June 15, 2006
Nantucket for Newbies
Sandy MacDonald READ TIME: 3 MIN.
Don't let the Hamptons-style hype dissuade you: Nantucket, a small (3-by-14-mile) island 26 miles off Cape Cod, is really quite approachable. Affordable, no. But if you've been debating whether to pay this patrician playground a call, let an enthusiastic resident (me) lead the way.
You can fly in, from New York, Boston, or Hyannis, but nothing quite compares with the experience of gliding into port aboard one of the ferries, whether fast (one hour) or slow (two). Mid-crossing, for a while you see nothing along the horizon; then a ribbon of island emerges, pierced, as you get closer, by a couple of church spires. Nearer still, you pass the bayside manses of the Hulbert Avenue nobs - the Heinz/Kerry household among them. And before you know it, you've descended the gangplank and spilled out onto cobblestone streets, recycled from ships' ballast during the island's whaling heyday during the nineteenth century.
You really don't need a car (plus, it's prohibitively expensive to cart one over). Just bring a bike, or rent one at , on Steamboat Wharf. The best place to get a feel for the island's history, from aboriginal times on down, is the recently renovated
The compact little village is easily walkable. The core is really only about a dozen square blocks, and it's here that all the personable little shops are clustered (chain stores have been barred, by popular vote). The town as a whole, a National Landmark Historic District, encompasses some 800-plus pre-1840 structures, nearly all shingled and weathered silver. The Great Fire of 1945 - you can learn all about it at the Whaling Museum - tore through the center, but out of the embers grew some glorious Greek Revival structures, such as the
Don't let the historical overlay, fascinating as it may be, distract you from temporal pleasures. For a tiny island (the 7,000 year-round population balloons to 40,000-plus come summer), Nantucket can boast what is probably the densest per-capita concentration of outstanding restaurants in the country. To name just a few: sleek, fusiony
The Summer House, a nostalgic, low-profile compound plunked amid the rose-covered cottages of 'Sconset village (about 8 miles east of town, accessible by bike path or shuttle), is probably the best place to stay to capture Nantucket's barefoot, laid-back charms. If it strikes you as potentially too quiet, the Summer House also operates a couple of elegant B&Bs right in town, including the recently acquired 1709 Woodbox Inn, famous for its popover breakfasts. Other top in-town B&Bs include the
The best time to go? Absolutely anytime - even in the proverbial dead of winter, when the subtle-hued, wind-scoured moors invite pensivity. Obviously, with some 70 miles of beach, kept open - as a matter of local pride - to all comers, summer rules. On June 14-18, the island gets its annual brush with celebritude, in the form of the
Or you could hold out for fall, when the crowds have dispersed and the island offers up its loveliness on a more intimate basis.
Sandy MacDonald (www.sandymacdonald.com) is a travel writer and theatre critic based in New York, Cambridge, and Nantucket.
