There are also chairs made out of recycled corrugated cardboard. Ayurvedic bathroom soap so organic it has an expiration date. Luxury hemp towels. Organic wheat grass juice for breakfast.
It seems a bit out of context here in quaint and preppy Nantucket (average home price:$2.3 million ). If the island had a color, it wouldn't be green, but pink and green, or maybe red, to coordinate with the ubiquitous brick-red Nantucket Reds canvas slacks from venerable Murray's Toggery Shop.
But this is not familiar old Nantucket anymore, at least not this little corner of it in the historical district around Centre and Chestnut streets. It is Vantucket, where the enterprising Noel has been steadily acquiring real estate and putting her chic, trendy imprimat ur on all she owns.
Her holdings include a boutique hotel called the Vanessa Noel Hotel. A shoe boutique called Vanessa Noel which sells her two shoe labels, ``Vanessa Noel" and ``Vanno." The Vanno Bar. The Seven Seas gift shop, which she describes as ``a highly designed wonderful antiques and fine art gift shop for adults."
Most recently, there is the 10-room Hotel Green in the building that used to be a ``dodgy little guest house," says Noel. Now the 1837 Greek Revival edifice feels more New York than New York, which seems to be the point. The Vanessa Noel hotel is ``Park Avenue Chic," says Noel. ``Hotel Green is Soho Chic."
All this hip New York chic doesn't sit well with everyone on Nantucket, an island where neon signs are prohibited and which is doggedly resistant to change. When a Ralph Lauren store opened recently on Main Street, ``people had a stroke," says Liz Winship, who owns the Nantucket Looms shop and sold her building to Ralph Lauren, moving to another spot nearby. ``People were having a nervous breakdown."
