Tradition guides the lights in Oak Bluffs

The camp, a collection of concentric circles of tiny Victorian gingerbread houses, is a National Historic Landmark. Still, one can forgive a visitor’s perception of the campground as a movie set, an open-air museum, or a seasonal dollhouse display.

Peter Jones, a lifelong summer resident, says he is often asked, “Do you put the houses away in the winter and set them back up in the summer?’’

Sally Dagnall, the campground’s unofficial historian, says she is routinely asked, “Do real people live here?’’ Her stock answer is “No, I’m a Disney animation.’’

Visiting this summer enclave last August to behold its annual festival of light, I disembarked from the ferry in midafternoon under suffocating humidity. My companion and I opted to trudge the few blocks to our digs at the three-story Pequot Hotel, where there wasn’t an empty rocking chair on its shady veranda.

After freshening up, we took in honky-tonk Circuit Avenue, Oak Bluffs’ main drag. In the magical light of late afternoon, we ventured down a lane and into the campground, where its 315 miniature “painted ladies’’ featured Gothic archways, pointy steeples, tiny turrets, and cut-out designs in the shape of everything from tulips to geese. The closely spaced cottages were painted in sherbet shades of lemon, pistachio, tangerine, and raspberry, the lanterns strung from the near-touching rooflines resembling dripping icing.

Homeowners were perched on porches, proud to tell visitors the history of their houses and the lanterns bejeweling them. It was hard to tell who enjoyed the people-watching more, the residents or the visitors strolling the grounds at this hour.

Ernie Mallory enjoyed a rum and Coke on his front porch. Floating from the rafters was a platoon of miniature hot air balloons, each one a memento of balloon festivals around the world in which Ernie has participated. He saw his first hot air balloon on Martha’s Vineyard 25 years ago. Ernie, in his 80s, was celebrating Illumination Night with four generations of family and a mac and cheese dinner.