Land Bank buys four waterfront acres
BY PETER B. BRACE INDEPENDENT WRITER

Photo by Pet er Brace This property on Hither Creek is one of three waterfront parcels the Land Bank purchased.

Last week, Nancy A. Chase joined her two sisters, Susan Ottison and Phyllis Burchell, in their family conservation tradition by selling her property at 50 Tennessee Ave. in Madaket to the Nantucket Islands Land Bank.

The Land Bank purchased Chase's .46 of-an-acre lot with a small cottage and dock overlooking the salt marsh and Hither Creek, assessed at $2,896,500, for $1,800,000.

At the same time, Chase's neighbor, Katherine A. Ray, donated her adjoining .44 of- an-acre lot, worth $210,000, to the Land Bank.

In addition to wanting to set her affairs in order, the 77-year-old Chase could not live with knowing what might have been built on her property had she sold it on the open market.

"I want to see people see the island," said Chase, a Nantucket resident. "I can't stand seeing people building too huge. If I sold it to other people, they would build a two-story house. At least people can go around that corner and see things."

Photo by Pet er Brace Land Bank acquired 3.2 acres of fragile coastal dune habitat at 9 Dionis Beach Road this week.

Chase's sister, Phyllis, contributed to the Land Bank's portfolio north of the Miacomet Golf Course near Pine Valley and Susan Ottison with her husband, Karl and Karl's brother, Albert, sold the Land Bank eight acres at 160, 162, 168 and 170 Orange St. at the end of September 2005 for $12,400,000.

"It's pretty neat that the three Chase sisters, all three of them live on Nantucket and all of them worked with the Land Bank to put their properties into conservation," said Land Bank executive director Eric Savetsky.

For Ray, her gift to the Land Bank is in memory of her parents, Marjory and George Ray, and her sister, Patricia Ray, said Savetsky.

"There was a boathouse on that property and nothing had been happening on that property for like 20 years," said Savetsky. "We tracked down that owner and she wanted to donate the property to conservation in memory of her parents. They kept a sailboat in there. According to her, it had been owned by a family named Williams who had a house on Smith's Point."

Inside the boathouse is a 22-foot cruising sailboat that Ray wants to donate to Nantucket Community Sailing, added Savetsky.

The Land Bank's purchase of the property means one less septic system on Hither Creek and one more point of access to the waterfront for the public. It also owns .47-of-an-acre at 22 Tennessee Ave., including a parking area and gangway leading down to a floating do ck on Hi ther Cr eek, wh ich it purchased from Randy Sharp for $1,050,000 at the end of March 2002.

Because the Land Bank agreed to allow Chase to use her cottage through November, Savetsky said they would not be doing any work on the new properties at 48 and 50 Tennessee Ave. until sometime during the coming winter. That work entails removal of the cottage and the boathouse, and the creation of a small parking area for two or three vehicles.

"[We'll] turn them into one property and create a place where people can go to watch the sun set over Little Neck," he said. "The Chase property has a dock, so we also have to come up with a plan on how to use the dock."

In another unrelated shoreline purchase, the Land Bank acquired 3.2 acres of fragile coastal dune habitat at 9 Dionis Beach Road worth $936,500 just to the east of the Dionis Beach bathhouse from Elizabeth Ruley of Miami, Fla., but Savetsky said the Land Bank has no plans for the land other than to leave it as it is.

"That is a property that over the years, we have worked to collect various title interests in," he said. "It had been listed as owned by Nantucket, but in reality, the town did not own it. We worked to purchase small title interests from numerous owners and have now roughly 90-percent ownership in the property.

"It directly abuts the Dionis Beach parking lot and is a sensitive area and will probably remain forever wild and ensure the Dionis experience will stay

wild." I