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\u00a9 Kit Noble<\/h6>\n \u00a9 Kit Noble<\/h6>\nGuests strolling the sweeping sunlit lawns outside the White Elephant Nantucket are in for picture-perfect harbor views \u2014 but the property\u2019s true pi\u00e8ces de r\u00e9sistance are on full display inside. Fresh off a top-to-bottom multimillion-dollar renovation, art plays a pivotal role in this bright, airy refreshed masterpiece.<\/p>\n
The White Elephant collaborated with Elkus Manfredi Architects and art consultant and curator Emily Santangelo to ensure paintings hanging for years in the hotel remained a focal point during the process of integrating contemporary pieces into the design of the historic, landmarked building. \u201cThe White Elephant carries a reputation of service and quality to begin with, and with the renovation and new collection of artwork, I wanted there to be a sense of surprise but comfort at the same time,\u201d Santangelo says.<\/p>\n
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As part of that goal, Santangelo and the White Elephant Nantucket launched the Artist in Residency Program in August 2022. The six invited artists lived in the hotel for two weeks and drew inspiration from the surroundings before creating their original works. \u201cIt was a labor of love to find the artists that were really going to complement not only the design,\u201d Santangelo says, \u201cbut the island as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nearly 300 of the new pieces are now showcased throughout the property\u2019s corridors, 54 rooms and suites and 11 garden cottages \u2014 from New England-focused painter Mary Chandler\u2019s watercolors of buttery yellow honeysuckle and other Nantucket flora to installation photographer Thomas Jackson\u2019s dreamy pastel beach portraits. Santangelo points out that no two rooms contain the exact same works so each stay is guaranteed to always be a unique artistic experience.<\/p>\n
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Perhaps the most stunning piece in the new collection is a 16-foot-long painting featuring a woman wearing Nantucket reds floating in a rowboat with cottages reflected in the harbor\u2019s waters behind her. The commissioned sunny large-scale pop piece by Orit Fuchs, an Israeli painter who also created a tondo of the same woman for sister property White Elephant Palm Beach, cheerily welcomes guests to the resort\u2019s lobby. \u201cThe idea was that when you walked through the door, you already have this sense of lightness, a feeling that you’re in for this wonderful experience,\u201d Santangelo says.<\/p>\n
Staff affectionately call the woman in the boat Elizabeth, a nod to Elizabeth T. Ludwig, the socialite who, in the 1920s, began accruing piecemeal the properties that now make up White Elephant Nantucket.<\/p>\n
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\u00a9 Connie Zhou<\/p>\n
The rowboat painting is bathed in soothing blues to match Nantucket\u2019s sapphire seas and turquoise skies, and the color palette found throughout the hotel was likewise selected with intention. The exteriors of homes and cottages on the island can only be painted several approved shades to maintain its historic character \u2014 often with an added pop of color, like Nantucket Red, Hamilton Blue, Quaker Gray or Main Street Yellow \u2014 and the White Elephant was inspired to use similar hues in the redesign.<\/p>\n
The property\u2019s rooms, suites and cottages are also awash in soft coastal and earth tones. Other small design brushstrokes might include grass cloth wallcoverings meant to evoke dune grasses sprouting along the shore, ceilings painted pale blue to add the calming feel of a clear summer day, or corridor carpets with a crisscrossed pattern that call to mind weathered gray shingles cladding the quaint homes dotting Nantucket.<\/p>\n
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