Lake
Tashmoo - Anchorage
We
woke up to a beautiful day...hot but beautiful. No fog, no clouds and no rain.
We rode our bikes into Vineyard Haven and wandered around, it has a cute little
downtown filled with little shops and cafes. We then rode along the water to
Oak Bluff. A very quaint little town that is noted for its "gingerbread
cottages" and well-preserved late-nineteenth-century buildings. Beaches,
boats, parks, boutiques, cafes, and tourists…a real fun place, a little something
for everyone.
Oak
Bluffs was part of Edgartown until 1880, when it was officially incorporated as
Cottage City, changing its name to Oak Bluffs in 1907. It was the only one of
the six towns on the island to be consciously planned, and the only one
developed specifically with tourism in mind.
In
1866 a group of New England developers were hired to design a planned
residential community in Martha’s Vineyard. The site, a large, rolling,
treeless pasture overlooking Vineyard Sound, was adjacent to the popular
Methodist camp meeting, Wesleyan Grove, a curving network of narrow streets
lined with quaint "Carpenter's Gothic" cottages, picket fences, and
pocket parks. Seeking to take advantage of the camp’s seasonal popularity. Five
hundred lots were sold between 1868 and 1871. Oak Bluffs is one of the earliest
planned residential communities in the United States
Some
of the earliest visitors to the area were Methodists, who gathered in the oak
grove each summer for multi-day religious "camp meetings" held under
large tents and in the open air. As families returned to the grove year after year,
tents pitched on the ground gave way to tents pitched on wooden platforms and
eventually to small wooden cottages. Small in scale and closely packed, the
cottages grew more elaborate over time. Porches, balconies, elaborate door and
window frames became common, as did complex wooden scrollwork affixed to the
roof edges as decorative trim. The unique "Carpenter's Gothic"
architectural style of the cottages was often accented by the owner's use of
bright, multi-hue paint schemes, and gave the summer cottages a quaint, almost
storybook look. Dubbed "gingerbread cottages," they became a tourist
attraction in their own right in the late nineteenth century. The campground's gingerbread
cottages are cherished historic landmarks as well as very expensive real
estate. Many are still family owned and passed on generation to generation and
are designated National Historic Landmarks.
It
was a very warm afternoon so swimming was the best way to stay cool. Sally came
by with her paddleboard and I gave it another try. It was much easier to use in
this peaceful anchorage than it was in Block Island.
A few pictures of the cute little gingerbread cottages in the campground area of Oak Bluffs
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