Oak Bluffs

Our last place we visited was Oak Bluffs.  The town is absolutely wonderful in a quirkish sort of way.  It was the home to a summer camp for Methodist with tent revivals all summer long.  The participant families tents all looked the same so they differentiated them by hanging colorful and uniquely knotted ropes from the tents to tell one from another.  As the camp became more permanent and houses replaced the tents, they wanted to keep the tradition of uniquely identifying their houses so they turned to intricately carved gingerbread "lace" to decorate their eaves and porches.  Many of the houses and shops outside the campgrounds adopted the colorful motifs.  Of all the places on Martha's Vineyard, Oak Bluffs was my favorite and David sweetly tolerated my gawking.

The open air church is from 1879.  

The structure is iron arches with two rows of stained glass windows around the top.

The most intricate of the gingerbread patterns we saw.

Bright colors were everywhere.

A row of cottages.

All shades of blue with the gingerbread standing out in white.

One of the mansions on the circular drive around the city park.  They all
face the ocean.

The park and it's bandstand are popular spots for tourists and
residents of the island.

These are definitely not new houses!

The all-weather church for the campgrounds.

The mansions abound around the circle.  For the most part, they
were all well maintained and beautifully landscaped.

Gorgeous colors!

The oldest continuously running platform carousel in the USA, the
Flying Horses.  The kids all seemed to love grabbing for the brass rings..
It was moved from Coney Island in 1884.

One of the shops with gingerbread trim.

Lobster pots on the wharf.

This stunning mansion has a placard that states it was burned in
2000 but fully restored by 2004.  What an effort for sure.

The side of the same house.

Shopping district in Oak Bluffs.

Waterfront shopping area.

This is an octagonal church.  I bet the acoustics are great.

One of the houses had these panels all along the porch.  The inside
of the cutouts is a pale green.  I can't imagine how tedious it was to paint
that level of detail over 25 times.

Oak Bluffs is a very crowded harbor and it was the middle of the week!