The Thomas Macy Warehouse
BY MARY LANCASTER

There has been a lot of talk this year about the changing face of the downtown business district and how many merchants have closed or moved or are contemplating those actions. But the truth is, the island's commercial core has been evolving for nearly 200 years.

Barber shops, dress shops, restaurants, furniture and drygoods stores, pharmacies, grocers, hardware stores, galleries and others have relocated or shut down due to several factors including the success of the business, rising rental fees, need for more or less space and the desires of the merchants themselves, some of whom just wanted to retire. Those shifts have not escaped the Thomas Macy Warehouse, which was built in 1846 and has experienced a variety of uses in its life span.

The Great Fire of 1846 that ravaged the island's central downtown also consumed all the waterside warehouses that once lined the north side of Straight Wharf. One of the properties left vacant belonged to Captain Levi Starbuck, who sold it to Town Meeting moderator Thomas Macy that September. Macy, who was a ship owner and marine merchant, wasted no time building a place to store the whale oil brought back by his vessels.

The two story warehouse with a loft was constructed on "made land," because at that time the lane called Still Dock behind the warehouse was a waterway where ships' barges tied up to deliver goods. To utilize the storage area on the building's second floor, Macy installed a block and tackle attached to a thick rope that was raised and lowered by wooden and metal gears, still intact and visible in the loft, through a hatch in the second floor ceiling. The original massive pine support beams, which may have been recycled from local shipwrecks, the 17-inchthick, exposed, brick walls and dark, wideboard wooden floors remain to preserve the historic warehouse's rusticity and are a treasure to behold.

Not long after the warehouse was built, Macy, who in 1852 was listed in "Rich Men of Massachusetts" with a worth of $90,000, passed use of the building to Joseph B. Macy. At the age of 25, he became a whaling agent and proprietor of the warehouse. This Macy continued his business on Straight Wharf as the whaling heydey continued to decline, and he organized the Atlantic Fishing Company with his own fleet of boats. In 1869, the last whaling ship sailed from its home port of Nantucket.

The next owners of the property are listed in Nantucket Historical Association records as James A. Holmes, Jr. and Benjamin Chester Pease, who bought it in 1905 from Thomas Macy's heirs, Lydia H. and Mary E. Macy. The men used the warehouse as a carpenter's shop. In 1932, Holmes bought out Pease.

Twelve years later, the property was bought from Holmes' estate by the Nantucket Foundation, Inc., mother organization to the late Walter Beinecke's Nantucket Historical Trust. Once stabilizing repairs were made under the direction of Everett U. Crosby, the warehouse was named in memory of Kenneth Taylor, the foundation's original secretary and treasurer who died in 1941 and left a bequest to the foundation which was used to make the purchase. The Kenneth Taylor Galleries was established for

use by the Artists' Association of Nantucket and was open summers until about 1986.

During the gallery period the warehouse's fortress-like construction proved valuable. In 1975, the Straight Wharf Theater building east of the warehouse was destroyed in a mysterious fire, but Thomas Macy's structure went unharmed and helped keep the blaze from spreading to the rest of the wharf.

A winch, center, inside the Macy Warehouse as it stands today, left. At right, looking east in July 1952 at The Four Winds gift shop on Straight Wharf, formerly a blacksmith shop. To the right is the Kenneth Taylor Gallery, located in the Macy Warehouse, and the Straight Wharf Theatre.

In 1980, the foundation offered the warehouse to the NHA and by 1984 the Taylor Foundation was dissolved and the NHA assumed responsibility for the building. Within a couple of years, the association turned the location into the Museum of Nantucket History and for a short period displayed many of its exhibits in the warehouse until turning its use over to Carolyn Walsh, who moved her Sailor's Valentine art gallery there.

Five years ago Miriam Varian, owner of European Traditions antiques, began renting the second floor of the warehouse from Walsh. Two years ago, Walsh decided to change her business and spend more time off island, and Varian took over the entire building. Varian now leases a small portion of the second floor to antiques seller Letitia Lundeen, who operates a summer business.

Kenneth Taylor galleries at the Macy Warehouse, 1960s.

Now, 160 years after the warehouse was finished, it is filled with furniture and articles that may actually pre-date the building's construction. It seems a fitting use, with old chairs, tables and cupboards displayed against a backdrop of ancient wooden beams and masonry - but it may not, if the island's business history repeats itself, represent the last merchant to be housed in Thomas Macy's impressive and sturdy structure.

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