Gingerbread Houses Oak Bluffs Walking Tour Part 1

Walk around the Gingerbread Cottages in Oak Bluffs on this virtual tour. In 1835 a group of Methodists started holding summer camp meetings on this site. It grew into a seasonal community of fancifully ornate summer cottages centered around a tabernacle that still operates as a meeting place and holds church services. The Cottages are home to an annual “Illumination Night” every August, an event dating back to the late 1800’s in which all of the homes are covered with Japanese lanterns, and every home lights them simultaneously. The lighting is preceded by a community sing in the Tabernacle with the Vineyard Haven Band, and the whole thing is small-town America at its most old-fashioned.

The Campground is a 34-acre National Historic Landmark, designated in 2005, and the story starts in 1835, when a group of Methodists pitched nine canvas tents for a summer camp meeting in an oak grove they named Wesleyan Grove. By 1860 the August "Big Sunday" service was drawing an estimated 12,000 people. Between 1859 and 1864 island carpenters began replacing the tents with tiny wooden cottages in an exuberant Carpenter Gothic style: pointed arches, scrollwork along every eave, and paint in every color a hardware store could mix. More than 300 of the original roughly 500 cottages survive, arranged in circles and lanes around the open-air Tabernacle, the cast-iron pavilion of 1879 with seating for well over a thousand. Trinity Methodist Church, beside it, went up in 1878.

Walking the lanes is free at any hour and it is one of the most photographed places in New England, so the etiquette is simple: these are people's summer homes, so stay on the lanes, keep voices down, and admire the porches from the path. For the stories behind them, the Camp Meeting Association runs guided walks at 11 a.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays in July and August, $15 a person and free for children 12 and under, about 90 minutes, with admission to the Cottage Museum included.

The Association’s own map, posted on the green notice boards around the grounds, marks seven points of interest: the Tabernacle (1879), Trinity Church (1878), the Association Building (1859), the Cottage Museum, the old firehouse that is now the Shaw Gallery, the Attleboro House (1874) and the old Wesley House of 1879, which is today the Summercamp hotel. The same sheet spells out the house rules: the Landmark is a two to five minute walk from the harbor and free to enter; the cottages are private homes, so take your pictures from the roads and walkways during the day; the Cottage Museum is open seven days a week in season; and when nothing is scheduled the Tabernacle is open to visitors, but it remains a place of worship, so food and drink stay outside.

Grand Illumination Night is the one evening of the year when every porch lights its lanterns at once. It falls on a Wednesday in the second half of August (August 19 in 2026, with a rain date the next day), opens with a community sing in the Tabernacle at 7 p.m., and the first lantern is lit around dusk. It is free, it draws something like ten thousand people, and the evening ferries from Oak Bluffs are usually redirected to Vineyard Haven afterward. Our Grand Illumination guide has the timing, the history and how to see it without the crush.

Read the porches as you go. Most cottages carry a name board under the gable and many add the year they were built; along one lane Bell Buoy and Deschenaux both say 1867, and a few doors down a white cottage with lavender trim calls itself Family Treasure. The colors are the owners’ choice and change with repainting, so the lane never looks quite the same two summers running.

The porches are the point: rockers, a swing, a balcony over the door, and in the evening the people who own them, sitting out. Say hello from the lane; the porch is theirs.

The lanes on the harbor side are the narrowest in the Campground. Rustic Avenue has a grey-shingled cottage with turquoise and lavender trim and a mansard roof next to the Attleboro House, and from the lane behind it the roof of Summercamp, the big 1879 hotel on Lake Avenue, shows above the porches.

The walk can start on Lake Avenue, opposite Nancy’s and the harbor. The cottages along that side face the street with their porches and rocking chairs, and one or two hang a Vacancy sign in season; the entrance arch to the Campground is a few steps further along.

The loop comes back past Trinity Methodist Church, the yellow Gothic church of 1878 that stands beside the Tabernacle, and the Cottage Museum next to it. Trinity is still a working congregation, not a museum piece: the board by the door lists Sunday worship at 10 in the morning with Sunday school in the Parish House after it, and says plainly that all are welcome.

Location: Gingerbread Houses Oak Bluffs Walking Tour Martha's Vineyard , Massachusetts, USA

Filmed May 2021The island moves on: shops, signs and prices may differ from what you see here. The text of this guide was checked September 2026.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What are the gingerbread cottages?

The Carpenter Gothic summer cottages of the Camp Meeting Association campground in Oak Bluffs: pointed arches, scrollwork along every eave and paint in every color, built from 1859 onward to replace the tents of the Methodist camp meetings that began in 1835. More than 300 of the original roughly 500 survive around the Tabernacle.

Is it free to walk the lanes?

Yes, and open all year. The 34-acre campground has been a National Historic Landmark since 2005.

What is the Tabernacle?

The cast-iron open-air pavilion of 1879 with seating for well over a thousand, still used for meetings and church services. Trinity Methodist Church beside it went up in 1878.

What is Illumination Night?

One evening in August when every cottage hangs Japanese lanterns and lights them at the same moment after a community sing with the Vineyard Haven Band in the Tabernacle, a tradition since the late 1800s. Our Grand Illumination guide has the date and the timing.

How big were the camp meetings?

By 1860 the August “Big Sunday” service drew an estimated 12,000 people to Wesleyan Grove.

Exploring the town? Start with our complete Oak Bluffs guide: food, beaches, parking and the local rhythm, all in one place.