Nantucket commissioners push architects to scale down eaves, roof pitches on proposed Island Home nursing facility

Architects and the design team for the town’s Our Island Home replacement presented detailed renderings and material samples at the Nantucket Historic District Commission meeting on Jan. 21, seeking design guidance as the project moves toward bids and approvals ahead of a town-meeting vote in May.

The proposal would replace the existing Island Home nursing facility with a single-story, H-shaped building with 45 private resident rooms, two internal courtyards and a separate, three-unit Sherburne Commons staff housing building. The design team—led by Craig Piper of SMRT and project architect Mark Rogers—told commissioners the facility is being designed to passive-house principles, will include inward-facing photovoltaic arrays and place all major mechanical equipment above a mechanical attic to avoid roof-mounted equipment visible at resident level.

Commissioners said the team had resolved many earlier concerns but still must address how the building’s proportions read from the road and nearby residences. Commissioners repeatedly asked the architects to reduce the perceived scale by lowering some eave/top-plate heights, raising or resizing window heads, and simplifying roof geometry. “Putting aside all the interior programmatic stuff, what I'm like just as an architect dying to do is raise up all those windows,” Commissioner Ray said during the review, adding the current relationship between eave, head and sill makes the structure feel top-heavy.

The design team explained some drivers of the dimensions: the building is slab-on-grade with much of the HVAC distribution occupying attic/roof space, and resident rooms are sized and located with clinical and circulation needs in mind. “The idea was that the window sills were low, so they could at least have a little bit more ground plane,” Rogers said, explaining why some sills are lower than typical residential practice. The architects also confirmed they chose a non-combustible cementitious siding product (Hardi panel with a cedar-shake profile) for the nursing facility to meet federal noncombustibility requirements cited by the design team as coming from Centers for Medicare and Medicaid.

Commissioners noted several consistent themes in comments: break up the long roofline and ridge to avoid a continuous, monolithic appearance; reduce broad expanses of unrelieved roof by employing simplified gable elements or clipped hips; explore lowering the porte-cochere/covered drop-off and the building top plate where feasible; and provide larger first-floor fenestration in some wings so window proportions better match traditional Nantucket patterns. Several commissioners and neighbors encouraged use of a subdued palette with weathered or silvery-gray tones, restrained trim contrasts and careful exterior lighting to limit night-sky scatter.

On materials, the architects showed a cementitious product textured to resemble cedar shakes and said they would submit larger field mockups for HDC review and offered a full mockup during construction. Commissioners requested physical samplers on a 3x3 backer at the HDC office and confirmed the team will provide them. The team also said they plan a mockup of the roof and siding in the field and invited HDC members to participate in mockup reviews.

The project team and commissioners agreed on next steps: architects will revise drawings to address eave and window proportions, prepare larger siding mockups for the HDC office, and continue coordination with the town’s planning and Department of Public Health processes. The commission voted to accept the design team’s request to carry revisions forward and to “track” hardscape details at a future review, approving the motion unanimously.

The design remains subject to additional reviews and final HDC approvals. The architects emphasized bids are underway and that the final construction schedule and budget will inform what changes are possible before the May town meeting vote.