ARCHITECTURAL DIGEST: JUNE 2018
INSIDE THE INIMITABLE STYLES OF 3 ICONIC NEW ENGLAND SUMMER RESORT TOWNS
Written by Elizabeth Quinn Brown
Donna Elle of Donna Elle Interior Design created the aesthetic for the Anchorage House at the Wauwinet: “I think of Nantucket as being in designer clothes with bare feet. There’s a vibe of very classic, upbeat, scaled-down taste. The artwork is evocative of the sea but is more updated than traditional portraits of ships.” Photo: Courtesy of the Wauwinet
NANTUCKET, MASSACHUSETTS
HISTORY: This beloved island was embraced by whalers and their wives in 1715. It was around then that the tradition of Nantucket “lightship” baskets was introduced: Sailors would pass the hours on their boats by creating baskets, which were woven from rattan around a solid-wood base. “The Little Gray Lady of the Sea” welcomed its first inns in 1840 (with Herman Melville, author of Moby-Dick, being one of its first tourists in 1852). Nantucket would attract artists and other creatives to its shores in the 1900s—a bohemianism that continues to be at the heart of Nantucket’s aesthetic.
DECOR: The Nantucket “lightship” baskets are, perhaps, the most decorative when they are souvenirs. The island is also famous for its folk art (which can be discovered at the Nantucket Summer Antiques Show). The accents are brass and the wood is white-washed. But the aesthetic isn’t WASP—it’s bohemian WASP. And then, there are the hydrangeas. As Donna Elle, who designed the Anchorage House at the Wauwinet, describes, “Hydrangeas became synonymous with Nantucket about 20 or 30 years ago. They just thrive out here in the salt air. You have the complementary colors of the verdant green and the periwinkle blue. They are a quintessential part of the island. They’re always revered in any composition.”