Vestal House VR room
The room is 1 Vestal Street, the 1790 Swain–Mitchell house, not the 1908 observatory next door. Maria was born here in 1818 and observed from its narrow roof-walk until the family sold the house in early 1837 and moved above the Pacific National Bank.
Do not stage 1 October 1847 as if it happened on this ridge. MMA’s own biography and the Antiquarian Astronomer reconstruction put that night on the bank roof. This VR is the house that made her. The comet is a linked scene with a label.
1. What the visitor is doing
Duration: 12–18 minutes seated, or 20 if they take every object.
- Fade in on the sitting-room floor. Captions + cutoff card: Interpretation. Sources dated to the 1830s in this house. She left this roof in 1837.
- Look around. Optional object highlights (glass ball, Dollond on its stand, “Do not knock” card).
- Climb (teleport rungs, not a locomotion ladder) to the roof-walk.
- Authored sweep: 8–10 minutes. Default night is 12 February 1831 (annular eclipse; she is 12½, counting seconds for William) or a composite clear 1830s sweep as adult Maria remembering this roof. Pick one dated self and print it.
- In-character Q&A on the walk, corpus-bound.
- Optional door: “The night of the comet was not this roof.” Teleport to a spare Pacific Bank roof scene (flat tar, wooden instrument store, 2.7-inch Dollond, 10:50 p.m., Cepheus, 5° from Polaris).
- Drop character. MMA clerk or caption: editions, actor, 1908 observatory is next door and is not hers.
Chautauqua clock holds.
2. Building (match HABS MA-420)
Typical Nantucket four-bay house, c. 1770–1830 type: no symmetry, off-center door and chimney, uneven window widths, unpainted cedar weathered grey. Hezekiah Swain 1790. William Mitchell bought it 1818.
| Volume | Date | VR treatment |
|---|---|---|
| Main block, two stories | 1790 | Fully built |
| Kitchen addition | 1825 | Built — this is the house she swept from as a teenager |
| Summer kitchen | c. 1850 | Omit if the dated self is 1831/1836 |
| Staff quarters | 1933 | Omit |
| 1908 observatory / 1922 Study | later parcel | Visible as a ghost mass only if the visitor looks east after beat 3, labeled “built 1908” |
Roof-walk. Original blown off in an 1855 gale. Replaced 1915, again mid-20th c., again 2026 (now sits ~6″ above the ridge for air). MMA is explicit: these walks are for chimney fire, not “widow’s walks.”
VR walk: narrow board floor, single railing, hatch with screen, historically lower than the 2026 rebuild. Do not copy the current six-inch float if you are dating 1831. Hatch is the only legal climb path (teleport).
No HVAC in the real house; air rises through the hatch. Use that as sound: wind at the opening, quieter rooms below.
3. Rooms to build (and not)
Build four playable volumes. Everything else is a closed door.
Sitting room (spawn)
Floral wallpaper, pink roses (MMA education copy). From the ceiling William hung a glass ball filled with water for polarization experiments — “dancing rainbows.” This is the signature prop. Fireplace on the shared chimney. Spare Quaker furniture. No gilt.
Parlor (front, two bays to the right of the off-center entry)
Simple. Party bleed if you use the “slipped out of company” motif — but that motif belongs to 1847 at the bank. Here: low voices, a clock, no crowd simulation.
Upstairs hall + closet study
HABS: tiny closet at the front of the upstairs hall, large eighteen-light window, built as Maria’s study from leftover 1825 kitchen wood. Card on the wall in her hand: “Miss Mitchell is busy. Do not knock.” This is the best close-up of her face in the house. Desk, ephemeris, lamp. Do not over-dress it.
Roof-walk (hero)
Board deck the width of a Nantucket walk — tight. Dollond 2.75-inch brass refractor on a simple alt-az stand (the “Little Dollond”). Lantern. October or February air. Town lights few; harbor glow to the north-east; Polaris findable. Cepheus only in the bank scene.
Do not build: cellar, 1933 wing, gift-shop overlay, a full second-floor bedroom set, Loines, or the 1908 dome as her workplace.
4. Sky and instrument
| Scene | Sky | Instrument |
|---|---|---|
| 12 Feb 1831 | Annular eclipse geometry for Nantucket that afternoon/evening — check almanac before lock | Father’s instrument; she counts seconds |
| Generic 1830s sweep | Winter/autumn star field, no anachronistic satellites, no ISS | 2.75″ Dollond |
| 1 Oct 1847 (bank only) | C/1847 T1: ~7th mag at 22:50, 5° from Polaris in Cepheus; hyperbolic, northern window short | 2.7″ Dollond on bank roof + wooden store |
Sweep mechanic: visitor may watch her horizontal/vertical 2° field routine (Antiquarian Astronomer: 2–3 hours of slow sweeps). They do not have to find the comet. If they grab the tube, snap to a guided look, don’t let them “discover” 1847 on the wrong building.
5. Maria in the room
- Dated self on the splash. Default recommendation: adult Maria, ~1836, last winters on this walk, speaking back to the 1831 eclipse. Voice from the Kendall/Albers Nantucket chapters.
- Alternate school program: 12½-year-old counter for the eclipse, with William as a second, quieter figure (not a dual debate).
- Wardrobe: Quaker plain, grey-brown, no costume-shop bonnet wings.
- Motion: careful hatch climb, settled stance at the rail, cheek to the brass. Idle = breath, cold hands, glance at the hatch when someone below calls.
- She will not discuss Vassar, Denver 1878, or NASA from this roof unless beat 3.
6. Audio
- Wind at the hatch; muffled party or kettle only if the dated self allows.
- No score under the monologue.
- Captions always. Night-sky contrast: pale cream on charcoal, not thin gold.
- If William speaks, he is credited as an actor too.
7. Performance and comfort
- Quest 3 / 3S, seated default. Teleport only. Comfort vignette at the hatch.
- Scale 1:1. The walk is narrow on purpose; guardian bounds = the railing.
- LOD: Optimized MetaHuman. Hair cards, not strands. Interior light is lamps, not Lumen show-off.
- Offline: monologue + look-around. Q&A only on MMA or Atheneum SSID.
- Session cap 20 minutes so summer groups turn over.
Physical install: two headsets at Hinchman / Study seminar room, not on the historic walk (easement; nobody belongs on the real ridge).
8. Label copy (lock this)
This room is the Mitchell house at 1 Vestal Street as it could be known in the 1830s. Maria Mitchell observed from its roof-walk until 1837. The comet of 1 October 1847 was found from the roof of the Pacific National Bank, where the family then lived. The observatory next door was dedicated in 1908. This is an interpretation. It can be wrong.
That sentence is the difference between a museum piece and a souvenir.
9. Build list
| Asset | Notes |
|---|---|
| Exterior grey four-bay + 1825 kitchen | HABS proportions |
| Sitting room + glass ball | Hero interior |
| Stair + hatch | Teleport volumes |
| Closet study + 18-light window + card | Close-up |
| Roof-walk 1830s profile | Not the 2026 float |
| Dollond + stand | Match the object in the house |
| Night sky rig | Two presets + bank preset |
| Bank roof kit (minimal) | Linked scene only |
| Maria LOD + 1830s wardrobe | Shared with kiosk |
| Beat-3 slate | Credits, cutoff, editions |
Art pass with MMA curator before lock. The glass ball, the study card, and the wrong-roof problem are the three things they will notice first.
10. Relation to the rest of the season
Street AR at the real yard is a postcard of this room, 60–90 seconds. The 1908 Study kiosk is the object lesson (Clark, not Dollond) with a sign that she never worked in that dome. Loines night program stays a living astronomer.
Do not merge house, bank, and 1908 dome into one “Maria’s observatory.” Three dates, three roofs, one woman.