Sarah

Walt and Cumbrae

Walt and Judy Hart aboard Cumbrae

Gladys Abbe and Peg Doire

Ed Abbe, John Boardman and Chip

The Infamous “Cat House” - someone tell the story of the building permit (ed.)

Terrie & Chip Gifford and Elizabeth Charpentier.

Is there a story about the shutters?

Lee and Walt - 50th Anniversary

Mary Lee Everett Gifford-

I started coming to Harthaven when I was three years old. In New Britain, my mother and father were good friends of Stan and Lois Hart, and this carried over to the Vineyard.  In fact, my mother and Lois were next-door neighbors from the age of three and were lifelong best friends. As children, my brother Dick and I, along with Barbara and Judy Hart (Stan and Lois’ daughters) and a maid named Aggie, stayed I the “Flea Bag” behind Howard Hart’s house. (During those years, after Howard moved up-island to Abel’s Hill in 1939, his son and daughter-in-law, Stan and Lois, rented the big house for him- although many people thought Stan owned it.) As we became teenagers, we were then allowed to stay in the main house. There were several summers when my family, Stan and Lois’ family and two maids rented Coholan’s house. A tight fit indeed!

Our sister Susan was too young to have spent any time at the Coholans’ or much time at the “Flea Bag”. However, she and her husband Bob, as young marrieds, purchased the “Flea Bag” from Stan considerably before Walt and I bought the “Big House”.

The thing about Harthaven I remember most was the amount of freedom we enjoyed. Nothing was really organized. The harbor seemed so large, and there was a lot of beach front, especially in front of the Youngs’. Now that beach has narrowed dramatically, while the beach in front of the Sullivans and Barrys in building up.

There was a time we could canoe north past the Youngs’, through the culvert under Beach Road (by lying down in the canoe) and into Farm Pond. And there were lots of crabs near the culvert. There were a number of canoes, rowboats and even small sailboats on Farm Pond. My brother Dick had one by the name of Monstro (from Pinnochio). Martha Hart Park ended with where the Bamfords’ house is now. There was a series of dirt roads back of the Bamfords where we learned to drive. I also remember the trees in front of the White House (now Allen Moore, Jr.’s) didn’t encroach so on the views to the water…or from Beach Road to the house.

Stan and Lois were very social (although in fact Stan was very shy). They surrounded themselves with people they knew. Among then Sandy and Ginny Hart Low. Sandy brought in all sorts of artistic types such as writers, artists (e.g., Stephen Dohanos of Saturday Evening Post cover fame) and theater people. He had the connections and he was just a fascinating, fun man. Since the men came down mostly on weekends only, there wasn’t much drinking mid-week. The weekends were a different matter with cocktail hours all around. But with a few exceptions, especially at the annual clambake time, I never saw anyone of that generation overindulging. The younger generation…yes.

My parents and Stan and Lois would go off swordfishing for several days at a time, leaving us in the care of the maids. I recall when the little boathouse down by Stan’s dock was moved by Stan Hart from his little “harbor” near the entrance to Lagoon Pond in Vineyard Haven.

Back in the forties ad fifties there was a dance, party or beach party someplace on the island nearly every night.  No one seemed concerned about our going out all the time and no one got into serious trouble. Sometimes they would bring in a flatbed truck and park it in front of the Oak Bluffs post office (in what is now a small park.) Mounted on the flatbed was a band for square dancing. During the war, Oaks Bluffs was full of sailors. It was a tough town then, and we weren’t supposed to be there.

I remember the clambakes very well! This was a major annual event, but we weren’t allowed to attend until we were 18, unlike today when all children are welcome. I think this is kind of sad; I preferred the old ways. Of course then there was a lot of drinking and maybe this is why children weren’t allowed. I can remember some people were apparently a bit high even before the clambake started. What’s missing now is the feeling of its being a real community effort, from scrubbing potatoes to lugging all sorts of equipment, food and drink, etc. I can remember when the purpose of the clambake was to raise money for maintenance of the harbor.

As teenagers we would go up-island for parties. One time I was coming back home with several others in a jeep. I spotted the “Arrowhead Farm” sign and convinced someone (I can’t remember who) to shinny up a pole and get it. I took it home and hid it behind my bed. Unfortunately the police apparently found out who had taken it and came to the house to see me. They insisted I come down to the police station; they wouldn’t even let me get dressed. They at least let me put a raincoat on over my slip. They scared the wits out of me…and I returned the sign.

Stan Hart owned several lots on Abel’s Hill at the time of his death several years ago. He had previously given some land to the Sheriff’s Meadow Foundation. The small house he originally built on Abel’s hill was actually a hunting lodge. He and his cronies would come down from New Britain to hunt woodcock and ducks. Or at times he and Lois were joined by other couples. They would have to being more formal cloths for dinner with his father. Lois designed several of the “camps” or shacks subsequently built in the Abel’s Hill area while she was in the hospital for hip surgery.

My husband Walt and I purchased Howard Hart’s Harthaven house from Stan in 1976 when Lois died. Stan retained some land to the north along Beach Road and bought an adjacent piece from Allen and Margaret Moore upon which he built a house. This is where he and my mother stayed after they were married when they came down to the Vineyard.

Below - The Swarm - see Giffords Page two