55  Fishhook Road

An Iconic, Old Vineyard Homestead - the Boyhood summer home of Vineyard legend, Henry Beetle Hough, is being offered for sale by the Hough family who have owned and cherished this property for 120 years. "Fish Hook" was purchased by Henry's Father, George A. Hough, long-time Editor of The New Bedford Evening Standard, in 1898. Subsequently, by man and oxen, the separate farmhouses that he purchased were moved and integrated to become the rambling residence you find today. All one needs to do is read passages from Henry B. Hough's autobiography "Mostly on Martha's Vineyard" to be assured that the property is little changed from his boyhood days: "Changes in Fish Hook came slowly. Mayhew G. Norton, our neighbor . . . built a new fireplace in the dining room. At my father's behest he shingled my brother's bedroom on the inside of the roof, the shingles looking down rather than up. This became, in Fish Hook usage, the "shingled chamber". . . . In the big living room downstairs, nearest the Sound view, we sat in the evenings around a table with a kerosene lamp, a fire on the hearth if the weather was cold, reading books or magazines, usually old ones. The walls were almost entirely occupied by built-in bookcases of simple boards, varnished." Although it was more than an hour by buggy from the ferry when Henry was small, over the years his father hosted an impressive stream of visitors who included the James Cagneys, the Thomas Hart Bentons, Pearl Buck, Somerset Maugham, Composer Bernard Wagenaar, and champions of civil liberties Roger Baldwin and Arthur Garfield Hays. In the late 1970's, heat was added to the house and, at the same time, the kitchen and baths "updated". Subsequent to that, the conservatory/sun room was built. Otherwise, it stands as testament that little needs to change when you get it almost exactly right from the start.

Inquire 774-563-0633