Cottage addition plans in 'Sconset to be modified
BY PETER B. BRACE INDEPENDENT WRITER
Plans for a garage with what its owner is calling a loft on the second floor of 26 Broadway in 'Sconset have neighbors worried about the area's architectural integrity.

William Moore's architect, Mickey Rowland of Milton Rowland & Associates, presented a 17-foot, nineinch high addition to Moore's cottage at the Feb. 26 Historic District Commission meeting and met similar resistance to the plans as that posed by Moore's neighbors.

The new structure is a garage with a studio space above it, although Rowland said he is in the process of redesigning it to make it blend in better with its surroundings.

Because of the low vernacular of the cottages around it, and because the lot sits on a narrow corner of Broadway and Center streets, 'Sconset residents, including those on the 'Sconset Advisory Board, are adamant about restricting the size and complexity of Moore's garage/studio.

"Broadway and Center are two of Nantucket's oldest streets," the 'Sconset Advisory Board said in its report to the HDC. "All of the dwellings on these streets are from the 1700s and 1800s. We are very upset that any building would be considered in this historic neighborhood. There are no other examples of second dwellings/studios in this streetscape.

"The building is too large in scale to the main historic building and has too many roof planes. At the very least, the proposed building should be one story and much smaller in scale."

While the HDC unanimously granted Moore permission to move or demolish a shed where he wants to put the new structure, it agrees with its architectural advisers in 'Sconset.

"When you come in on Sankaty Road and you hit this section of 'Sconset, this oldest section, and you have that privet hedge and you put a two-story building there, the minute you come to the corner you're hit with a wall," said HDC Associate Member John Wagley.

HDC member Valerie Norton, agreeing with fellow member Dawn Hill, who stated that the addition should be cut back to one story, said that the garage should be pulled away from the corner.

"I am concerned by a historic green space being very much developed very close to the road; there is nothing between it and the street, so with that, I agree with John," said Norton. "If we're to give some kind of approval I would like to see it moved back off the street side and the second floor gone."

Offering a positive spin on the addition, HDC member Linda Williams told Rowland that his client was headed in the right direction and she felt his building was sited in the correct place because it fits into the corridor leading into the village. But she admitted his location is problematic.

Hearing all of that, Rowland last week began modifying Moore's plans into something he believes will please the HDC and 'Sconset at the commission's March 11 meeting.

"We're rethinking the proposal in terms of making less of a garage and more of a shed because we're listening to what the 'Sconset neighbors are saying and want make it more like a shed than a garage," said Rowland. "It's going

to be a much better design." I