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Nantucket Architecture

Architects can learn so much from visiting other places and seeing what works well there. Jeff recently returned from a trip to Nantucket, and reports back here.

Jeff Pelletier is the Managing Principal and Founder of Board & Vellum, an architecture, interior design, and landscape architecture firm in Seattle, Washington.
Jeff Pelletier
July 13, 2011

Saying I love to travel is a vast understatement. I LIVE to travel. There are so many wonderful aspects about seeing new parts of the world or country. One of the best parts about traveling for me is that I get to really soak in the different forms of architecture, planning, and street life in other cities and bring them into the work that I design out here in Seattle. Too many people don't leave the Northwest and don't have a real feel for how things can be done differently. (Refer to exhibit "A": public transit in Seattle for a prime example of this). While each place and city is different and things that work in one place don't always work in another, it is good to really dissect the lessons learned.

If you're going to say that Seattle is one of the greatest places to live don't you think you should at least know what the other places are like?

All that said, I was recently back East for a rather last minute trip and I decided to work Nantucket into the trip as I had never been there even though I grew up in Massachusetts. It was a truly beautiful place filled with plenty of Pre-Civil War buildings and adorable streets. Calling it the Disneyland of islands wouldn't be out of place either, as it is all so well maintained and new buildings are required to follow a strict set of zoning and building codes to maintain a uniform appearance. While I don't typically love such restrictions (see here for some thoughts on that), it really seems to work here.

The downtown was bustling, lit well at night and filled with people during the day, the homes and alleyways were ridiculously adorable, and everyone took full advantage of landscaping opportunities and it was common to see homes almost fully covered in climbing roses (they hold off trellises from their buildings to hopefully avoid the rot and damage that this could normally cause). You'll see that the vast majority of the buildings are covered in simple weathered wood siding (clapboard or shingles), homes often have widow walks on the roofs (used for looking for incoming ships or for throwing sand down a chimney to kill chimney fires), and the streets and alleys are good and narrow. Overall, the place is just damn adorable.

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