Time & Tide (6 page)

Degrees of Erosion

ISLANDERS SOMETIMES REFER TO NANTUCKET as “The Rock,” calling up images of the Prudential (a piece of the rock, i.e., a buildable lot) as well as Alcatraz (for some the island is indeed a kind of prison). But the reality is that it's more like a heap of sand, constantly changing shape under the influence of wind and water. There are eighty-eight miles of shoreline, and more than half of it is subject to varying degrees of erosion. The lighthouse at Great Point, a historic structure if there ever was one, collapsed into the sea in 1984. (A replacement was built with federal funds, thanks to the efforts of Senator Kennedy.) Over four hundred feet of land separating the lighthouse and the ocean had simply disappeared.

The whole length of the South Shore faces the open ocean—the nearest land to the east being Portugal—and suffers dramatic and unpredictable erosion from winter storms. Through the years people have built too close to the surf, as if unaware of what has happened in the past, and many houses have been lost.

An entire area called Codfish Park, lying below 'Sconset between the town and the sea, contained nothing but rough fishing shacks in the old days. But as the building boom progressed and summer rentals shot up, small houses and cottages were built. A storm in December of 1992 destroyed many of them.

A year earlier a storm known on the island as the “No Name Storm,” which eventually was called “The Perfect Storm” in the book and movie of that name, did tremendous damage to Old North Wharf and flooded the streets of the lower part of town. No part of Nantucket, even on the harbor side, is immune to the forces of nature.

Codfish Park.

The most sought after land, commanding the highest prices out of town, is the high ground with water views (even distant water views). Almost all the houses erected in the nineties are sited thus. I remember, a long time ago, when a choice area called Blueberry Hill off Polpis Road, where Nantucket families had picked fruit since time-out-of-mind, was bought by some summer people who built an impressive house. Tom Giffin, then the editor of the
Nantucket Inquirer
and Mirror,
wrote an editorial bemoaning the situation. He wondered if all the high ground, wherever it was on the island, would be bought up and built upon. At the time some thought him an alarmist, but his remarks turned out to be prophetic. What he worried about has happened. There is no unprotected underdeveloped high land left on the island. (Of course “high” is a relative term. Nantucket is so flat, for the most part, that even a modest elevation is significant.) Trophy houses abound, which is one of the reasons why one must go on foot, rather than driving the roads, to get a better feel for the island. From the roads you see the summer mansions on high ground to the left and to the right. On foot it is possible to discover surprising places—a ramshackle little cottage (called a “tear-down” in the real estate business) at the edge of a salt marsh, the cranberry bogs, the wild and beautiful land and water around the University of Massachusetts Field Station, or a large pond in a shallow valley in the moors. (The Field Station recently closed, making everyone both sad and nervous. The director, Wes Tiffany, was much admired and is now gone. The large spread of land is so astronomically valuable that the pressures on the university to sell it— they promise they won't—must be strong indeed.) It is a sad fact that many visitors to Nantucket do not, in fact, ever see much of what is most beautiful about the island.

RECENT TRENDS ON Nantucket bear out the observations of Thorstein Veblen, the economic thinker who, in Chapter Four of
The Theory of the
Leisure Class,
first proposed the idea of “conspicuous consumption” as a driving force in human affairs. Enormous houses have sprung up like expensive mushrooms, making the old whaling days' competition on Upper Main Street look like small potatoes (to mix my metaphors). Long before the stock market began its bearish trend, the island became a status symbol much more potent than the Hamptons, or Palm Beach, or indeed anyplace on the East Coast. Seriously rich people began to make their mark as more and more young ordinary people were forced to leave the island where they were born because they could not afford to live there, because they had no future there.

An irresistible example of the degree of stratification in the society is implicit in the case of Tom Johnson, a forty-year-old ordinary Joe who got around the land and housing problem by creating a living space hidden underground on unimproved property in the woods owned by the Boy Scouts of America. Johnson, whose abode was discovered in 1999 by a deer hunter, should certainly have qualified for Eagle Scout merit badges by making, as described in
Nantucket
Only Yesterday,
an “underground home . . . found to be warm and comfortable, with heating and plumbing and water and shower facilities.” Johnson was of course busted by the town, but quite a few native islanders were tickled pink at the man's ingenuity. He had not needed a million or two to make his home. The story was picked up by the national press and television, and the island got a good deal of publicity, albeit a special kind.

Who will do the construction work for the conspicuous homes when the labor pool of islanders in the trades is too small to meet demand? When the cost of even temporary housing for working people is prohibitive? Off-island crews, who fly in from Hyannis and New Bedford every morning, sometimes bringing lunch, to put in their eight hours and fly back to the mainland before the sun sets. This has been going on for some time, and could only happen in a place where getting a plumber, a carpenter, a house painter can be sufficiently complex as to cause at least one rich and famous woman (who shall remain nameless) to scandalize practically everyone by offering triple time to workmen who would show up to do the work
now,
so the new house would be ready for guests in time for the start of the season. Given the high cost of skilled labor to begin with, this was wretched excess indeed.

Who lives in the big houses? One day I saw a uniformed maid in a large hardware/lumber/department store called Marine Home Center holding a shopping list presumably drawn up by her employer. She wanted thirty-five plastic garment bags, forty complete sets of bed linen (from Ireland), a set of Sheffield china her mistress had previously selected, a Weber grill, and twenty lightbulbs—and put it in the black Lexus SUV outside, please. I actually overheard this, and I proceeded to have a fantasy about the people paying for it all.

Their house is on the high ground with a view of the harbor. They paid three and a half million for it, and it is the wife's job, with the help of her staff, to keep it up and running. The garden is a particular pleasure of hers, as are the relaxed lunches with friends at the Chanticleer in 'Sconset, or 21 Federal, or The Galley by the water. She has children and there is a nanny. She enjoys sailing, swimming, and horseback riding. She keeps busy.

The husband works on Wall Street but comes up every Thursday afternoon in his co-leased private jet (forty minutes' flight time) and doesn't leave till Monday morning. On Nantucket he has paid three hundred thousand dollars for a golf club membership (I kid you not), where he plays a good game and gets a lot of business done with his peers or special guests he's brought with him from the city. In an odd way neither the husband nor the wife has much of a connection to Nantucket, which is simply the luxurious setting for their summertime activities.

I should mention that they have a cat, Ramses, upon whom they dote. At the end of the season, when they leave in a blue Ford Expedition to catch the ferry (having reserved space six months earlier), Ramses is nowhere to be found. The cat has understood the significance of all the suitcases, of the pink cat box, and has taken off into the scrub. After a good deal of discussion, the husband convinces the wife that they have no choice—they have to catch the ferry and leave Ramses behind. They will alert the caretaker to keep an eye out for the animal. Quite a few cats suffer this fate every year.

Ramses undergoes some severe life-style changes, by the way. From Tender Vittles, his diet changes, first to frogs, garter snakes, and small birds, but eventually, as the cat becomes feral and grows to seventeen pounds, to squirrels, pheasants, and rabbits. Feral cats are considered a dangerous nuisance by islanders, and they are legally shot and killed by the sometime game warden, deer hunters, and duck hunters. Ramses is one of ninety cats so dispatched that particular winter. It is, in fact, the caretaker who finishes him off with his shotgun, while out flushing game birds.

I LOVE AIRPORT NOISE

It's true. There's an awful lot more than there used to be. Jets and props all day long.

PIPING PLOVERS TASTE LIKE CHICKEN

In protest to closing four-wheel-drive access
to Great Point because the birds nested in
the tire tracks.

20 IS PLENTY IN 'SCONSET

Twenty miles per hour. Good advice because
the streets are narrow, and many of the
cottages are inches away from the berm.
Some natives change the sticker with Magic
Markers to read:

80 IS PLENTY IN 'SCONSET

Since the town is almost completely summer
people. (Often spotted behind a beer and
shots bar called the Chicken Box.)

The Pace Quickens

SOMETIME IN THE SEVENTIES I HAD A TALK with a local minister about the island. He was worried about a lot of things, but most particularly about the laundering of drug money in Nantucket real estate. He did not tell me his sources of information, nor did he mention any names, but it seemed to me, in that age of cocaine, to be quite possible. In fact it was not long after our talk that a guy I knew—I'll call him Swifty—was arrested (and not by local law enforcement) for trafficking heroin. Swifty had a T-shirt store downtown which provided a light rinse for his ill-gotten gains, which were finally laundered in the purchase of an expensive cottage in 'Sconset. The cottage was confiscated and Swifty went to jail, but he'd come close to getting away with it. Nantucket operated on money from off island, and no one seemed to worry too much about where the money came from. (Heroin continues to be a problem even today. There seems to be something about island life— not just on Nantucket—that makes people susceptible to alcohol and drugs. The per capita consumption of booze on Nantucket is the highest in the state. Heroin users on the island are not like users in the cities. They are, for the most part, working men, often with families, and not easily spotted by straight people. I have known two men from the trades who have died of drug overdoses, for instance, and I was truly surprised in both instances.)

The minister was also worried that the town was losing its soul, so to speak, as more money and more houses and more people became more important than “the courtesy and manners that are critical to the texture of life in a small town,” as David Halberstam, a longtime summer resident, phrased it in
Town and
Country.
The center could not hold, said the minister, as the island lost its identity even to its own sons and daughters.

Rich men have affected the island in many ways for many years, and quite often to the good. Old money has protected 'Sconset, for instance—well-to-do summer residents closing ranks to protect the village. Islanders remember Roy Larsen with fondness (at least those interested in conservation and preservation), for starting the Conservation Foundation and for donating large parcels of open land. A far-seeing gentleman, to be sure.

At the risk of appearing snobbish, I cannot help but compare the character of the philanthropists of the sixties and seventies, even of the eighties, with some of those of the nineties and the aught. Dennis Kozlowski, for example, under indictment for milking $600 million (along with two other men) from Tyco while he was CEO. There is a mural in the anteroom of the ER at Nantucket Cottage Hospital celebrating Kozlowski, his boat, and his status as angel. No one worried about where the money came from. No one probably knew the man well enough to be able to foresee what would come out in the criminal investigation—that, even in small matters, he spent crassly: $2,900 for hangers, $6,300 for a sewing kit, $15,000 for an umbrella stand, $17,000 for an antique toilet kit, $6,000 for a shower curtain, and so on. Kozlowski apparently took Nantucket more seriously than the couple with the cat. He wanted to buy his way in through civic good works, through giving money away. He succeeded, at least until the year 2002 when the Enron, Tyco, and other scandals finally broke. But did he really? Or was David Halberstam correct when he observed, “Many of the true pleasures of Nantucket are not easily gained and cannot be purchased on demand . . . they have to be like everything else in life, earned.” It's hard to imagine that Mr. Kozlowski would understand the true pleasures Halberstam refers to.

PEOPLE CONSIDERING A visit to Nantucket should know that they are welcome, that they are needed, truth be told. A long time ago when the year-round population was three and a half thousand, the island lived off a ten-week summer season. But now the population is approaching ten thousand, and everything possible is being done to make the season start earlier and last longer.

There has been a pattern in many of these efforts. Start with a local initiative, however small, expand it, and advertise it. A well-known force in the Garden Club, Mrs. MacAusland was perhaps inspired by Ladybird Johnson's Beautify America campaign when she and her cohorts started planting daffodil bulbs at the edges of roads, in the rotary, along the bike paths and other strategic spots. They planted thousands and thousands of bulbs over the years, and the results were spectacular. From this emerged Daffodil Weekend in April, which attracts many visitors from America, including various off-island garden clubs, and those who simply need an excuse to come over for a visit. This despite the fact that April can be a cruel month on Nantucket. April 2002 was particularly so when a storm trapped a lot of visitors who wound up spending the night in the high school gymnasium. A celebratory mood prevailed, apparently.

In May, there is the Wine Festival, started by Denis Toner, a local sommelier, more or less for his friends and colleagues. It grew beyond his imaginings, moving from his house to larger venues, most recently the White Elephant Hotel, a snazzy environment if there ever was one. Today famous chefs from New York, France, and other culinary centers fly up and guest-cook at local restaurants. Wine merchants, collectors, and aficionados come from the East Coast along with media people to cover the action. It has become a very big deal indeed.

In June there is the film festival, started by a local brother and sister team, both young, which has grown in stature and importance every year. The first East Coast screening of
The Full Monty
occurred at the Nantucket Film Festival, along with other independently produced movies.

There is the Island Jazz and Folk Festival, the Cranberry Festival, and the Nectar Fest, this last started by two young guys, Tom First and Tom Scott, who spent the winter of 1990 making and bottling fruit drinks, which they sold from a boat to the yachting crowd in the jam-packed harbor and marina the next summer. Their business, Nantucket Nectars, expanded, went national, and was worth $35 million by 1996, when they sold it to Ocean Spray. The Nectar Fest involves music, of course, and fund-raising for island causes.

Snow on Main Street.

A CLOSE LOOK AT THE annual Christmas Stroll reveals a good deal about the recent history of Nantucket.

I remember the first Stroll, back in the seventies, when Maggie and I lived on the island year-round. We knew a number of people who worked in the shops, or ran them (paying high rent to Sherburne), who were concerned about locals going to the strip malls of Hyannis to do their Christmas shopping at the franchise retailers. The Nantucket markup was built so deeply into the system that even with the best will in the world, local retailers could not avoid it. So it began as a small-scale local initiative to encourage locals to buy on-island. Main Street was lined with miniature Christmas trees strung with lights and decorations. The shops stayed open late, doorways and windows spilling light, welcoming people inside for punch, canapés, and cookies, or shots and beers on the sly for special friends. (I found myself with a distinct buzz on before I was halfway up the street.) A nice, warm holiday party, in which one knew everybody in the shops and on the sidewalks. It was fun. A sense of community prevailed, and from a business point of view it made sense—some dollars stayed on the island that might otherwise have left.

The goals changed gradually, as the Chamber of Commerce and the tourist industry advertised the Stroll, giving an old-fashioned small-town image, a kind of false nostalgic glow.

It was marketed, in other words, in order to attract visitors. People began to fly in, or take the ferry (having arranged accommodations at a hotel or a bed-and-breakfast), in order to take the Stroll and do some shopping. The number of visitors increased as the island's status increased, and, paradoxically, as the shops became more luxe and more expensive: jewelry, $800 cashmere sweaters, lightship baskets decorated with scrimshaw, fancy housewares, antiques, gee-gaws, and the like. The original idea turned upside-down because the islanders could no longer afford the shops at all. The question was no longer the Nantucket markup, it was what might be called the Veblenization of Main Street.

It did not seem to matter that visitors might find themselves, as they once did, socked in by weather. They came anyway. Recently fifteen thousand people came for the Stroll. One and a half times the population, in other words. Change happens, shrug the locals, and they ought to know.