A Look Inside the Last Lifesaving Station
Written by Brian Bushard
Photography by Brian Sager
The red gabled Lifesaving Station is like a lens to a previous time on Nantucket. The Gothic-style station was commissioned in 1874 and designed by federal architects on the site of former Humane Society houses, just a few years after developers carved out the area and named it Surfside. At first, the station—iconic with its high steep roofs and observation tower—served as a beacon for mariners battling the dangerous shoals, fog and surf south of the island. Tourists vacationing at the nearby Surfside Hotel—which had only recently been brought over by barge—would watch the surfmen patrol the beach and perform rescue drills as a form of entertainment.
Today, it’s the last of Nantucket’s four lifesaving stations still standing, and one of only a handful of nearly identical buildings left around the country. After serving for decades as a lifesaving station, and then a youth hostel, the historic station had fallen into disrepair, and was one step away from being carved into private lots. Following a tumultuous multi-year bidding war, the building has been restored. Its fate has also been made clear. Under new ownership, the property will soon become the home of Nantucket’s Jewish Congregation Shirat HaYam.
“Something that is historical, that has stood the test of time, that has been so integral inbeing a part of the island and being of service to the island, that’s a sacred space, as well,” said Surfside resident David Gregory, a Shirat HaYam member and former NBC News anchor who purchased the property last fall. “The potential for that as a place of worship struck me. What a great combination of purposes that could serve.”
The building is unique for a number of reasons, including its ornate Gothic style gable roof and its decorative truss work—a combination not seen in many places on the island. Gregory and his wife Beth Wilkinson have always admired the property. “It evokes a different time, it’s such a particular style and it’s endured,” he said.
Blue Flag’s plans never came to fruition. In 2023, the company rented the former hostel to the town for much-needed lifeguard housing. The town even hatched a plan to buy the property for $6 million and use it for employee housing, but the deal was contingent on town meeting support, and voters at the 2024 Annual Town Meeting soundly defeated the measure. With the deal falling apart, Blue Flag announced it would walk away from the property. “Ultimately, we aren’t going to be able to give the Star of the Sea the level of attention that we believe it deserves at this time, so we are seeking a new steward who will carryforward our vision to back the grandeur of this one-of-a-kind property,” the company stated at the time.
Before it sold the property, Blue Flag hired island preservation architect Hollis Webb for extensive renovations to the building. That meant carving white oak in Webb’s shop, replacing old wooden pieces, and repurposing others. “It had been neglected as a youth hostel, but the history of the building itself is really cool,” said Webb, the owner of King Post Preservation, Inc., who led the restoration project. “The ornate gable arch work was obviously collapsing from the street. Once I had an opportunity to work on that building I jumped on it.”
Congregation Shirat HaYam has starteda fundraising campaign for continued renovations to the historic structure to prepare it for use as a synagogue, though with a preservation restriction held by the Nantucket Preservation Trust, no owner of the building can make exterior changes to the structure. Mary Bergman, the outgoing executive director of the Nantucket Preservation Trust, has called the building her favorite of any historic building on Nantucket. It’s just as much a piece of Nantucket’s architecture as a gray shingled house is, she said.“It’s unique now only because we’ve allowed so much of the rest of the island to become so standardized and suburbanized by moving structures to the middle of nonconforming lots,” Bergman said. “Like everything, it’s interesting because of its irregularities and its character."
For Gregory, the purchase marks a new chapter. The Congregation, which was established in 1983, has never had a permanent home, and for years has held services in various places of worship around the island. “The idea of a permanent place to go home really matters for building a sense of community, not just for the Jewish population, but for all of Nantucket,” Gregory said. “In terms of building community and building legacy, itis important for the congregation to know that for the Jewish families that are here in the summer and for a smaller number that are here full time, that there is a place where the community can gather, that there can be events, weddings, prayer, a place for a rabbi or a visiting speaker. It helps fill what the congregation is able to do.”
