Thoughts on Nantucket

(As a child my parents would take my two brothers and I to Nantucket every summer. After my freshman year at Williams I rented “a closet like” living space with three of my friends from high school and worked at the Nantucket Golf Club, the club created by the “new wealth” generation in Fabrikant’s article.)

 The defining moment in the war between economic and cultural capital, “New Money” versus “Old Money,” on Nantucket Island came in early 2000 with the death of Walter Beinecke. Mr. Beinecke, who had grown up on the island, spent the second half of his life preserving the island by buying up land and pushing building codes to preserve the simplicity of the island (keeping the island visually in line with the cultural taste of the old wealth). Mr. Beinecke’s work made it a little harder for the wealthy to flaunt their economic capital by restricting building sizes. He also had a big hand in baring corporate brands from the island.

Not soon after his death, Ralph Lauren opened a “Purple Label” Polo store (the first chain allowed on the island) in the center of town. Other high priced chains soon followed including: Lilly Pulitzer (think painfully bright pastel clothing) and Vineyard Vines. These new stores not only brought corporate America to Nantucket, but it also signaled an abrupt change in island spending habits. Luxury brands gave the “new money” generation a simplistic way to flaunt their economic capital to make up for their shortfall in cultural capital. Loosened ordinances were replacing the “old wealth” taste for “Nantucket Red” with the “new wealth” taste for bright pink and neon green.

One of, and maybe only, Nantucket’s impacts on the fashion world has been its connection to the color “Nantucket Red.” “Nantucket Red” is a worn in shade of pink that perfectly sums up the humble consumption habits of the islands pre-hyper rich community. I agree with Fabrikant’s article in that the “Beinecke era” tended to consume moderately and give off the impression that they consumed even less. They bought “Nantucket Red ” instead of pink because; “A family name alone was enough to place someone in the pecking order” (Fabrikant, p. 170). The difference in economic capital between summer residents was so minuscule at that time that cultural capital dictated that they all dress down to give off the appearance of being “natural.”

For the “New Money” generation of Nantucket the importance of acquiring social capital on island has not disappeared. The hyper-rich have followed the old guard in their use of philanthropy to improve their social credentials. When comparing the philanthropic activities of the “old money” generation to those philanthropic activities of the “new money” generation Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of “habitus” comes to life. Every summer, for as long as I can remember, a committee of summer residents has organized a show by the Boston Pops as a fundraiser for the island’s only hospital. The old gentility of the island were raised in an environment that allowed them to grow an appreciation and understanding of classical music (or they want to give off that impression to their peers) so they geared their philanthropy to fit their “habitus.” In the past few years a new charity has sprung up around helping finance Nantucket high school’s new hockey team. When I was working at the golf club, a few of the members had paid to have members of the New York Rangers (National Hockey League) come to Nantucket to participate in an exhibition game as part of the fundraiser. While these members had the economic capital to fly in professional hockey players for a fundraiser, their habitus guided them to hold a fundraiser that lacked Bourdieu’s standard of cultural capital.

With a lack of cultural capital and an abundance of economic capital the new generation of Nantucket’s wealthy have both created and adopted simplistic signals to distinguish themselves. One of the most commonly used signals, as pointed out in Fabrikant’s article, is their use of physical exclusion. Because they are unable to take part in cultural exclusion (historic clubs and famous home addresses) the new hyper rich are building clubs and homes that are well off the beaten path. It is difficult to be physically exclusive on an island that is just short of thirteen miles across, but somehow they succeed. Some of the largest and most expensive homes on the island are located in areas where the dirt roads are so maze-like that it makes it impossible for an outsider to find their bearings. These new found millionaires / billionaires have taken their childhood in the suburbs and used what they learned as a simplistic way to differentiate themselves from Nantucket’s old gentility.

While the “hyper-rich” seem to have a substantial lead in their class battle with the Nantucket’s “old money,” the older generation has an advantage in a signal for which the new generation is able to quantify and thus recognize: time. Being a vacation spot, summer residents are only on Nantucket for a maximum of a few months a year. Because of this summer residents are constantly trying to justify their belonging on Nantucket by quantifying how long they have been going there (After writing this sentence I looked to the top of this journal and realized that I had quantified how long I had been going to Nantucket in the first paragraph). “ How long have you been coming to Nantucket?” is a very common question asked to size up another persons class in the early stages of an interaction. When summer residents don’t have the opportunity to vocalize their years on Nantucket they have symbols to show it.

While it currently it cost over $500,000 dollars to join the Nantucket Golf Club, it wasn’t uncommon to see members driving jeeps and old station wagons, covered in bumper stickers. These members where worth millions and sometimes billions of dollars and they drove cars that were on their last breath. They drove these cars not only because driving old cars was a sign of Nantucket’s “old money” generation, but more importantly because of the stickers around the car’s bumper. Each season the Island sells a restricted number of permits to car owners that allows them to drive on beaches. These permits are bumper stickers that very in color and have the year of issue in large typeface. A collection of these permits along one’s bumper is a non-vocal signal of how long one has been vacationing on Nantucket. By replacing deteriorating car, members would be giving up a signal that is often deemed more valuable than their and their passanger’s safety. The range of cultural capital has become so vast on Nantucket that individuals have to quantify their level of belonging to be understood.