The Slow Boat to Maine
Nantucket, MA
January 10th, 2025
I was a year old when my mother and I moved to Nantucket and she met the man who would become my father. Steve was a local and hailed from a family of salty, Portuguese inn keepers. His family had been in the business of giving shelter to others for generations.
When my mother married my dad, she married us into a comedy of errors, that resembled the British sitcom Fawlty Towers. Not unlike the show, my sisters and I grew up in and around the Nesbitt Inn and were witness to a dysfunctional hospitality freak show Netflix could only dream of producing.
The Inn. 2011
My mom and dad moved into and took over running the Inn in 2008. In high season, things often went sideways and mini-dramas unfolded with regularity. My favorite episodes could have had titles like “The Missing Jewels” and “Where’d my Insulin Go?”.
My parents. January 10th, 2025
My parents lived loft-style, on the first floor, below the sleeping boarders. As their living space also doubled as reception, It was not uncommon for a wayward guest to wander into my parent’s bedroom or our formal dining room. Many times guests were welcomed in and brought, perhaps against their will, to the family kitchen or onto deck in the back, where the chardonnay pour was generous and Monty Pythonesque dance parties went late.
My parents ran the Inn until, forced to either renovate the 200 year old building or let it go, they sold it in 2013. Not yet ready to say adieu to the island, they purchased a home on North Liberty street where they have lived during the shoulder seasons, until today.
With the cost of maintaining a home on the island sky rocketing, the future of STRs uncertain and inflation-pricing trimming any marginal gains they were making renting their home in the summer, my parents have packed it in. They leave this evening on the 5pm slow boat for Rockland, Maine and for the first time ever, they won't be coming back.
Just as the movers pulled up, I took one last photo of my parents, standing together in front of the house that is no longer theirs, and said goodbye to the last real estate our multigenerational family of Nantucketeers will ever own 30 miles out to sea.
With their move, my sister Ariel ensconced in South Carolina and my youngest sister happy up in Bath, Griffin and I are the last remaining members of our family on the island. I had been the first of our family to leave. Never in a million years did I think I'd end up the last one standing. It is bittersweet to know the great migration of our family is nearly complete.
