Island back in business

STAR ISLAND, N.H. -- This placid island 7 miles off the coast is a place of deep attachments for visitors.

Hundreds return each summer, like their parents and grandparents before them, to attend religious retreats and educational seminars on the island, with its candlelit stone chapel, rows of line-drying laundry, arranged according to the colors of the rainbow, and preferred pastimes of reflection and meditation.

"If people could give birth here, they would," said Kristin Laverty of Plymouth, Mass., whose grandparents and parents summered at Star lsland, which is owned and operated by a nonprofit corporation affiliated with the Unitarian Universalist Association and the United Church of Christ.

So when word came in June, days before the island was to open for summer visitors, that the fire chief of the nearby town of Rye, N.H., had closed the island and ordered extensive repairs to wiring in the hotel, reactions came fast and furious. Angry e-mails flooded the island's offices. Phone callers spewed blame and anger.

"People went a little mental," Laverty said.

After a month of work and anxiety, officials opened the island yesterday amid cries of joy and relief. Financially, the island is still in recovery. The lost month cost the island an estimated $1 million.

"This revenue loss is a huge challenge," said Amy Lockwood , executive director of Star Island Corp . "It's about half our annual revenue."

Lockwood said that the corporation's endowment has loaned the island money to get through the season, and a fund-raising effort is underway that includes a classical music concert in Surrey, England, on Sept. 8, and a Yoga-a-Thon in nearby Dover, N.H., on Sept. 22.

The island buzzed with activity last week as 120 workers -- some of whom grew up coming to the island -- readied the sprawling Oceanic Hotel and cottages for the arrival of guests. Amid squawks of gulls and lapping waves, workers took advantage of the extra time without visitors to make preparations. They hammered a new roof on a cottage and looked over the island's generator and desalinization system. Yet, many island regulars were still recovering from the shock of its closure.

"This was like a death in the family," said Sally Sapienza, 59, of Dartmouth, who has returned to the island each summer since 2003, when she worked as curator of a museum on the island. "Part of its mission is to take care of people, and that failure of not being able to be there for us when we needed it was such a heartbreak."

Sapienza said she has tried for years to explain her devotion to the island, and her explanation goes something like this:

"When you are miles out, isolated, the community depends on each other. You relate to people out there in a unique way, so you feel a connection that you don't feel in your own town."

Star Island is the second-largest of nine islands that make up the Isle of Shoals, four of which lie in New Hampshire, and five in Maine. Modern history on Star Island dates to the 17th century, when hard-drinking fishermen caught cod and dried it on the rocky coastline. Sailors dubbed it "Star Island" in 1651 because the island's "points stretch out in all directions like flashes of a distant star," according to the Star Island Corp. website .

The island was evacuated during the Revolutionary War, and revived in 1873 when John Poor built a grand hotel, The Oceanic. The hotel burned nearly a year later but was rebuilt and remains a focus of island life. In 1897, the religious conference era began when a Unitarian leader held an annual church meeting on Star because he believed the sea air would help his ailing wife. The meetings became popular and in 1916, the Star Island Corp . purchased the Oceanic Hotel and island.

Today the island is closed to visitors in winter, and meetings are booked through the summer. They average 260 participants and last from a few days to a week. While some have a religious focus, topics range from international affairs to natural history to creative writing. Each is attended by a "minister" who is generally, but not necessarily, ordained, and who holds non mandatory services in Gosport Church, the stone chapel where lanterns hang from white walls.

Costs of island stays are low, by summer New England standards. (Anyone may visit for the day, but only conference attendees may stay overnight.) An adult single room averages about $100 per night, which includes three meals in the hotel's family-style dining room. Accommodations are simple.

"It's not the Marriott," said Leslie Lowry, 73, of Bedford, Mass., a retired systems engineer who has visited the island nearly every year since 1968. This year, she is working at the hotel lobby store.

Entertainment, too, is low-tech: swimming in the ocean before breakfast, or "polar bearing," rowing a boat to nearby Smuttynose Island, sitting on a rocking chair on the veranda, and watching the sunset from a gazebo and running up the hill to see it again at the chapel.

There still is worry for the island, where fire and restoration have woven through its history. But there, too, is hope that problems have been addressed.

"With a 130-year-old building, you have to take time to maintain it," said Marit Wilson , 20, a Mount Holyoke student who is curator of the island museum this summer. "So it's a relief to know that it's being taken care of."

Sarah Schweitzer can be reached at schweitzer@globe.com.