Keri Russell has one very good
reason to love Martha's Vineyard, the roughly 100-square-mile
Massachusetts island that serves as a getaway for dozens of
America's rich and famous. Her reason has nothing to do with the
beautiful fall foliage or the cool summer nights or the tony
company or the relative proximity of the Vineyard to her New York
home. Oh, she likes all of that. But there's something else to it
for the 31-year-old former star of television's
Felicity, who now
makes her living as a spokeswoman for CoverGirl and with
roles in such films as andWaitressAugust Rush, a drama out
this month in which she costars with Jonathan Rhys Meyers.
The reason she loves Martha's Vineyard is actually much more
poetic than falling leaves or summer breezes. You see, the
first time Russell visited the island, she was in the company
of a man who grew up there and whose parents still live
there. She fell in love with that man - a carpenter and an
amateur surfer named Shane Deary. In fact, his connection to
the Vineyard was one of the things that first attracted her
to him. "We met through friends," Russell recalls. "I'd been
single for quite a long time, and he was, honestly, one of
the first guys I met that I thought, He is so cute! I
immediately went outside [after meeting him] and texted my
girlfriends and said, 'There is such a cute guy here, oh my
gosh. And he's a surfer from Martha's
Vineyard!'?"
She
Said…
Here's where Keri
Russell relaxes when she's vacationing
on the
Vineyard.
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LODGING
The Charlotte Inn, very expensive, (508)
627-4751
The Inn at Blueberry Hill, very
expensive,
(508) 645-3322, www.blueberryinn.com
RESTAURANTS
Beach Plum Inn and Restaurant, regional cuisine,
expensive, (508) 645-9454, www.beachpluminn
.com/restaurant
Mediterranean Restaurant, very
expensive,
(508) 693-1617, www.med-mv.com
Scottish Bakehouse, eclectic,
inexpensive,
(508) 693-6633
THINGS TO SEE AND TO DO
The Farm Institute, (508)
627-7007,
www.farminstitute.org
Flying Horses Carousel, (508)
693-9481,
www.mvpreservation.org/carousel.html
Martha's Vineyard Agricultural Society Livestock
Show and Fair, www.mvas.vineyard.net/fair.php
Morning Glory Farm, (508)
627-9003,
www.morninggloryfarmstand.com
The Net Result Fish Market, (508) 693-6071,
www.mvseafood.com
Old Whaling Church, (508)
627-4442,
www.mvpreservation.org/whale.html
SHOPPING
Nochi, (508) 693-9074, www.nochimv.com
This past February, the two married, and this June, they welcomed a
baby boy, River
Russell Deary. And guess where the baby spent his
first summer? Right - Martha's Vineyard. "It's the coolest thing
that Shane grew up there," Russell says from her New York home.
"Because this is now going to be our place to go every year with
our family, where we'll bring our kids and watch them grow up with
all our other friends who grew up on the island. It's going to be
so cool to watch all the kids grow up together."
So soon enough, River will know all his mom's favorite island
spots. For those of us who won't be at Russell's family barbecues,
she shares these things she loves about Martha's Vineyard.
First things first: You've got to get there. Here's how Russell
says she reaches the island. One of the big experiences of
traveling to Martha's Vineyard is taking the ferryboat over. It's
about a 45-minute ferryboat [ride] to Martha's Vineyard. That is an
experience - watching the seagulls as you are pulling farther out
into the ocean and watching all the big houses as you come up to
shore. It's just the coolest little quaint fishing village - wild,
beautiful, everything. It's just perfect.
Martha's Vineyard is an island that is home to several individual
towns. Russell says she likes Up-Island. Shane's parents live in
what, on the island, they call Up-Island, in a town called West
Tisbury. West Tisbury is a little more wild than the other towns on
the island. It's in the trees. I actually love Up-Island. It's a
little bit more untouched.
Which is not to say that she doesn't like Down-Island. Because she
does. If you are looking for more of a walk-around little
community, there are some really great places in Edgartown, which
is much more developed, with white picket fences and little shops
and tiny little brick roads. A friend got married there, and a lot
of the wedding party stayed at the Charlotte Inn. It's
beautiful.
Another beautiful place to stay is an inn Russell knows well. I
love the Inn at Blueberry Hill. To get there, you drive up North
Road, one of my favorite roads on the island. One winter, I went
and stayed there while Shane was building a house. He grew up
building houses on the island with his dad. So I would drive all
the way up North Road and drop him off at work every day, and then
I would drive back. Especially when it is off-season, there's no
one else on that road, and it's really misty, and the trees form a
canopy over the winding road. You'll see deer and birds and geese.
It's very idyllic.
We
Said…
Here's where we relax when
we're vacationing on the
Vineyard.
LODGING
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Lambert's Cove Inn, very expensive, (508)
693-2298,
www
.lambertscoveinn.comLambert's quaint rooms are in the main house, carriage
house, and guesthouse of a cozy estate that dates back to
1790. The on-site restaurant offers some of the best dining
on the island. Surfside Motel, moderate, (508) 693-2500,
www.mvsurfside.com.
Bargain accommodations aren't exactly easy to come by on the
Vineyard, which is why we appreciate the Surfside. For less
than many other places, you get a nice, clean room, and the
waterfront locale is just steps from the ferry, Flying Horses
Carousel, and other Oak Bluffs establishments.
DINING
Atria, expensive, (508) 627-5850, www.atriamv.com. Wine Spectator
praised this elegant eatery, saying it has "one of the most
outstanding restaurant wine lists in the world." The food isn't
bad, either, thanks to chef/owner Christian Thornton's globally
inspired menu of steamed dumplings with tomato-ginger chutney,
braised pork belly with petite French lentils, and the like.
Menemsha Fish Market, inexpensive, (508) 645-2282, www.menemshafishmarket.com.
This seaside market, which has been shelling out everything from
tuna to tilapia since 1946, also serves heaping hot bowls of some
of the best lobster bisque you've ever tasted.
ATTRACTIONS
Chicama Vineyards, (508) 693-0309,
www.chicamavineyards.
You can't talk about Martha's Vineyard without mentioning a
vineyard. This one, open for tours and tastings, produces
Chardonnay, Chenin Blanc, and other fine wines, as well as
specialty foods like mustards, vinegars, and chutneys.
Granary Gallery at the Red Barn, (508) 693-0455,
www
.granarygallery.com. The Granary showcases a variety of
artists, from local stone-carver Ben Cabot to internationally
renowned photographer Margaret Bourke-White. On Sunday
afternoons, patrons gather in the sculpture garden out back
for the popular weekly artist reception.Off-season? Isn't it
cold in the off-season? The island in the fall is just magic.
That's my favorite time of year there. The air is definitely
crisp then, but what's great is that you can still get those
last few warm weekends, when the beach is still so nice. The
biggest summer crowds are gone [by then], and you kind of get
the island back; a lot of the businesses - the coffee shops,
the bookstores, and the restaurants - are still open. Once it
gets to be winter, a lot of things close down.
While it is still open, Russell says, you should try to get out to
the Farm Institute. Every year, they do a huge corn maze - you
know, like seven acres of corn that's as tall as your head or
taller. We went this summer with my nephew, and it was a blast. It
was huge, and it's really hard to find your way out. Another place
that is really cool on that side of the island is called Morning
Glory. It is a fresh-produce-and-vegetable place where some of what
is sold is actually grown on the island. In October, the entire
property is covered in pumpkins.
There are also great eat-in dining options. Beach Plum Inn and
Restaurant has
delicious food and a beautiful view as well. It's a
great restaurant, and it's also just a beautiful place to go to sit
and eat. There's another place, called Mediterranean, in Vineyard
Haven that we really like. It's right by the Martha's Vineyard
Times office, which is the cool local paper. When you go there,
always pick up a copy of the Martha's Vineyard Times, because it
tells you everything that is going on that week and the restaurants
and the libraries that are open. So we always have one of those
handy.
And the best meal of all? That's the one with family, Russell says.
My favorite thing to do on the island is to pick up really fresh
fish at the Net Result. We take the fish to Shane's mom. She's an
excellent cook. Shane's family is one of the year-round families
there. In the summer, there can be 75,000 people on the island, but
the year-round population is only about 15,000 people.
Oh, one more food thing. Russell says that you can't drive to
Martha's Vineyard just for Portuguese
pork products, although some
people would like to do that. We got back to New York after being
on the Vineyard for the summer, and one morning, Shane woke up and
said, "I want the breakfast sandwich at the Scottish Bakehouse." I
said, "We aren't driving to go get it. It's too far." He loves the
Scottish Bakehouse. His favorite breakfast sandwich has linguica on
it, which is a Portuguese sausage. There's a big Portuguese
population on the island.
As a new mom, Russell finds herself paying a lot more attention to
where you can find activities for kids. Luckily, she says, there's
no shortage of those on Martha's Vineyard. A cool thing in Oak
Bluffs for kids - although my husband is 31 and loves it - is
called Flying Horses Carousel. It is one of the oldest carousels in
the country. It was built in 1876 at
Coney Island, and they brought
it in. As the horses go around, there's this little place where you
can reach up and pull a ring down. The one on this ride is a brass
ring. If you get a brass ring, you get a free ride. Shane has tried
to get it his entire life, since he was a toddler. He has never
gotten the brass ring.
But Russell says Deary has seen the gingerbread cottages, a
312-cottage collection of 140-year-old homes that sit on the site
of a former Methodist campground. The gingerbread houses are in Oak
Bluffs. On a certain day in the summer, they have Illumination
Night. All those little houses hang lanterns on their porches -
there are hundreds of these lanterns as you walk through this
little village. There are tons of people, tons of kids, and
everyone is taking photos.
Russell was born in
Fountain Valley,
California, grew up in Mesa,
Arizona, and then earned a dance scholarship to a studio in Denver.
So she didn't visit Martha's Vineyard until she was a grown-up and
already dating Deary, at which point, for the first time ever, she
saw a man throw an ax for sport. The agricultural fair is a cool
thing. It lasts four days. There are rides, and there are tons of
art exhibits, all from the island. It's so old-fashioned. There are
horse shows and competitions. There are woodsmen contests, which I
had never heard of before - it's ax throwing, sawing through logs,
skillet-pan tossing. Plus there are agricultural booths.
It's not all about the kids, though. Sometimes a grown-up needs to
have a good time on the town at night - not the kind of good time
that
Felicity and Ben had when they drank too much and broke into
the indoor pool at the university, but a good time. There is an old
church in Edgartown called the Old Whaling Church, and sometimes
they will have concerts there. Livingston Taylor just played there.
He is
James Taylor's brother. Richie Havens plays there - cool
people like that. Singer-songwriter folk artists.
Ah, it's the perfect Saturday. Then again, aren't all Saturdays
perfect on Martha's Vineyard? Well, this one certainly would be.
Here's how Russell would spend her perfect Saturday morning on
Martha's Vineyard: I'd go to the West Tisbury Farmer's Market,
which is one of the coolest things about the island. I would go and
get all my fresh vegetables for the week and homemade pies and
fresh-cut flowers. It's also a cool place to hang out at and see
people you haven't seen in a long time and meet some of the local
farmers.
After that, I would probably go get my coffee in Vineyard Haven,
which is a little bit more of a town. The cell-phone reception
isn't always working in Up-Island, so I'd get my coffee and walk
around the little shops of Vineyard Haven and make all my phone
calls there. One of my most favorite stores is Nochi, which a
friend owns. They have the most beautiful furniture mixed in with
little exquisite things and baby clothes, which I've bought tons of
there.
In the afternoon, Russell would head to the beach for some family
time. I would drive to Up-Island in the afternoon to watch Shane
surf. On the north shore, there are calm waves, but on the south
shore, Up-Island, there are more waves. So he'd probably surf on a
beach like Squibnocket. All these names are so funny - they are
Indian names.
What would be the perfect end to the perfect Martha’s Vineyard day? I would go watch the sunset in a place called Menemsha. That’s a very typical, picturesque
New England town, where all the boats are docked. There are these little stands where you can buy chowder or fish and chips and also ice cream. It’s really beautiful.