Faraway Nantucket

A Street That Sets the Tone

Centre Street in Nantucket's historic district functions as a kind of condensed argument for what the island does well: shingled facades, deliberately narrow sidewalks, and a building stock that predates the republic in places. It is the kind of address that filters guests before they arrive. Faraway Nantucket sits at number 29, and the street itself is already doing editorial work before anyone reaches the front door. Properties that choose this location are, in most cases, making a statement about physical rootedness over poolside programming, and that choice shapes everything about the experience inside.

Nantucket's accommodation market has split more sharply in recent years between large-footprint resort hotels oriented around harbour views and amenity counts, and a smaller cohort of design-conscious properties where the building is the proposition. Faraway belongs to the second group, alongside peers like Greydon House and Life House, Nantucket, which share a broadly similar approach: fewer rooms, more architectural attention, and a competitive set defined by character rather than square footage.

Michelin Selected in a Town That Earns It

The Michelin Selected designation in the 2025 U.S. hotels guide carries a specific meaning worth clarifying. It is not a star count; it is a quality endorsement at a level below the Michelin Key tiers, applied to properties the inspectors consider worth recommending to the guide's readers. In a market like Nantucket, where seasonal demand is high and the range between a functional guesthouse and a carefully considered hotel is wide, that distinction matters as a sorting signal. Faraway Nantucket's inclusion places it in a verified tier of the island's accommodation offer, distinct from properties that rely on location or heritage alone.

For context, other Nantucket properties operating in adjacent or overlapping tiers include The Wauwinet, which occupies a more remote harbour-facing position, and 21 Broad, which anchors a different part of the town centre. The Brant and 76 Main Ink Press Hotel complete a set of in-town properties that compete on design sensibility and walkability rather than resort infrastructure.

Architecture as the Central Argument

The architectural identity of Nantucket's premium hotel tier is not accidental. The island sits inside one of the largest historic districts in the United States, with preservation rules that govern facades, materials, and massing in ways that constrain and, in the right hands, concentrate design intelligence. The result, across the better properties, is a particular kind of hotel: one where the building's history is load-bearing in both structural and experiential terms.

Faraway Nantucket's Centre Street position places it inside that preservation logic. The experience of arriving at a building on this street carries a texture that hotels built from scratch on cleared land cannot replicate, regardless of budget. Restoration-oriented properties in this district must do most of their visual work within tight parameters: material honesty, interior light, proportion, and the specific grammar of New England vernacular architecture. Where that work is done well, the building reads as a coherent object rather than a container for amenities.

That approach has analogues in the broader American small-hotel sector. Properties like Troutbeck in Amenia and SingleThread Farm Inn in Healdsburg occupy a similar niche nationally: buildings with significant historical presence, operated at a scale where the guest-to-space ratio stays deliberately low. At the international level, properties like Aman Venice apply the same principle at a different price tier, but the underlying logic is consistent: the building is the experience, not merely its address.

Placing Faraway in the Nantucket Context

Nantucket receives the majority of its visitors between late June and early September, with shoulder seasons in May, early June, and October drawing a more local-knowledge crowd. The island's ferry access from Hyannis and Harwich Port, combined with a small regional airport, creates a natural constraint on volume that keeps the overall visitor profile skewed toward intentional travellers.

For travellers calibrating where Faraway Nantucket sits relative to other New England options, the relevant comparison points are not the large resort hotels of Cape Cod but rather the design-led boutique segment: properties like Raffles Boston or, at greater geographic remove, The Fifth Avenue Hotel in New York City, where architectural identity carries as much commercial weight as amenity specification.

Among on-island alternatives, The Cottages at Nantucket Boat Basin and The Blue Iris represent different format choices within the same price tier, with the boat basin location offering a harbour-adjacent experience that trades neighbourhood texture for a more overtly maritime setting.

Planning Considerations

Nantucket's hotel market books early in peak season, and properties in the historic district, with their fixed room counts and no expansion capacity, are among the first to fill. Faraway Nantucket's location at 29 Centre Street makes it walkable to the main commercial streets, ferry docks, and the majority of the island's dining options. Guests arriving by ferry land at Steamship Wharf, a short walk from the property. Those flying into Nantucket Memorial Airport can reach the town centre by taxi in under ten minutes. Current booking details and availability are best confirmed directly, as the venue's contact information was not available at time of publication. For a broader view of the island's dining and hospitality options, the full Nantucket guide covers the category in more depth.