This Wednesday, August 8, from 11 am to 4 pm (rain or shine) the Nantucket Garden Club will hold its 64th annual House and Garden Tour entitled “A ’Sconset Experience.”
Selected by members of the Garden Club’s House Tour Committee, the seven homes on this year’s tour in the village of Siasconset were built from the late-1600s through the 2000s. “Our goal is to show the wide range of rarely seen houses that are tucked away behind the ‘Sconset hedge rows,” explained Garden Club member Bonnie Ford. The event will also include a tour of the historic ‘Sconset Chapel and tea on the grounds.
“The criteria is always focused on offering the visitor a unique visual experience,” Ford continued. “This year we attempt to offer a variety of homes, antique to modern, and gardens that will provide the visitor an opportunity to see something that they can relate to and perhaps recreate. Gardens and homes are large and extensive or very small, but all are equally beautiful…”
Homes on the tour are presented as they are lived in; the only special additions for the day of the tour are flower arrangements designed by members of the Nantucket Garden Club for each home.
Tickets to the house tour are $60 and are available in advance at www.NantucketGardenClub.org as well as at the G.S. Hill Gallery on Straight Wharf, at a table on Main Street between 10am and 2 pm, at Bartlett’s Farm from 10 am to 2 pm, and at a table near the Sconset Rotary from 11 am to 2 pm. On the day of the tour, tickets can be purchased at any of the homes featured on the tour. Most locations selling tickets will accept only cash or local checks, but credit cards can be used to purchase tickets at the table on Main Street and at the Sconset Chapel the day of the tour.
The village of Siasconset is about 8 miles from downtown Nantucket, so the Nantucket Garden Club has arranged for a free shuttle bus to take tourgoers from Visitor Services on Federal Street to Sconset starting at 10:30 am on Wednesday morning. The bus will stop at the corner of Morey and Main Streets., near 44 Main, which is one of the houses on the tour. Other ‘Sconset homes on the 2018 house tour are: 29 Morey Lane, 22 Main Street, 4 Chapel Street, 5 Evelyn Street, 8 Center Street, and 2 Underhill Lane.
For more than 70 years, starting in 1945, the Nantucket Garden Club has succeeded in contributing to the beauty of Nantucket by supporting conservation initiatives that protect the island’s fragile and historic environment.
The Nantucket Garden Club is a member of the Garden Club of America, Inc. The Nantucket Garden Club House Tour is the only fundraiser for the Nantucket Garden Club. This event puts the money raised back into the community in the form of scholarships and grants for conservation and community projects. The organization has also donated to Maria Mitchell Association, Nantucket Conservation Foundation, Nantucket Historical Society, Nantucket Preservation Trust, Madaket Land Trust, Nantucket Parks & Recreation Commission, Council on Aging, Nantucket Cottage Hospital, Sustainable Nantucket, India Street Pocket park, The Homestead, and Our Island Home.
