Protecting the Copeland District

Famous for its distinctive Victorian style, Oak Bluffs is a town of parks ringed by neighborhoods of Gothic Carpenter cottages and homes, their porches situated with views across parklands or the sea. As many people know, the history of this architectural style and village design is rooted in the Methodist camp meetings of the mid and late nineteenth century.

Less known is the fact that the landscape architect Robert Morris Copeland was largely responsible for it all. Mr. Copeland, whose peers were Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, the designers of Central Park in New York city and the Fens in Boston, earned recognition in his field for combining the science of agriculture with landscape design. Among other things he did the design for Shelter Island on Long Island in the late 1800s. Mr. Copeland had studied the planning concept of the Methodist camps, which employed the so-called hub and wheel layout where “the central element, the prayer grove, was surrounded by concentric rings of streets that were bisected by diagonal routes. He emphasized the controlled, picturesque settings for planned landscapes. This was a reaction to industrialization and urbanization. The picturesque movement sought to emphasize the bucolic and restorative qualities of nature and home life,” according to one historical account of Shelter Island.

Even before he did the Shelter Island design, Mr. Copeland had completed a project in Oak Bluffs that was an extension of Wesleyan Grove. A historical account of this plan was published in the Vineyard Gazette in 1936 by the late Henry Beetle Hough.

The Copeland architectural legacy in Oak Bluffs gained an extra layer of protection in 1991 when the town, acting under the powers of the Martha’s Vineyard Commission, adopted a district of critical planning concern for the parts of town that embrace the heart of his work, including Ocean Park, Waban Park and Nashawena Park. The Copeland district has special rules for architectural review designed to preserve the integrity of these neighborhoods that were laid out in concentric circles well over a century ago.

Now the Copeland district is threatened, ironically, by a committee that has been working in concert with the district: the Cottage City Historic District Committee. The historic district committee has submitted a formal proposal to abolish the Copeland district, calling it duplicative and unnecessary.

But far from being superfluous, the Copeland district carries extra weight due to the fact that it has the strength and power of the Martha’s Vineyard Commission behind it. This power has been repeatedly recognized by the state’s highest courts over the years. The town historic district committee has far less clout than the Copeland district plan review board.

A public hearing is scheduled for next Thursday night at the commission office in Oak Bluffs to consider the abolition of the district. There is virtually no precedent; in the thirty-five-year-plus history of the commission, a DCPC has never been abolished.

The commission should vote to keep the Copeland district. And town leaders would be wise to take up the cause. If there is overlap between the two historic districts, they could be consolidated by incorporating the Cottage City historic bylaw into the Copeland district.

Abolishing the district could have potentially disastrous consequences for Oak Bluffs, whose history is inextricably woven into its architecture and landscape design.