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A look inside Nantucket’s White Elephant luxury hotel after a multi-million dollar renovation
The hotel's renovated rooms and suites open on Thursday.
White Elephant, the iconic harborside hotel on Nantucket, is celebrating its 100th anniversary with a multi-million dollar makeover just in time for the 2023 summer season.
The hotel has undergone “a bright, airy, residential-inspired refresh” by Boston-based Elkus Manfredi Architects, hotel officials said in a statement. The hotel’s 54 renovated rooms and suites open Thursday and its 11 cottages open on May 15.
Upon entering the redesigned lobby, guests are met with a large-scale commissioned artwork by Israeli painter Orit Fuchs, featuring a harborside scene of a woman in a rowboat floating by the White Elephant. The lobby’s concierge and reception area is now “more approachable” and retail space has been expanded, according to the hotel.
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The island’s history fueled the team’s redesign decisions when replacing the property’s furniture, fixtures, and carpets, according to the hotel.
The 375- to 450 square-foot guest rooms feature textile patterns that draw on the island’s basket-weaving history, exterior shiplights that are a nod to its seafaring traditions, and rattan textiles, white oak, scalloped headboards and lampshades, and grasscloth wall coverings that are inspired by the island’s coastal surroundings. The rooms are done in Labrador blues and seafoam greens.
Finishing touches in the rooms include brass elephant knockers on doors, elephant door and drawer pulls, and elephant needlepoint pillows.
The hotel’s one, two, and three-bedroom cottages, which are between 400 and 900 square feet, are decorated and styled after native plants of Nantucket: Bayberry, Hydrangea, Daylily, Beachplum, Honeysuckle, Holly, Arrowwood, Marigold, Rosa Rugosa, and Snapdragon. For example, the Honeysuckle cottage boasts tones of buttery yellow, and the Beachplum cottage is done in pale lavender.
Original art peppers the property as a result of the hotel’s all-new Artist in Residency Program, which launched last year.
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“New York based art consultant and curator Emily Santangelo worked closely with White Elephant’s owners, the Karp family, to create a residency made up of acclaimed artists from around the world,” hotel officials said in a statement. “The artists spent two weeks exploring the island to gather inspiration for their works, venturing to some parts of the island only accessible by boat.”
As a result, the property’s art includes watercolors of Nantucket flora by painter Mary Chandler, beachside photographs by photographer Thomas Jackson, landscape portraits by Maine-based painter Greta van Campen, and more.
White Elephant’s seasonal nightly rates start at $375 for a guest room, $675 for a suite, $775 for a one-bedroom cottage, and $1,275 for two- and three-bedroom cottages.
White Elephant Resorts is a collection of premier hotels on Nantucket that also include White Elephant Palm Beach, the resort’s first out-of-state property that opened in 2020. Elkus Manfredi Architects also designed the South Florida hotel.
White Elephant was named among the best waterfront hotels in America by USA Today readers and Country Living named Nantucket one of the nation’s most magical island getaways in part due to White Elephant.
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