Stan Hart Red Cat Bookshop and Cafe

Stan Hart (1929 -2010) grew up summers in the Hart Haven community in Oak Bluffs amongst many aunts, uncles, cousins, and good friends. After college and service in the US Air Force, Stan worked for publishing companies in New York and Boston. Disillusioned with life in the city, he moved to the Vineyard and opened the Red Cat Bookstore and Café in the building that formerly housed the NorthTisbury Post Office (c. 1850 -1918) at the foot of the North Road in West Tisbury. Stan created a welcoming gathering place for persons of artistic and literary bent on the Vineyard and amassed a wonderfully eclectic stock of books. After closing the Red Cat, Stan wrote and published eight books on the many interests that filled his full life and raised his children. In this excerpt from a 1984 interview, he talks with Linsey Lee about times at the Red Cat. It is clear that, as his obituary said, he was “... always engaged in the wondrous exchange of human experience. His stories, both written and told, will live on.”
For more information about the oral history collection at the Martha's Vineyard Museum visit mvmuseum.org