Point Breeze renovation slowed by permit issues
Harbor House still in planning phase
BY PETER B. BRACE
It is hard to miss the Point Breeze Hotel standing up tall on cribbing and steel beams on Easton Street, waiting to be lowered onto a new foundation that has yet to be poured.

Caption - PETER

Nor can one avoid the large green fence running along the sidewalk blocking out all work-in-progress views, save for a tasteful two-over-two window built into this green monster.

If you could see over the fence, you would discover that Bob Matthews, owner of the Point Breeze, has already poured the foundation for the addition to his new hotel, for his underground parking and for the connecting terrace between hotel and restaurant. Walk near the intersection of Easton Street and North Road and you will hear a pump chugging away, keeping the site as dry as possible. Matthews has gutted much of the existing building and is preparing its new resting place.

Jack Whelan, project manager and spokesman for the project could say little of the Point Breeze's progress at this point.

"We're in somewhat of a holding pattern," Whelan said on Monday. "We have four permits, we're waiting for our fifth and final permit, which is going in."

Securing glowing Historic District Commission approval on Nov. 29, 2005 after just two meetings and Planning Board approval on July 24 last summer, Matthews is rebuilding the original Point Breeze Hotel as a 4,091-squarefoot addition at the front of the hotel's existing parking lot and connecting it to the current building.

Matthews is also cutting the number of guest rooms from 44 down to about 35, replacing the old pool with a new one along with a deck and bar where the hotel's patio is now. The foundation is poured and ready on the west end of the lot where the parking lot was. It will support a raised terrace with a fountain and outdoor seating for Chancellor's between the restaurant and the addition.

Under this area will be 10 parking spaces and a service entrance to the kitchen.

Altogether, Matthews is providing 18 parking spaces above and below ground instead of the 14 the hotel maintained before construction began. Across the street, Stephen Karp, principal

of Nantucket Island Resorts, Inc., which owns the White Elephant, Jared Coffin House and the Wauwinet among scores of other island properties, secured Planning Board approval for his renovation of the Harbor House on Jan. 9, by a vote of 5-0. Karp's team is still in the design and logistical phase of this project.

Kathy Burns, a spokeswoman for Karp, said that NIR is continuing to work with its architect, Arrowstreet of Cambridge, Mass. on refining the final details of the buildings, pulling together its project team and getting pricing from their contractors. Burns could not give a specific date on which construction would begin and said NIR is still focusing on running the Harbor House during this season. Karp's substantial rearrangement

and renovation of his 112-room hotel includes replacing its townhouses with six new buildings. Five of the buildings will surround a new, 25-meter lap pool on South Water Street and house 51 upgraded suites.

Asixth building will be built on the site of the former Mad Hatter Restaurant that contains an additional 19 suites. Karp will demolish approximately 30,699 square feet of hotel space and building around 67,371 square feet of new space. He is reducing the number of his rooms from 112 to 85. Meeting space, now at 3,785 square feet in the Madame, Sancta and Sconset rooms is going to be reduced by 1,500 square feet to 2,340 with the elimination of the Sankaty and Sconset rooms on South Water Street.

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