The Best Hotels in Vineyard Haven

Six former sea captains' houses, connected into one hotel in Vineyard Haven, hold the kind of bones that renovation budgets dream about. Faraway Martha's Vineyard has been around forever under various names, and the current owners have modernized without sanding off the character, which is a harder trick than it sounds on an island where "historic" can tip into "dusty." The Michelin Guide awarded it one Key.

A short walk uphill from the Vineyard Haven dock, this boutique inn sits on a bluff inside an old Arts and Crafts house that once belonged to the island doctor. The new owners gutted the fussy interiors and replaced them with open living areas, polished hardwood, picture windows, and a serious art collection, Philippe Starck and Marcel Wanders among the contributors. The Michelin Guide awarded it one Key.

A Victorian inn in Edgartown that swapped its antique-shop interiors for mid-century modern and French Caribbean color, which in staid Edgartown is practically a provocation. Lark Hotels runs it, and their habit of giving buttoned-up properties a loosened collar is visible everywhere. Fifteen rooms keeps it small enough that the whole thing feels like staying with someone who has very good taste and no interest in being predictable.

A former sea captain's house on Edgartown's Main Street, converted into a 16-room boutique hotel with the kind of quiet, unhurried atmosphere that makes you feel slightly more important than you are. Lark Hotels runs several properties in the area, and each one picks up the local tone; this one leans into the old-money-by-the-water feeling without being stuffy about it. A Michelin Selected Hotel.