Island homes need the plan settled before the ferry

The older houses are in Oak Bluffs and Tisbury

Census figures put the oldest housing on the island in two towns. Oak Bluffs, the largest at about 5,300 people, has a median year built of 1976, and nearly a third of its homes went up before 1940. Tisbury is close behind with roughly a quarter of its homes that old. Those are the houses where a kitchen or bath job grows once the walls come open: plaster over lath, framing laid out in ways no carpenter would choose today, wiring a licensed electrician has to sort out, and paint from before 1978 that calls for lead-safe work practices.

Both towns are also more mixed than the rest of the county. Single-family detached homes make up about 86 percent in each, the lowest share on the Vineyard, and Tisbury has the lowest owner-occupied share at about 64 percent. That points to more rentals and more houses split into two units. For a landlord the job is usually getting a unit right between tenants with a written scope that holds. For an owner living in the house, it is deciding early which rooms stay usable while we work.

Where a house sits inside a local historic district, exterior changes go through that commission first.

Up-island, nearly every house stands on its own lot

West Tisbury, Chilmark and Aquinnah read differently. Single-family detached homes run 97 percent or higher in all three, and in West Tisbury the census figures count almost nothing else. Owner occupancy is high as well, close to 90 percent in Chilmark and West Tisbury and about 83 percent in Aquinnah. West Tisbury has the newest median year built in the county, 1984, and only about one home in eighteen predates 1940.

Houses that age carry fewer surprises behind the walls. The work is more about what the owner wants the house to do now: a kitchen opened to the room beside it, a bath rebuilt with tile set properly, a deck replaced after years of wind, an addition. Where a house runs on septic, adding a bedroom brings a Title 5 design-flow review in Massachusetts, and we look at that before anything gets drawn.

Chilmark and Aquinnah are small in people, about 1,600 and 700, yet Chilmark's census figures show about as many homes as residents. That usually means plenty of houses are not lived in all year. When the owner is off-island, updates have to be clear and on time, with photos and a plain report at every point where a decision is needed, so nothing on site waits on a guess.

Edgartown, and the work of getting across the water

Edgartown sits farthest from Raynham, about 48 miles southeast, and its census figures show the most recent building on the island: about 23 percent of its homes went up since 2000, and fewer than one in ten predates 1940. Newer houses there tend to need finishing and updating more than structural repair, such as a basement finished or a kitchen reworked inside the walls it already has.

Every town in the county shares one condition: the job crosses water. Material, tools and debris removal are booked around ferry space, and a missing part cannot be grabbed on the way in the next morning. So before work starts we settle the written scope, the selections and the order of the trades in detail, and we line up inspections with the town building department under 780 CMR well ahead. Where a house sits inside a local historic district, exterior changes go through that commission first.

Salt air and wind work on the outside of every house here. Siding, trim, deck fasteners and roofing wear faster than they do inland, so we pick and detail exterior materials for that exposure and tell you plainly which choices will not hold up to it.