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From Herman Melville’s 19th-century literary classic Moby Dick to memoirist Herman Raucher’s Academy Award-winning 1971 film Summer of ’42, Nantucket has long played a starring role in the lexicon of American culture, with its idyllic harbor and views that stretch out across the Atlantic Ocean.
For Houston-based couple Clare Casademont and Michael Metz, it’s been a three-act love story with the island that began as a series of memorable summer rentals in Siasconset. “We started coming here in 2000 when our daughter, Isabelle, was about four years old,” says Metz, a veteran energy trading executive. “Then we eventually bought a small house on the south shore in Surfside—an older part of the island with small houses and very unpretentious.” But the modest home always lacked sufficient entertaining space as well as the room to display pieces from the couple’s art collection.
“It was hard to have guests there—everyone was on top of each other,” says Casademont, a former journalist and retired social worker who serves on the board of the Menil Collection in Houston. “It was more like a cottage than a home. We couldn’t add on to it—and there was only so much I could do with the decor.”
About five years ago, the couple began looking in earnest for their next home and, despite making a few half-hearted offers that, thankfully, didn’t stick, nothing on the market inspired them. That is, until a “totally backward” property hit the market in the centrally located neighborhood of Monomoy. The classic shingle-style home, built in 1999, required a gut renovation to fit their lifestyle and to take full advantage of its unparalleled location.
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“Like many of our clients on the island, Clare and Michael are people who believe in Nantucket and spend a lot of time here,” explains Andrew Kotchen, co-founder of the ELLE DECOR A-List architecture and design firm Workshop/APD which maintains a presence on the island, in addition to offices dotting the map from New York to Florida. “The home wasn’t that old; it had great bones and really great curb appeal. But the interior layout was incredibly customized for the previous owners and the whole house was [laid out] totally backward and didn’t make sense.”
Tour This Serene Nantucket Home
A serious reconfiguration ensued—including the relocation of the kitchen and a second-floor bedroom expansion. “It was a complete, extensive renovation,” says Metz. “We opened up all the walls and took it right down to the studs.”
Gone went the“very compartmentalized” room layout. “We took down two chimneys that were blocking the views. When you walked through the front door you couldn’t see the water because there was a wall, so naturally that came down too,” explains Kotchen, who has been designing homes on the island for 25 years.
“Andrew understands Nantucket and he understands contemporary [design] in Nantucket,” adds Casademont. “And while I carefully thought about the furnishings and placement of art, we wanted a beach house, not a museum, and he got that.”
The result is an airy, light-filled escape that embraces the couple’s love for art, design and the natural beauty that attracted them to the island all those years ago. “There’s a sense of serenity and calmness when you’re inside,” shares Metz. “Part of it is the location, but really it’s the house—it’s something that will stay in the family for a long, long time.”
