The Story Behind Mariner & Gold

FOUNDED IN FRIENDSHIP, ROOTED ON THE VINEYARD

A Letter from the Founders

From the beginning, Martha’s Vineyard was more than a summer destination for us.

For Carlisle, the island has been part of her family’s rhythm for generations. A place returned to faithfully, season after season. For Cristen, it became just as formative.

We grew up together there. From riding bicycles down sandy bike paths, grabbing the brass ring at the Flying Horses, dragging a wagon filled with beach chairs and chips to the Oak Bluffs fireworks, eating burgers from the Quarterdeck at Memorial Wharf and lingering over ice cream from Mad Martha’s and fudge from Murdick’s.

Now we take our families to these same places, eating lobsters from Larsens on overturned crates, saying hello to the sheep at Allen Farm as we drive up-island, and shooing toddlers away from the fire as we eat our annual clambake on Lobsterville beach.

The Vineyard has a particular kind of permanence. The houses weather. The docks age. But the community, people and places thankfully stay the same. Traditions are not reinvented, they are continued.

The Mariner & Gold Vineyard Collection, our line of handblown Martha's Vineyard Christmas ornaments, was born from that sensibility.

We wanted to create something worthy of being kept. An ornament that earns its place on your tree year after year, quietly becoming part of your family’s history as you reflect on the memories.

Each piece in our collection is handblown in Europe by master artisans who practice a craft passed down through generations. The process is deliberate and unhurried. No two are identical.

It is our hope that these ornaments become markers of time, of gathering, of return.

The Vineyard taught us that tradition is built slowly.

Mariner & Gold is our contribution to that quiet continuity.

With gratitude,

Cristen and Carlisle

Founders, Mariner & Gold