This stunning Gothic Revival house in Edgartown was built around 1848 for Captain Joseph Holley and his wife Lucy. Captain Holley was a whaler who embarked on at least four long excursions of multiple years at a time, with a break between 1847-1852, at that time, he likely had this home built. Gothic Revival homes are rare in New England, especially in Edgartown where there is a matching house across the street. The home features a large dormer with a steep pitch with lancet window and appropriate shutters.
Pre-1939 image of original lighthouse with walkway to the left.
With Edgartown being synonymous with the whaling and the ocean, its obvious the town has long had a lighthouse to guide weary travellers. In 1828, Congress approved $5,500 for “building a pier and light-house on the Point of Flats, at the entrance to Edgartown Harbor.” That first lighthouse was a two-story dwelling with a side-gabled roof atop which was centered the lantern room. The structure was erected on wooden pilings out in the water, requiring its first keeper to row a short distance to get to the tower. In 1830, a 1,500-foot-long wooden walkway was built at a cost of $2,500 to connect the lighthouse to the shore. In 1840, the rotten wooden pilings supporting the lighthouse were replaced by a stone pier. The keeper’s house was drafty and leaky, and vulnerable to the sea and weather due to its exposed location. This resulted in a greater than average turnover of keepers, and some keepers refused to live in the official quarters preferring to seek lodging on the nearby shore. The lighthouse was restored numerous times through the early 20th century until The Great Hurricane of 1938 inflicted significant damage to the lighthouse. Upon taking control of the nation’s lighthouses in 1939, the U.S. Coast Guard quickly tore down the building.
The original plan was to replace the lighthouse with a steel skeleton tower, but instead a disused 1881 lighthouse that served as a rear range light on Crane’s Beach in Ipswich, Massachusetts was dismantled and barged, minus its brick lining, to Edgartown. The relocated forty-five-foot cast-iron tower was soon in service at Edgartown and remains an active aid to navigation today, showing an automated flashing red light every six seconds. The lighthouse remains a must-see spot when visiting Edgartown.
This historic Georgian mansion was built in 1703 for John Coffin (1647-1711) who moved to Edgartown by the way of Nantucket and Haverhill, Massachusetts looking for new work. John Coffin opened a blacksmithy on the waterfront in Edgartown and immediately prospered, building this home after his success. Legend says the home was actually right on the street before the street was widened and after, the front steps and home’s location obscured the view of other buildings on the street. The home was moved back on the lot in its bucolic setting now amongst the hustle and bustle of downtown Edgartown. The home was threatened with demolition almost all of the 20th century due to the commercial nature of its location. Thankfully, it was acquired by the Vineyard Trust in 1946, who preserve it to this day with small businesses located inside.
This stunning house on Starbuck Neck in Edgartown was originally built on Main Street by Frederick Baylies Jr., as his own residence. Baylies was the architect of the town’s original Methodist church, the Old Whaling Church, and a couple other extant churches in town in the early 19th century. The home was sold to William Cooke Pease, a shipbuilder and merchant. In 1839, he joined the United States Revenue Cutter Service, an armed customs enforcement service, and he quickly rose in rank, spanning the transition from sail to steam. Capt. Pease designed and built new Cutter ships for the Great Lakes and refitted many aging vessels on the West Coast. Today, he is regarded as a founder of the modern Coast Guard, which in 1915, was created by the consolidation by an act of Congress of the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service the United States Life-Saving Service to form the United States Coast Guard as we know it today.
Methodists on Martha’s Vineyard arguably left the largest lasting mark between religious groups on the island between Wesleyan Grove in Oak Bluffs and this stunning church in Edgartown. The Methodists in Edgartown grew with the success of the whaling industry there and their former church was outgrown, requiring a larger and more prominent worshipping space in town. Designed by Frederick Baylies, Jr., the Old Whaling Church was built by skilled shipwrights for Edgartown’s Methodist whaling captains and is regarded as one of the finest examples of Greek Revival architecture in New England. The Old Whaling Church was not only funded by mariners and those dedicated to seafaring trades, it was quite literally built by them, too. Baylies hired a crew of local carpenters who were equally as skilled in building churches as they were in constructing ships. The church is topped by a Gothic Revival clock tower which has crenellations, rounded arches, engaged pilasters, dentil cornice moldings and four spires capped with gilded acanthus leaf finials. The church was acquired by the Vineyard Trust in 1980, and they converted the old sanctuary into a performing arts space. The congregation meets in the former sanctuary in the summer months and in the vestry in the winter with its smaller numbers.
Standing out amongst the Federal and Greek Revival homes in Edgartown, this Victorian home was constructed in 1892 by Captain Charles W. Fisher (1835-1905) for his new wife. The Fisher family includes many members who were active in the local whaling industry. Fisher is said to have caught the largest sperm whale on record in 1884 and apparently loved being on the open ocean. The next year he married Parnell Pease and she sailed with him to the Pacific on a whaling voyage, lasting five years! At the time of their marriage, Fisher was in his 50s and his new wife in her 20s. Upon their return, Fisher built his wife this “modern style house on the pretentious side with Victorian ornamentation.” Unfortunately, his wife preferred her former house, which was a block a way and obscured any views of the water. Tradition states that apparently, Mrs. Fisher had seen enough of the water during her voyage, as her diary on the five year trip detailed her many unfortunate bouts with sea-sickness, a stay on an island, and dangerous storms.
Believe it or not, living on an island in the 19th century wasn’t as easy as you may think. Before this bank building was constructed in 1855, all banking was done off-island. The bank was constructed to house the newly formed Martha’s Vineyard National Bank, whose first president was Dr. Daniel Fisher, who made his money as a merchant and operator of one of the largest whale and sperm oil processing facilities in the country. The bank relocated to Vineyard Haven and the Edgartown National Bank was created to fill the void in town. Amazingly, the building is still to this day occupied by a bank, Rockland Trust, seemingly adding to the continuous occupancy of the building by banking facilities for well over a century. The structure is one of the oldest brick buildings in town and is a late iteration of the Greek Revival style.
This home on the idyllic Water Street in Edgartown (maybe my favorite town in Massachusetts) was built in two main phases in its storied history. What is now a rear ell, was built as a home around 1740 by “Squire” Norton, who ran the Customs office out of the house in his role as Customs Collector in town. The home was located in the current location of North Water Street, which had to jog around the home until the early 19th century when it was moved to the current location and altered as an ell of the new house standing there. The home was later owned by Captain Edward Coffin (1850-1917), a renowned sea captain. At just 15 years old, Edwin Coffin left Edgartown to be a cabin boy on his first ship. Through the end of the 19th century, he voyaged on numerous whaling vessels and served as captain on many. In 1902, Captain Coffin was chosen to command the steamer America, which carried the Fiala-Ziegler Expedition, a failed attempt at reaching the North Pole. The party remained stranded north of the Arctic Circle for two years before being rescued, yet all but one of its members survived.
Located on the idyllic Main Street in Edgartown, on Martha’s Vineyard, this historic building stands out for its design. It was built in 1828 as the first meeting house for the Methodists of Edgartown, the former building was shared with the Baptists there, but was quickly outgrown. Ten years after this church was built, the space was already becoming too cramped with the booming population of the town due to the success of the whaling industry here. The Methodists then constructed a larger church (known as the Old Whaling Church nearby and sold this structure to the town as a new Town Hall. After the Town bought it, the first floor was remodeled to accommodate the fire engine and also the Town’s police station. Today, it contains town offices on the ground floor and the former upstairs church auditorium is now used as a movie theater. The infamous nails on the chalkboard scene in the movie Jaws was filmed in this building!
Located north of downtown Oak Bluffs, this oceanfront summer estate exemplifies the grandeur of Martha’s Vineyard at the end of the 18th century. This home was built in 1890 for Frank A. Ferris, a Manhattan meat dealer who processed and shipped his product to wealthy customers, markets, luxury hotels and restaurants all over the east coast. His processing plant on Mott Street in Manhattan remains an excellent example of Romanesque Revival architecture in the city. He lived at 5 Russell Terrace in Montclair, NJ, and in summers, stayed in this waterfront mansion overlooking the Atlantic. His summer home is a great blending of the Queen Anne and Shingle styles, both very common at the time.
Buildings of New England 
