[ocean roar]
I'm a big collector of wishing stones.
You're supposed to throw them.
You're supposed to make a wish when you find one with a ring
all the way around it.
Whoop.
You make a wish.
Hm.
Pow.
[laughs]
[music playing]
The air is incredible, to be near the saltwater.
And the light is unbelievable.
It makes you feel smaller and, at the same time,
more connected to what's happening in nature.
We're on the island of Chappaquiddick,
which is a little island off the bigger
island of Martha's Vineyard.
A way you get to Chappy from the big island of Martha's Vineyard
is by a little car ferry that at most can have three vehicles.
It takes about three minutes.
It's beautifully overgrown.
It's overgrown with, you know, beach plums, and blueberries,
and bayberry.
And there's so much beautiful birdlife, wild shorebirds,
and then all the ones that are flying
around here that you can hear.
It's a pretty magical place.
To me, a cottage is simple, somewhat rustic.
Yeah, not overly comfortable, a cottage
shouldn't be too comfortable.
Because cottages are usually sort of open to the elements,
I think there's a feeling, if it's a cottage, that it's
rustic, that it's simple.
To me, it's usually uninsulated.
Basically you see everything that holds the place together.
You see all the framework, the beadboard on the ceiling
and on the walls, and all the little cubbies.
I love that.
Where I grew up, Illinois, we'd jump in the station wagon,
we'd head to the Vineyard.
And we'd spend a month.
I inherited my grandparents' house.
And my kids grew up spending August there.
Mike, my husband, owned a place in West
Tisbury, which is another town on Martha's Vineyard.
It's a more farmy town.
It's further up island.
Mike and I got together and decided
we would do something new.
I have a friend who's a realtor.
I went into his office and I was, like, Gary,
I'm just looking.
Like, do you have anything on Chappaquiddick
that's, like, funky, not all renovated, not fancy, like,
beachy?
You know, it's our kind of vibe.
We don't want something all done.
And he goes, oh, I can't believe you just said that.
Like, I want you to see this place.
And so he shows me this picture.
You know, they're dark brown with all these little
frilly curtains and all this.
But I'm, like, looks like it's right near the water.
It looks pretty cool.
And when we first saw it, we were, like, oh,
my God, all of us, my two kids, and Mike and I. We were all,
like, yeah.
There's something about the relationship
of this house to the water.
It felt, like, connected to nature and the surroundings.
It felt just right for where it is.
It looks murky, but that's because
of the mint and the lemon.
I think.
Oops.
[birds singing]
Yum.
That is, like, the best tea ever.
Hm.
I don't know about that.
That's some pretty [inaudible] tea.
This house is all about bringing nature inside, I think.
And I've always lived like that.
[screen door creaking]
On one end, there's a bedroom and a kitchen with a bathroom.
And on the other end, there's two bedrooms and a bathroom,
very simple, with a main room in the center
and the porch off it.
So this porch has had a couple of different incarnations.
We did paint it white.
The anchor cutouts and the shutters
are original to the cottage.
We did not choose those, although we kept
them and we kind of love them.
They're great.
And the name, The Anchor, came from the previous owners.
And I think generations of owners.
All of this was brown, everything,
the ceiling, all the trim.
Everything was wood.
And it was kind of nerve racking to change
them and paint them white.
So I wanted to retain some of the original color.
I'll show you here on a door.
These doors we left the original brown, too.
It had a real charm to it.
But we just wanted that white, airy feeling.
I do come from a family of artists.
My little sister Alexandra is a painter and super talented.
This is a painting my mama did of Portofino.
I love it in here.
And actually, the room plays off of this painting.
I feel like all the colors that we ended up with sort of
are picked up in that painting.
So this is Mike's and my room.
And it's a great room.
We chose this room versus the other room on the other side
because A, we get a beautiful sunrise and also great light.
I couldn't resist.
I was folding these, all my stripes.
And I thought, I have to leave these out.
Because it's so what you wear when
you're on Martha's Vineyard, or anywhere by the sea.
And a bunch of these are my mom's.
So this one, look at that color.
First of all, the best blue, it looks like the shutters,
really.
So this I think she had when she was 12.
And I wear it but, you know, I add a new whole every time
because it's so threadbare.
But it feels so good.
It's so soft.
And I feel like it smells like her.
[laughs]
Most of what I have means something to me
and has some kind of personal story.
And Mike has a joke that if my mom touched it, I keep it.
That's not true.
But I don't know.
These are just my mom.
She's not here anymore.
So that's just her.
And who doesn't want to hang on to what they
can of their mother, you know?
I am harvesting some green garlic.
This is my friend's farm.
If I can stay connected to the land wherever I am, I try to.
I always try to seek out the freshest seasonal local food,
wherever I am.
It smells so good.
I'm a chef.
I got formal training when my kids were in high school.
So I was a, you know, later in life chef.
Being a chef is just kind of anticipating
the right food at the right time in the right setting.
I obviously like to cook a lot.
And I do do these romantic, I guess,
kind of elaborate dinners for Mike and me.
Although it's a very simple dinner.
It's just everything is from scratch.
And that's how I roll.
All right.
Ta dum!
Do you want some bread?
Yes.
OK.
Yes, please.
Great day clamming on the beach.
[laughter]
The feeling of being here is pretty fantastic.
We just got the house all organized for the summer.
And it's a treat.
You think about the name of the cottage, The Anchor.
Yeah, we are anchored.
[boat horn sounding]