By Jason GraziadeiI&M SeniorWriter

TheNantucket Islands LandBank and the SconsetTrustpulled off one of the largest

real-estate deals on Nantucket indecadesTuesday, closing on the ac-quisition of 119 acres offMilestoneRoad, including the Old SconsetGolf Course, from the Coffin Fam-ily.

The two organizations paid $16million for the land at 260 and 270Milestone Road, according to Reg-istry of Deeds records. The LandBank will assume ownership ofthe 66-acre Old Sconset GolfCourse,better knownasSkinner’s,and continue to operate it as apublic facility. The Sconset Trustacquired the adjacent 53-acre par-cel to the east of Skinner’s whichwill be preserved as open space.

The deal was first announcedlastNovember and closedTuesdaywith a flurry of signatures in theLand Bank’s Broad Street office,where members of the SconsetTrust, Land Bank staff and com-missioners, the Coffin family anda host of lawyers gathered to fi-nalize the transactions.

The Land Bank paid $8.7 mil-lion for its portion of the property,while the Sconset Trust paid $7.3million, property records show.

“It’s very big,” said Land Bankcommissioner Allen Reinhard. “Iwould rank this as one of ourmajor purchases. The Land Bankwas interested in this not only be-

cause of the land but because ofthe historical significance with itbeing one of the oldest golf coursesin the country.This protects Scon-setwith a greenbelt, and youhave,essentially, Sconset surroundednow by conservation land.”

The 119 acres, owned by the es-tate of Henry Coffin Jr. and con-trolled by his four children, have

By Lindsay PykoszI&M StaffWriter

NantucketHighSchool sen-iors Eve Manghis andCodie Perry were named

the 2012Nantucket ScholarsApril26 at a ceremony at theNantucketGolf Club.

Chosen from a group of 11 fi-nalists, the two will receive fullfour-year tuition and fees scholar-ships to the college or university oftheir choice from the NantucketGolf Club Foundation.

The nine other finalists wereCharlotte Tallman, ElizabethReed, Elsie Gaw, Merrill Mc-Cluskey, Nikolay Nakov, ShaunStojak, Zeb Bennett, Ben Parkerand Breezy Beaumont.

“I feel so ridiculously blessed,”Manghis said after a flurry of hugsand well-wishes from her family

and peers. “It doesn’t seem real tobe honest.”

A short time after his namewas called, Perry said the realiza-tion that he won hadn’t hit himyet, and he couldn’t find thewordsto describe how thankful he is.

“I was really fortunate to bechosen,” he said. “These are 11 ofthe finest kids of our class. I can’timagine being on the committeeand having to make that decision.I’m very thankful to be chosen.”

Becoming aNantucket Scholaris something that both studentsadmitted to thinking about sincethe first scholarships wereawarded in 2006, and it was neverthe title that was important toManghis,butmorewhat the schol-arship embodies.

“I think the criteria of the schol-

INDEXBird Sightings 3BBusiness Directory 8BCalendar 5BCrossword 3BFeasting 2BGardening by the Sea 7BIdentifyThis 14BLetters 12ALooking Backward 9BLiving & Arts 9BObituaries 8ASports 1BSudoku 12BTides 3B

VOL. 191NO. 49 USPS264-720 The Inquirer andMirror, Nantucket,Mass. Thursday,May3, 2012 Forty-Eight Pages Three Sections www.ACK.net $1.50

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Photo courtesy of Phelon Family

SKY HIGH: This aerial view of 260 Polpis Road, which features a residence and numerous outbuildings, allon 68 acres of waterfront property, was recently listed for $59million, the highest asking price ever recordedfor a single parcel on Nantucket.

LandBank sealsthe deal for $8.7Mon Sconset Golf

Police sayWilsonwaswithHallher lastday alive

By Patrick CassidyCape CodTimes

Amanat the center of the in-vestigation into TrudieHall’s murder told police

shortly after she disappeared thathe was with her the last day shewas seen alive, according to a re-quest for a search warrant for hisCenterville home obtained by theTimes.

Hall,whose bodywas found twoweeks ago in the woods off Hay-way Road in East Falmouth, waspregnant with Quoizel Wilson'schild when she vanished on July27, 2010, according to sources andfriends of the 23-year-old Nan-tucket woman.

Wilson,33,andHall exchangeddozens of text messages and tele-phone calls on the day before shewas reported missing by hermother, including two phone callsat around 10 that night, accordingto an affidavit state police Capt.Christopher Mason filed to obtainthe search warrant.

A phone call fromWilson's cell-phone to his wife's cellphone wasplaced about anhour later fromanarea close to where Hall's bodywas found, according to police.

On the day she disappeared,Wilson and Hall had sex at theWest Yarmouth hotel where Hallwas staying, according to whatWilson told police a week later.One of the twomenHall hadmar-ried the previous year also wasstaying at the motel, but in an-other room. The marriages werepart of an immigration scam, ac-cording to sourceswith knowledgeof the investigation.

Wilson's story changed dramat-

Polpis property on the marketfor record price of $59,000,000

By Jason GraziadeiI&M SeniorWriter

No, it’s not a typo:A 68-acreproperty alongPolpisHar-bor hit the market this

week for a jaw-dropping $59 mil-lion.

If it sells at that price, or any-where close to it for that matter, itwould set a record as the most ex-pensive residential real estatetransaction inNantucket history –and possibly all of Massachusetts.

The 68-acre parcel known asSwain'sNeck is among the largestremaining privately-owned Nan-tucket properties not dedicated toconservation, municipal or com-mercial purposes.

Located on its own peninsulajutting out into Polpis Harbor, theproperty features nearly three-

quarters of a mile of waterfront, anine-bedroommain residence builtin 2000, a gatehouse with anapartment,a guest cottage,a boat-house, and an octagon-shaped stu-dio. It is New England’s most

expensive home for sale, accordingto Forbes Magazine, and amongthe 20 most expensive public list-ings in the United States.

The unprecedented askingprice, said listing agent GaryWinn, reflects the fact that it is un-like any other property for sale onthe island,and perhaps the largestwaterfront estate ever to come tomarket as a private residence.

“It’s unbelievable,” saidWinn,ofThe Maury People/Sotheby’s In-ternational Realty.“I don’t think it(the asking price) is at all as-tounding for this when you con-sider things have sold on less thanthree acres for $20 million. It’s aone-of-a-kind property and possi-bly a once-in-a-lifetime opportu-nity to buy a waterfront estate ofthis size.”

Photo by Jim Powers

EveManghis, who will attend Harvard in the fall, and Codie Perry, whowill plan to attend Boston College, were the winners of the NantucketGolf Club scholarships this year.

Nantucket Golf Clubnames 2012 ScholarsEve Manghis, Codie Perrywin tuition scholarships

SCHOLARS PAGE 6A

TRUDIEHALL, PAGE 2A

Businessboomingover DaffyWeekendBy Joshua BallingI&MAssistant Editor

Visitors flocked to the islandfor DaffodilWeekend, withmany arriving as early as

Thursday. Generally they ap-peared to be in a spending moodonce they got here, Nantucketmerchants said this week, hopingit is a sign of a busy summer sea-son to come.

Most Hy-Line and SteamshipAuthority fast boats ran at or nearcapacity fromFriday throughSun-day, more than 1,100 people – is-landers and visitors alike –attended the 38th annual DaffodilFlower Show at Bartlett’s OceanView Farm, and restaurants re-ported a brisk lunch business Sat-urday and busy dinner Friday.Therewere also a full slate of high-

Sconset Trustbuys 53 acresnext door for$7.3 million

PROPERTY, PAGE 4A

“It is one-of-a-kind,but it might be a littleabove its one-of-a-kind price . . . It’s

setting a new level forNantucket. Whether it

reaches that is astretch.”

—David CallahanBroker/owner

Jordan William RaveisReal Estate

SCONSET GOLF, PAGE 9A

“We’re delighted thatthis transaction has

come to pass. It was astrong collaboration

within theconservation

community, and wewere pleased to workwith the Land Bankto bring it about.”

Bob FelchExecutive director

Sconset Trust

Bob FelchExecutive directorSconset Trust

DAFFY, PAGE 3A

Thursday,May3, 2012 The Inquirer andMirror, Nantucket,Mass. Page9A

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6:30 Award Ceremony7:30 Dinner

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Tickets available online and in theNCS office at Cyrus Peirce

For further information call Pauline Proch508-228-7285 x1162

www.nantucketcommunityschool.com

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This historic 1780’s four bedroom,three bath home, sits on a large intown lot just a short distance fromMain Street. It has an attachedshop and off street parking.

$1,850,000

been the subject of sales rumorsfor years, and if fully developed,could have been the site of morethan 100 homes and secondarydwellings.The properties had pre-viously been listed on the marketfor a combined $45 million.

The Land Bank will likely usesome of its reserves, but will relyprimarily on the remaining bond-ing capacity granted by TownMeeting to borrow the funds nec-essary to complete its end of thedeal. The Sconset Trust, however,must now embark on a significantcapital campaign to raise the cashrequired for its portion of the ac-quisition, and Felch said the pub-lic fundraising effort would beginin earnest as the summer seasongets underway.

The nonprofit Sconset Trust,formed in 1984, had eyed the Cof-fin properties for many years. Atthe urging of the late Perry Rud-dick, the Sconset Trust ap-proached the Land Bank inOctober 2004 to discuss a joint ef-fort to acquire the golf course andthe Coffins’ other property to theeast. The concept of a “greenbelt”along the western edge of Sconsetvillage had been discussed sincethe Trust’s inception, and formedinto a primary objective for thenonprofit in 2003with the comple-tion of the Sconset Area Plan.Theacquisition of the Coffin propertythus became the linchpin for keep-ing the vision of a greenbelt alive.

While Ruddick died last June,his efforts helped bring the deal tofruition.

“We’re delighted that the trans-action has come to pass,” saidSconset Trust executive directorBob Felch. “It was a strong collab-oration within the conservationcommunity, and we were pleasedto work with the Land Bank tobring it about . . .We have no ideawhat it would be valued at on theopenmarket,butwe think itwas aconservation price.The familywascommitted to supporting the ef-fort.”

Robert “Skinner” Coffin, theman whose name became the un-officialmoniker for the golf course,said Wednesday that, all thingsconsidered, he was pleased thatthe deal had closed and a longsaga for his family had come to anend.

“It’s been years and years, andwe really had to sell to settle theestate,” Coffin said. “That’s theonly reason we sold, to settle theestate.And I didn’twant to see lotsof houses around my property. Ifsomeone else owned it, it wouldhave been subdivided a long timeago. But we live here.”

Reached by phone Wednesday,Henry “Hank” Coffin said “I don’twant to talk about it for awhile. It’skind of a shock.”

The Coffin estate, which origi-nally covered nearly 500 acres justwest of Sconset on the north sideofMilestoneRoad,went to his fourchildren following Henry CoffinJr.’s death in June 1994. Each ofthe Coffin children – Stephanie,Henry III, Mitchell and Robert“Skinner” Coffin – all of themadults, received about 25 acres in-dividually, located in the four cor-ners of the property.The rest of theland is owned jointly by the chil-dren through a trust for the estateof Henry Coffin Jr.

More than seven years in themaking, the complicated deal re-quired theNantucket Golf Club towaive its right of first refusal onthe property, but the private golfcourse is among the entities beingconsidered to operate Skinner’s onbehalf of the Land Bank, accord-

ing to Reinhard. The NantucketGolf Club’s right of first refusalwas granted as a condition of itspurchase of 250 acres from theCoffin family for $8.25 million in1995, land which was developedinto the exclusive 18-hole golfcourse completed in 1998.

The Old Sconset Golf Course,known simply as Skinner’s, firstopened for play in 1894, and todayremains a quick and rustic course

that costs just $30 for nine holes.Some of the course’s most recog-nizable features – the old farm-house that has been converted toa clubhouse and the large barn onthe ninth hole – are reminders ofthe land’s history in the time be-fore the course existed,andwill re-main under the Land Bank’sstewardship, Reinhard said.

“We’re going to open MemorialDay weekend, which is when

Hank (Coffin) would usually openthe course,” Reinhard said. “Therewon’t be any changes, and we’llkeep the rates the same. I thinkthe only difference people will no-tice is that instead of a cigar box(to handle cash)we’ll have a point-of-sale register.”

Skinner’s was a popular courseand a major part of the social fab-ric of the island until 1922, whenSankaty Head opened and manyof the members defected to thenewer,more modern club.

In the 1920s, as the island’spopulation dwindled, the coursewas abandoned,butCoffin’s father,Henry Jr., reopened it in 1930 atjust 16 years old.He revamped thelayout, cutting the course down tonine holes, and adding terrain fea-tures like hills and elevated tees.He also reshaped the greens fromthe traditional square shape to themore modern and familiarrounded greens.

Last year the course had lessthan 40 members, each of whompaid $500 for the season, whichlasts from Memorial Day toColumbus Day. Hundreds morenon-members – from visitingshort-term vacationers to islandcontractors to fathers andmothersteaching their children the game –played over the course of the sum-mer,many of them several times aweek.

(Continued from page 1A)

Sconset Golf: Preserves historic course and greenbelt

File photo

The Land Bank will continue to run the Old Sconset Golf Course, alsoknown as “Skinner’s,” with the same low rates and rustic atmosphere.

File photo

The view of this iconic Sconset barn, adjacent to the ninth hole, will be preserved with the purchase of thegolf course property by the Nantucket Islands Land Bank.

Graphic by Greg Derr

The area marked in red, abutting the Nantucket Golf Club property, is the Old Sconset Golf Course boughtby the Land Bank, while the Sconset Trust purchased the area in yellow to remain as open space.

76 Main: Magazine publisher buys downtown guest house

“The building itself has a fasci-nating history. As one who is inlove with the romance of Nan-tucket’s past, owning a sea cap-tain’smansionwas of great appealto me.”

The historic home of whalingcaptain William Swain, the 76Main Street Innwas built in 1883,and is among the dwindling num-ber of traditional bed and break-fast inns on Nantucket. Just last

week,FoxNews anchorGretaVanSusteren purchased the WhalerGuest House on North WaterStreet with her husband andLouisiana businessman JamesDavison, and the trio intends toconvert the property into a privateresidence.

Percelay said there was noquestion about his intention tokeep the Main Street inn func-tioning as a lodging destination forisland visitors.The 76MainStreetInn will be open for the upcomingsummer season,afterwhichPerce-

lay plans some renovations andupgrades to the interior of thebuilding.

“We absolutely plan to keep itas an inn, and after this seasonwe’ll be upgrading it to a higherstandard,”he said.“The thought ofowning an inn has always beenvery appealing to me, and wenever contemplated convertingthis into a single residence. Thecondition of the building is excep-tional, and it really only needs im-provements in furnishings andamenities. But the structure and

condition of the property is excel-lent.”

The official owner of the prop-erty is 76Main Street LLC,an en-tity owned and managed byPercelay’s real estate investmentfirm,TheMountVernonCompany,Inc. The company’s portfolio in-cludes roughly 1,400 apartmentsin southern New England, as wellas commercial and vacation prop-erties, valued at more than $250million.

(Continued from page 1A)