that building will now last at least another hundred years,” Abrams says.
Stevens Memorial Chapel, Vineyard Haven
Seen from the outside, the Stevens Memorial Chapel in Vineyard Haven wouldn’t make many short lists of favorite buildings. The moss-covered shingles look like they might be vintage 1896, when the chapel was built. The chapel was moved in 1901 from a hill near West Chop to this location a block past the town library on Main Street. “It’s a real hodge-podge,” Abrams says. “The exterior does not have architectural integrity, but the building itself rises above that.” Abrams loves the feel of the interior, and how it connects so well with what takes place inside. Home of the Unitarian-Universalist Society of Martha’s Vineyard, the chapel – named after a nineteenth-century missionary, the Reverend Daniel Waldo Stevens – often hosts forums on cultural and political issues. The rich wood interior – aged, with a soft patina – offers a calm setting for such talks, which often focus on equal rights. “It’s a peaceful building that houses these peaceful events,” Abrams says. “It’s what happens in there that makes this building what it is.”
Agricultural Hall, West Tisbury
When the Martha’s Vineyard Agricultural Society in the early 1990s decided to relocate its hall and fairgrounds to the panhandle of West Tisbury from what is now the Grange Hall in the center of town, some of the older society members wanted to build a new steel-framed structure that would be cheaper to construct and maintain. But younger members disagreed, and took it upon themselves to make a more beautiful building instead. In the spring of 1994, three dozen Island volunteers traveled to New Hampshire, took apart a ninety-year-old post-and-beam dairy barn piece by piece, and hauled it back to Martha’s Vineyard. One weekend that November, hundreds of Island residents turned out for an old-fashioned barn-raising. The Agricultural Hall today houses some of the Vineyard’s largest community gatherings, and the effort that went into the structure is celebrated every November in the annual Barn-Raisers’ Ball. “It’s just such a symbol as an enduring monument to community will,” Abrams says of the timber frame structure. “To me that building is a spectacular success.”
Captain Norman Benson house, Lambert’s Cove
Abrams says he often drives along Lambert’s Cove Road, enjoying the views. One building in particular, the Captain Norman Benson house, always catches his eye. A classic, cross-gabled, white-clapboard farmhouse, the 1869 home sits proudly on a small knoll and offers to a passing driver a momentary glimpse of James Pond beyond. Abrams says he particularly likes the curve of the driveway, lined by a row of rusted farm equipment reincarnated as lawn ornaments. “They stand like sentinels, kind of funky and welcoming,” Abrams says. “And the porch – you just want to go sit up there.” Captain Benson was a famed trap fisherman, one of the last on the Vineyard, and his great-granddaughter Ashley Medowski today runs the Saltwater Gallery out of a renovated workshop behind the house. Even though he has never been inside, Abrams says that the building, sited perfectly in its rural setting, reminds him of a different time. “You just feel like it is its own world,” Abrams says. “A magical, created little world.”
Wampanoag tribal housing bus shelter, Aquinnah
The fifth choice on Abrams’s list barely fits the definition of a building. But to him, the small Wampanoag bus shelter in Aquinnah embodies all the most important characteristics of a purposeful one. It is also the only building on the list designed by South Mountain Company, which built the structure in 1996 with the help of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) and the tribal children from the recently completed housing development who were going to use it. South Mountain framed the shelter with oak trees selected from the site, and for a stucco siding the tribe used earthen red clay from the nearby Gay Head Cliffs. It marked one of the only times in modern history that the tribe allowed the removal of clay, which holds a revered place in the tribe’s cultural heritage and is protected from unauthorized removal by a town bylaw. At the base of the back wall, forever imprinted into the dried clay, are the small handprints of the children who helped build the shelter that kept them warm and dry while they waited for the bus to take them to school.
