The Mitchell House in Autumn

Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • Sep 17, 2012

Vestal Street is quieter. There are fewer tourists, summer residents have returned to their year-round homes especially if they have children in school, and the air is cooling and becoming more crisp. For Mitchell House, we are still open for tours although on a shorter schedule (this year on Saturdays from 10-1PM), but there are still many things to accomplish before it gets cold and I have to seek a winter office – one that has some heat!


As I noted last year, I always find closing up the House depressing. But at this time, it is still open with everything in its place and I am able to focus on some more detailed cleaning and the conservation of small artifacts, working more in-depth with the collections, and working on other House related projects. I will also be out in the garden even more as I cut back this year’s perennials and annuals, making things neat and tidy for next spring when I wake the garden up and add annuals, a few new perennials, and a bounty of wonderful heirloom seeds such as the morning glories you see in this image that I planted at the south fence along Vestal Street. I am hoping that next year, the fig plant will have some figs – William Mitchell had a fig plant in the garden when he lived at 1 Vestal Street and I have been trying to introduce plants he had in his garden.

We still have some historic preservation workshops coming up. We just had a “Behind-the-Scenes at the Mitchell House” with NPT – an architectural and conservation focused workshop that had a nice group of people on such a beautiful day. And, we have two more to come.

On the 22nd of September, I will join with the Executive Director of Nantucket Preservation Trust (NPT) and Education Staff from the Nantucket Historical Association to present our “Four Centuries of Domestic Life” walking tour. It starts at 10am at the Oldest House, ending on Main Street. It’s an interesting way to learn more about the changes in the built and natural environments and how changes in domestic life changed these landscapes. And, it is free!



And on October 6th Mitchell House and NPT will co-host island conservation plasterer and mason Pen Austin as she discusses the preservation and conservation of historic masonry using the Mitchell House chimney and the chimneys and fireplaces of several houses nearby. Come and learn how to slake mortar! It is $5 for members of MMA or NPT and $10 for Non-Members. AND, reservations are necessary due to very limited space, so please call me at the Mitchell House to reserve a spot at 228.2896.


We hope you will join us, for a tour on Saturday mornings in September or for one of the remaining workshops!


JNLF


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Vestal Street Updates

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • 08 Apr, 2024
Vestal Street has seen a bevy of activity of late. In January, we began the renovation of the Maria Mitchell Vestal Street Observatory’s (MMO) Seminar Room addition – as it has been referred to since it was built in 1987. When it was created, the point was for it to serve as meeting, lecture, work space on three floors for the Astronomy Department – in particular the National Science Foundation Research Experiences for Undergraduate (NSF REU) interns we have each summer, visiting astronomers, and the astronomy staff. Believe it or not, it was the first time the Observatory had a bathroom! And, it connected to what we refer to as the Astronomer’s Cottage (ca. 1830 and purchased for the MMA in 1922) so that staff could move between the house and the Observatory without going outside – convenient! With a gift from board member and Mitchell family descendant, Richard Wolfe, we have been able to renovate this space, bringing it up to date and adding HVAC, an accessible bathroom and kitchenette, three office spaces, a seminar/meeting area, and space for intern workspaces. Lighting and interiors are being improved as this is written and we hope to have the space ready by June 1, 2024. A special thank you goes to John Wise, another Board member, who has been working with the MMA to make sure this renovation happens in a short timeframe. The work here dovetails nicely with the conservation of the historic observatory to which the Seminar Room is connected. The historic MMO, built in 1908 with a 1922 addition, has seen exterior conservation work over the last several years with support from the Community Preservation Act and the M. S. Worthington Foundation. This fall, we will move inside with more grant funding which will allow us to conserve the historic interiors and install a proper HVAC system to protect the historic fabric and historic astronomical equipment and papers. We will restore the floor in the Astronomical Study from 1922 – it’s hidden under wall-to-wall carpet and 1950s tile but it’s still there – and allow us to conserved the historic plaster and all of the original varnished woodwork. Stay tuned on this project. JNLF

Keep Calm and Bird On: April 2024

01 Apr, 2024
“If you don’t look, you don’t see. You have to go and look.” -Edith Andrews

Tumbledown Fence

01 Apr, 2024
To me, Nantucket was always tumbledown fences. Covered in lichens, worn with wind and salt spray – grooved even – and a deep grey. Pieces broken, swinging in the wind as this broken one was with the 50mph gusts. Held together by vines – ivy or rambling climber vines, or honeysuckle. You do not see as many nowadays. This one is in town along a lane – possibly older than the house it wraps around as there was once a much older house there in the 1950s/1960s. Taken down to make room for this one – in a not so kosher manner – but that’s a story for another day. The lichens and mosses that grow on them, the vines that cover them, provide food and shade and coverage for a myriad of life – from the tiniest insects to small birds hiding from red-tailed hawks or even people and cats. Architecturally they speak of our past. While this one is very simple and not as old as others, it hearkens to a time in which cars were fewer, the island was quieter, and life was simpler. A fix was one picket not a whole fence. And some of the much. much older fences make me think of Maria Mitchell and her day when there were a lot of fences too – but not to keep people out or to create a “privacy screen.” They were there to keep animals in the yard – and more often to keep wandering animals OUT of the yard. JNLF
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