For only 29.5 square miles in size, the diversity found on Nantucket is truly surprising.  Diversity found not only in its population, but in the style, architecture and lifestyle of the people who live here (part-time and full-time). Each area of the island has its own personality and the variety of homes is as varied as the individuals who inhabit them…but you need to spend some time on-island to really know that.

To a person who has never been to our island, Nantucket may look like a bunch of homogenous gray-shingled houses – right? Wrong – Nantucket couldn’t be more diverse. From whaling captain’s houses on Main and Orange Streets to cottages on Broadway in ‘Sconset to sprawling estates on Eel Point in Dionis to beach homes in Madaket to the bustling neighborhood’s of Nashaquisset and Naushop, no two areas of the island are the same.

In fact, Nantucket homeowners are known to have a fairly intense preference for the area of the island where they reside, and no story exemplifies this better than the one told by Skip Cabot in Cary Hazlegrove’s book Nantucket – Seasons on the Island.

As Mr. Cabot recalls, “I was in an airport in Athens, Greece, standing behind this lady in the ticket line, and she had a lightship basket. I tapped her on the sholder and said, “Ma’am, you’re from Nantucket, so am I,” and she said, “My dear, I’m from ‘Sconset’”.  Maybe the lady from ‘Sconset was simply proud of where she lives, or maybe she knew something Mr. Cabot didn’t know at the time; that ‘Sconset was going to be one of the hottest areas for real estate activity in 2011.

                             Real Estate Sold In Sconset

Number Of Properties Sold In Sconset

So the next time you see someone wearing a tee-shirt that says “Meet me at the gray shingled house with white trim”, smile – they’ve been to Nantucket and you understand what they mean.