Nantucket's second yacht club opens today

PHOTO BY ROB BENCHLEY Gary McCarthy, co-developer of the Great Harbor Yacht Club, surveys his newly completed club from the end of a finger pier. Today, after six years of planning, permitting, legal battles and construction, the Great Harbor Yacht Club is officially opening its clubhouse.

Having completed the 25,000-square-foot clubhouse in just 10 months and wrapping up its dock and pier system, on Monday the club looked and felt like it was already running.

At least it is for club co-developer Gary McCarthy.

As he lounged in a teak chair on the club's lawn overlooking Nantucket Harbor — originally called Great Harbor — fog and clouds lifted for what turned into a classic Nantucket summer day with southwest breezes buffeting the water.

As he surveyed the club, McCarthy spoke of the club with parental pride.

"We've got a great home here," said McCarthy, who with co-developer Blake Drexler, engineered the purchase and planning, design and construction of the club at 96 and 97 Washington St. Ext. "We're on the end of a dead-end street. We've got a little channel that runs right to front door, the docks and piers are virtually done and so we've got the functioning facility. All the buildings are built, but now is beginning of the creation of the heartbeat, the culture of what this club will really be all about."

A second-floor sitting area showcases ship models, comfortable leather chairs and smooth wood paneling. The club's facilities include its clubhouse, the Jobson Sailing Center, a gym and a boat repair, maintenance and storage barn.

The boat repair and maintenance barn is operated by Grey Lady Marine, which launches and hauls its customers' boats — and the public's during storm situations — using its recently widened Travelift that will operate on the south side of the club's wharf. Skirting the edges of Great Harbor's waterfront is a brick, marked public walkway with a handicap ramp down to the beach on its north side. Great Harbor Yacht Club also owns and operates a tennis and swim club on Nobadeer Farm Road.

"We're a yacht club, but I think really, we're a hybrid," said McCarthy. "We're a traditional sailing club, we've got great sailing programs and junior sailing programs, et cetera, but we've also got a group of people that are really interested in fishing."

In a central entryway, the floor is made of heart pine with diagonal inlays of hand-fitted oak and maple. The club's downtown buildings were designed by Hart/Howerton of New York City and Lyman Perry Architects of Nantucket. The architects strove to give the clubhouse, the feel of the former Steamship Authority terminal building. The Boston group of Gauthier/Stacy designed the interiors of two-story clubhouse. It features wide-open spaces and decks for members and their guests to dine, drink and socialize.

In addition to a soundproofed, post-and-beam framed Club Room for functions with its own bar, the clubhouse boasts its formal dining room on second floor overlooking the harbor, its Grill Room for casual eating and libations below it, and a large kitchen in its basement led by Chef Tom Berry formerly of Blue Ginger in Wellesley, Mass. and Bambara Temple Bar Bistro in Cambridge, Mass. There is the main bar and lounge on the second floor adjacent to the quieter Model Room stocked with living room chairs and side tables and decorated with encased model sailboats and 1950s photos of Nantucket Harbor.

PHOTOS BY ROB BENCHLEY First floor dining offers spectacular harbor views. Further east is the Commodore's Room for private dining and events. McCarthy is confident that members not stimulated by sails, rods and racquets will find their place inside this spacious clubhouse.

"We've got a lot of people who are wickedly excited about the clubhouse as place for sailing and all that, but also for socializing," he said.

Construction of the clubhouse, docks and piers, the grounds and the other three buildings included major contributions from Stateside Construction Group, Inc. of Westborough, Mass., AGM Marine of Mashpee, Mass. and local contractors including Phillips Construction, the Toscana Corp, Hanlon Landscaping, Ramsay Enterprises and Mohr Gardening.

Although McCarthy could not hide his pride right before opening day, his air of confidence and relaxed smile belied the many challenges he and the club endured since going public with their plan in Spring 2003, including a full slate of local, state and federal permits, endless appeals and lawsuits fired at them from their opponents and the town's eminent domain taking attempt. However, the rigors of prying a second yacht club into the already tight confines of Nantucket Harbor behind him and the club's gala members opening party on Aug. 7 just over the horizon, McCarthy had just three words to describe his feelings:

Ship models, candelabras and recycled support beams make up the ambience of GHYC's main hall. "It's a beginning." I