In the mid 1980’s, Betty & John Maxwell asked Rick Webel of Innocenti & Webel to lead an effort to turn Betty’s family’s land on Duck Pond Road into a cottage community that appealed to nearby residents who were looking for smaller houses. With none of the three being a land developer or builder, it was both a challenge and a wonderful opportunity. Notably, Matinecock Farms today remains a successful example of a clustered development with small, highly desirable properties that are adjacent to the Incorporated Villages.
Four underlying concepts drove the design.
The first was the unusual step of making community owned and preserved open space the most important design element. There are two categories of preserved land. The first is preserved land donated to the North Shore Wildlife Sanctuary by the neighboring Slocum and Pennoyer families. These contributions were extremely important in that they set the tone by preserving the open space and feeling of the main entrance road. The second is preserved land owned communally by Matinecock Farms residents. Together these preserved spaces, not the houses, represent the face and set the tone of the community.
The second concept was an architectural style that maintained consistent common elements, with limited individual adaptations, so that the community had design coherence. Martha’s Vineyard cedar shake was chosen as the stylistic theme because it lent itself to endless adaptation and renovation flexibility. Communities like those on Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket have stood the test of time and created places that have coherence with imaginative flexibility.
The third concept was a definitive juxtaposition of community views and privacy. To that end, the preserved open space on the property’s front edges and along the internal roads provides an element of woodland privacy. In the “clustered” areas, while front doors may face one another, every rear yard looks out onto preserved open space and offers a sense of seclusion.
The fourth concept was a strong governance structure. Matinecock Farms’ Covenants & Restrictions were based on the pioneering work of Charles Frasier at the Sea Pines Company in South Carolina. The essence of the structure was strong community-oriented regulations that were endorsed by a majority of the residents. The key to the latter is education, discussion and adaptation within the founding broad guidelines.
There will always be competing interests between what individual homeowners want and what best serves the wider, broader community. Matinecock Farms will continue to adapt to issues that were not initially anticipated. However, the history of communities like these around the country is that the ones that are the most successful over longer periods of time are those that respect and adhere to a sound set of founding principles.