Tuesday, March 20, 2012
John Travolta On Island, 1977
He needed not a guru, not a girl friend, not a dance partner, but a nanny, and he hired one to look after him at his beach house in Malibu, but we’ll get to that presently. In the summer of ’77, just as John Travolta was preparing (or actually not preparing) for his leap from TV stardom in Welcome Back, Kotter to wild movie star frenzy with the release of Saturday Night Fever –- are you conjuring him up now in his white polyester suit, arm pointing to the next galaxy, hips swiveling with an oomph that would have made Elvis jealous (does that rhyme?!) – the shy young actor stayed with Carly Simon and James Taylor in their 27-acre homestead off Lambert’s Cove Rd, with pond, pool, tennis, and over 5K square feet in the main house. Now, …
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Rumor has it the former president will celebrate his 65th birthday this weekend with some high-profile pals.
Monday, August 8, 2011
Do us Islanders a favor: Don't compare us to Long Island.
Every time some schmuck builds a box store of a house that’s 10,000 square feet or even a squidge more, a whole bunch of us say, “We’re turning into the Hamptons!” Well, if we keep letting schmucks build homes that huge instead of encouraging them to send the same message in an alternate way—i.e., plant a sign on their land that says, “I’M SO RICH AND YOU’RE NOT!”—we’ll be worse off than the Hamptons, because you could fit five Vineyards into one Long Island. A runaway trend of bulgy-big estates would end up pressing together the way they do in Beverly Hills, where people haven’t even left themselves enough soil for vegetable gardens. (Just in case the global economy collapses and even the former-rich will need to grow their own food; it …
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Not everyone here is a billionaire.
Given the rumored vacation plans of the Obamas returning to Martha's Vineyard for another summer, it looks likely that Martha's Vineyard will soon be the subject of mass media attention . . . again. The Island is no stranger to the news; it first found its way into the modern media spotlight with the notorious 1969 Chappaquiddick incident involving Ted Kennedy and Mary Jo Kopechne in 1969. Since then, Martha's Vineyard has often been depicted in the news as the location where the nation's affluent spend their summers, where celebrities buy another house to add to their list and where the liberal elite, including Democratic presidents, spend their weeks off in the summertime. While much of this may be true, it also leaves out a lot of what …
Monday, August 1, 2011
Understanding the "Seinfeld" creator and the Island's sole cult hero.
He is our sole cult hero, with the late John Belushi filling that slot before him. As a summer Vineyarder, he’s drastically famous: People recognize him even without ever having watched his comedy series “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” Of those who’ve seen it, there are two categories: Those who’ve endured it once and declared, “Everyone’s so testy and unpleasant. I’d rather watch old ‘Cosby’ re-runs.” And then there are the rest of us who sponge it up, and who verbally trade favorite scenes like others swap baseball cards. My own fav was the time in the deli when Larry decided his pal Richard Lewis had a better sandwich named after him than did Larry. To get back at him, he reveals he’s recently discovered he was adopted. Richard, whose comedy …
Monday, July 11, 2011
Discover what happened behind the blinds of Gloria Swanson's house.
Thank God there’s nothing so tacky as a Map To The Stars' Homes for Martha’s Vineyard, but every old Island hand has famous sites to point out to first-time visitors: The Jaws house, the cemetery where John Belushi is buried, the Camp Ground cottage where President Ulysses S. Grant was booted out for boozing it up and, my favorite, the beach house that Joe Kennedy built for silent screen star, Gloria Swanson, back in the 1920s. It’s three houses in on Eastville Beach just as the road swings left from the incline down to East Chop: A pretty late-Edwardian manor-house with eyebrow windows peeking out in each direction from the third story, turquoise shutters adorning first floor windows, and with sweeping views over formal gardens to sand …
Betty Burton
2:02 pm on Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Thank you for the luscious story. Even though he has a wife and children, I still have a crush. My bff was working on a super mansion at/on/in Squibnocket. I was escorted into the home theater. What luxury. Can you imagine, you can sit in a leather reclining chair and watch life size movie stars in surround sound? As you can tell I’m still in awe of this technology. Anyway, just as I walking in … more ›