This stunning Victorian home in Oak Bluffs on Martha’s Vineyard was built in 1878 as a summer home for Oliver Ames (1831-1895), a businessman, investor and Governor of Massachusetts. Oliver Ames was the son of Oakes Ames, who is credited by many historians as being the single most important influence in the building of the Union Pacific portion of the transcontinental railroad. After his father’s death in 1873, Oliver Ames became the executor of his father’s vast estate and business dealings, and spent vast sums of money on properties in the places he lived including North Easton, MA, Boston and Martha’s Vineyard. He summered at this large home fronting the ocean in Cottage City, then a part of Edgartown. He decided to run for state senate in 1879, after he was unsuccessful in securing passage for the separation of the Martha’s Vineyard community of Cottage City, where he owned a summer house, from Edgartown. Winning election, he saw through the incorporation of the town (now known as Oak Bluffs). Ames served as the Governor of Massachusetts between 1887 and 1890, and continued to summer in his beachfront home during that time. The eclectic Victorian home blends many popular styles at the time from the Shingle style with the continuous shingle siding, the Stick style with the delicate stick-work at the veranda, to Queen Anne with its asymmetric massing and square tower.