Harbor Haven
Written By William Ferrall
Photography by Laurie Richards
Great Harbor Yacht Club has arrived under full sail. After seven years of satisfying state and local regulations and sometime contentious negotiations with its neighbors, this new attractive club on Nantucket’s inner harbor officially opened its doors in July.
In its first few weeks, the club has already hosted community and private events and welcomed dozens of members and their guests to its handsome and comfortable dining rooms and lounging decks.
Few locations on Nantucket offer such magnificent views of watercraft at their harbor moorings, the island’s bucolic estuaries known as The Creeks and distant harbor shorelines.
Sailing facilities, a health club and outdoor recreation areas have accommodated early members for almost a year. But this summer’s opening of Great Harbor’s main clubhouse, with its meeting and entertainment areas, a library and cozy dens, completes the compound.
Modeled after the old Nantucket Steamship building, the 25,000–sq.ft. clubhouse was designed by respected architectural firm Hart Howerton of New York and San Francisco, in collaboration with Lyman Perry Architects of Princeton, New Jersey, and Nantucket.
Boston interior design firm Gauthier-Stacy outfitted the comfortably lux interiors, which have a look and feel suggesting Old World and early 20th-century American origins. Lighting fixtures, hardware and trim elements are either antique or of period designs, set against hardwood paneling, rich woodwork and antique chestnut plank flooring.
Overstuffed sofas and chairs ease visitors into carpeted alcoves and sitting rooms. Antique ship models and nautical gear decorate a cozy model room, library, restaurants and public hallways. Exterior porches and decks invite guests and diners outside to look over expansive lawns and the harbor beyond.
The facility’s centerpiece restaurants and lounge areas fill both an upstairs loft and nicely appointed, family-oriented downstairs space with an open kitchen. The upstairs loft room seats diners in more formal arrangements at tables or on upholstered benches, with a traditional mahogany bar nearby for mingling while standing or sitting. Both spaces offer easy access to outdoor dining or relaxing spaces.
At the opposite end of the building, a high-ceiling, post-and-beam club function room shows massive wooden timbers acquired in Amish country and installed by craftsmen from that region. Dramatic wrought iron chandeliers bathe the room in soft light.
GHYC’s new executive chef Tom Berry is shaping the club’s cuisine. He previously worked as the right-hand man to celebrity chef Ming Tsai at Blue Ginger inWellesley, Massachusetts, and later worked as executive chef at both Bambara and Temple Bar in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He also lead the kitchen at Nantucket’s Straight Wharf one summer. Berry designed GHYC’s menus to underscore the simplicity and style of island living with dishes such as pan seared Atlantic halibut, braised Kurobata pork cheek and specialty hors d’oeuvres and drinks.
Summer 2009 marks the final phase of the Club’s development with the completion of the Clubhouse and the construction of its 36-slip dock and pier project. Entry into the club as a member has been reported at a pricey $350,000, with only a few club memberships still available.
Norwood Davis GHYC’s first and current Commodore, called the clubhouse “the cornerstone of our community, a place where we can… celebrate the Nantucket lifestyle.” If you can afford it, you’ll have the enjoyment of the first yacht club to be built on Nantucket in over 100 years and a splendid one at that.
