Nestled in a wooded corner of West Tisbury, Stillpoint has opened its doors to a bevy of potential programs and community-led discussions.
Stillpoint — while it went through a long permitting process with local regulatory bodies questioning what the nonprofit organization was seeking to do — received a provisional occupancy permit from the West Tisbury building department on Dec. 12 and will receive a final occupancy permit upon installation of air exchange units in the near future.
“It’s good enough to run classes and programs,” Thomas Bena, executive director of Stillpoint, said. The first exhibit at Stillpoint is a showcase of paintings by Lily Morris, a painter based in New York’s Hudson Valley who was born and raised on Martha’s Vineyard.
Still, there’s still plenty of work to be done for the nonprofit. Alongside facility upgrades and programming, Bena said fundraising will be a major part of the nonprofit’s activities.
Opening up the nonprofit was a three-year endeavor and Tisbury resident Ben Robinson, who was a part of Stillpoint’s programming committee and helped create the nonprofit, said the time it took to advance the project helped “edit down what we wanted to do.” Additionally, being able to reuse the barn and property was very beneficial, Robinson said.
Robinson said while there used to be mills and a farm at the location, the most recent iteration of the property was 13 subdivisions on 52 acres of land preserved by Claudia Miller. Miller offered to sell 40 acres to Stillpoint and the Martha’s Vineyard Land Bank in 2021.
Stillpoint was able to secure a $2.3 million mortgage for a “state-of-the-art barn” and $3.5 million in donations to purchase 14 acres, which expanded to 26 acres with help from the Land Bank.
In a way, Stillpoint is a public extension of Miller’s use of her barn. Bena told the Times Miller hosted small private functions at the barn and allowed people to rehearse dancing in the building.
But, what exactly is Stillpoint?
“It’s interesting that it stays more undefined,” Robinson said. “It’s really built to respond to the community.”
While it is an educational facility, representatives of the nonprofit said it will be identified more based on how the Island community uses it. Members of the community would be able to rent the space for educational and communal gatherings. Robinson said one of the first gatherings at Stillpoint was over the passing of a horse at Misty Meadows Equine Learning Center.
Bena said people have been approaching Stillpoint with ideas for potential classes, like woodworking and CPR training. And on Jan. 17, the Martha’s Vineyard Chamber Music Society will be holding a concert at the venue.
“I think that’s indicative of this kind of broad-brush stroke approach that we want,” he said, saying they’re excited to be able to facilitate ideas from community members.
There were also initial plans to host events like weddings, but this was shot down at the West Tisbury zoning board of appeals in 2023 and Stillpoint could only host events that aligned with its educational mission.
Bena said a particular program Stillpoint is looking to host starting this winter is community discussions about “prickly topics” that are of interest for the Vineyard, like housing, offshore wind, and deforestation. He said allowing people to share their perspectives uninterrupted followed by a conversation session would help “normalize listening” for topics that can be divisive.
This type of listening session was a selling point for Stillpoint when introducing the project to local regulatory officials.
Bena also said the program was inspired by a 2019 series by Jake Davies called “Inwards,” which brought together 40 people to discuss various topics at the Martha’s Vineyard Film Festival like marriage, mental health, and civility. Bena said “walls broke down” not necessarily because people were convinced of an opposing viewpoint, but because they heard participants’ personal stories.
Robinson said most of the public discourse has been online, and providing a space for people to discuss differing viewpoints “face-to-face” will add humanity to the discussion rather than the separated nature of a virtual town square.
“I think we’re going to find more common ground and understanding and acceptance to different viewpoints,” Robinson said.
Allison Simon, assistant director of Stillpoint, said this would help foster more listening for Islanders.
“This is a place where the community can come together and connect with one another, disagree with one another, to be able to experience different perspectives in the context [that you’re not] just being a keyboard warrior … reacting to every little thing someone says that you don’t like,” she said.
Simon said she hopes Stillpoint can be a place to “open people’s minds,” sharing and widening their perspectives.
