In the 1970s, Madeleine Blais’s in-laws purchased a holiday house on Martha’s Vineyard for the exorbitant sum of $80,000. 2.2 miles straight down a poorly marked, one lane dirt road, the house was better termed a shack-it had zero electricity, zero modern domestic plumbing, the roofing leaked, and mice had invaded the walls. It was ideal.

Sitting on Tisbury Great Pond-well-stocked with oysters and crab for foraged dinners-the home faced the sea and the sky, and though it had been eventually replaced with a sturdier structure, the ethos continued to be the same: no heat, zero TV, and no phone. Instead, there were a lot of time at the seaside, meals prepared and savored with close friends, nights talking beneath the superstars, until at last, the house was sold in 2014.

To the New Owners is Madeleine Blais’s charming, evocative memoir of the house, and of the Vineyard itself-from the annals from the island and its own famous visitors to the ferry, the pie shops, the quirky charms and customs, and the abundant natural splendor. But a lot more than that, that is an elegy for a special place.