*** Please make an inquiry before booking. ***
This quintessential Up-Island 1920s summer house has panoramic water sunsets thanks to its hillside position overlooking the Vineyard Sound. (An East Coast novelty to look west over water.) The view spans the Menemsha Harbor, Menemsha Bight, Gay Head Lighthouse in Aquinnah, Elizabeth Islands, and, on clear days, all the way past Buzzards Bay to the mainland.
Day or night it doesn't get any more Vineyard than taking in the breathtaking views from the tranquil deck. The sun's final dunk into the sea is sometimes heralded—depending on the direction of the breezes—by the faint sound of applause up from Menemsha Beach picnickers who see a slightly earlier sunset from their lower vantage point a half mile away.
The house has three bedrooms—two upstairs and one downstairs—plus a queen sleeper sofa in the living room, and a small loft which overlooks the living room.
The house is full of light and air with a cathedral ceiling and many windows, plus the original, working stone and brick fireplace opens on two sides to the living room and the kitchen. There are two bathrooms, and a bathtub downstairs and an outside shower. There is a also a side deck with a shaded hammock.
Modern conveniences include wireless highspeed Internet, iTunes wireless audio, flat screen TV with DVD and DirecTV satellite, linens, washer/dryer, and dishwasher.
The house has been in our family for more than forty years, and our grandparents first stayed as renters in the early 1940s. In one family story, our grandmother reported a sighting of a possible German submarine one night to the Coast Guard station, only to be told drily by the dutyman that she had correctly decoded the (then) three-whites-a-red signal of the Gay Head Lighthouse. They named the house Menucha, as a biblical reference to rest and tranquility that plays on the village's Wampanoag name of Menemsha. As an umpire of the Sunday softball game, our grandfather was also famous for his idiosyncratic strike zone.
Hillside walking path to Vineyard Sound beach and Menemsha harbor, or take house bikes to Menemsha dock, Chilmark and Lucy Vincent ocean beach.
Keywords: house, summer camp, beach path, Menemsha, Chilmark, Upisland, Vineyard Sound, Menemsha Bight, Menemsha harbor, Menemsha jetty, Up Island, sunset views, beach pass, Lucy Vincent, Squibnocket, Gay Head Lighthouse, sunset