The new Martha’s Vineyard Museum opened this week to great excitement around the Island and beyond.

A Tuesday evening preview for members was a celebration of history and something more: a community that came together and dug deep into its collective pockets to support an ambitious thirty-million-dollar relocation from the museum’s longtime home in downtown Edgartown. Crowning a Vineyard Haven hilltop, with a splendid view of the Lagoon Pond and outer harbor, the old marine hospital has now taken on a sparkling new identity.

Old collections long housed in basements have been brought into sun-filled rooms for display as both permanent and rotating exhibits that tell the Island’s stories dating back to the original inhabitants. And the dazzling centerpiece to it all is the historic Fresnel lens from the old Gay Head Light, housed in a pavilion attached to the main building.

Museum leaders are to be congratulated for a job well done.

It is the latest sign that an Island once known for its laid back, counter-culture arts and music scene is rapidly transforming from shabby to chic.

Milestones include the opening of the Martha’s Vineyard Film Center way back in 2012, which created a sleek year-round venue for film buffs. Two years ago, Featherstone Center for the Arts unveiled its beautiful new barn with gallery space and spacious new art studios. Last summer, the Vineyard Trust completed The Carnegie, an attractive visitor center and reading room in the former Edgartown library that serves to promote the trust’s many landmark properties. Recently, The Yard, the Chilmark-based dance residency and performance space, announced it is embarking on an $11 million renovation and expansion plan.

Much of the financial support for this modest cultural revolution has come from seasonal residents, who have helped raise the bar for the arts on the Island with their generosity. While it is difficult not to grieve the loss of the “old Vineyard,” some change is inevitable and these investments in arts and culture will undoubtedly inject new vitality into the Island economy.

There are those who worry that so much spending on the arts leaves little for other deserving Island projects. In Oak Bluffs, Martha’s Vineyard Community Services has just begun a $17 million campus overhaul that will eventually include replacing all the buildings to better accommodate the rapidly growing needs of this vital social services agency.

In Edgartown, the Martha’s Vineyard Boys and Girls Club is in the early stages of developing a strategic plan to revamp an ailing facility that serves hundreds of Island children, many of them from low-income families, for after-school and summer camp programs year round. There is no price tag yet, but it is certain to be large.

And then there are the many schools and government buildings that are sadly in need of renovation.

Raising money is not easy, but philanthropy need not be a zero sum game. People who choose to eat dessert don’t necessarily sacrifice their vegetables to do so. The success — maybe even the survival — of Martha’s Vineyard as a lively and sophisticated arts center depends on a healthy year-round population, and it is to be hoped that people who support the Island’s cultural scene will also support its less agreeable, but equally critical needs.