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Goldweitz buys 12 Orange St.
Art gallery out by mid-October
BY PETER B. BRACE INDEPENDENT WRITER
Mark Goldweitz has big plans for 12 Orange St. - plans that do not include 12 Orange Fine Art, the gallery currently housed there.
 | | COURTESY OF NHA Painter Robert McKee, below, is looking for a new space for 12 Orange Fine Art because historic house restorer Mark Goldweitz, bottom photo, bought 12 Orange St, above, about two weeks ago for $2.6 million and plans to restore it back to its historic 1788 condition. |
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Having recently purchased the property for $2.6 million (it is assessed at $1,939,100) Goldweitz is planning a historic restoration of the house that was built in 1788.
"I'm going to try," he said. "It's in really tough shape. We've done some research and we found some information from the Victorian era [showing] white clapboards."
Goldweitz said he wants to get going on the project as soon as he secures permits from the Historic District Commission.
"We're closing at the end of October and I am going to try to have it finished by May 2008 for two reasons, " he said. "One, it's good for the market, and two, I live right next door and don't want a construction project next door."
Neither does Nantucket artist Robert McKee and the other island artists who show their work at the house, just steps from Main Street. McKee, who exhibits his work there, has also maintained a studio there for 16 years. His use of 12 Orange St. started when the (x) Gallery began leasing the building on the .10-of-an-acre lot at Stone Alley from the late Margot Gunther, whose estate sold the property to Goldweitz.
"She wasn't in it for the money," said McKee, who noted that Gunther originally charged $1,000 a month for rent, graciously raising the rent in small increments over the last 16 years. "She knew all those artists before my time. She was part of the old Nantucket. You can see all those galleries are moving around because they can't afford the rent. What's happened to the island happened to us too."
The (x) Gallery, founded by artists that included McKee, Sherre Wilson Rae, Howard Fraker and Billy Sherry, provided a space for the island's more experimental artists, such as George Murphy, and embraced progressive, contemporary art.
 | | ROB BENCHLEY/The Independent file |
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About five years ago, as McKee recalls, the collective of 18 artists that founded the (x) Gallery broke up. Not wanting to lose the gallery building, he, his wife Kasia Baker and Melissa McLeod formed a new group to exhibit their work and that of artists Virginia Joffe, David Halliday, Hunter McKee and Ted Rabidoux.
But now, having only just heard about Goldweitz's purchase of the property about 10 days ago, McKee is scrambling to find a new building.
"It makes me feel sad because this place has been part of my life for the last 16 years, and now I have no place to go," he said. "With real estate being what it is, I don't know if I can find a place to put the gallery.
"There's nothing I can do about it," he continued. "I feel pretty much powerless because I don't have any money."
When he begins work on the building, Goldweitz says he will do what he always does to historic island buildings: exhaustively research their architectural details, restore them as accurately as possible, add in modern conveniences and sell the finished product. He employed that strategy for 141 Main St., 93 Main St. and his own house, at 14 Orange St., among several others.
"This is the Hussey home from 1788," he said. "I'll try to restore it and sell a totally completed home to somebody who might be looking for that. It's going to be a spectacular home and it has a great
view of the harbor." I
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