Nantucket Quarterboard Company Continues Cherished Island Tradition

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(Nantucket, Mass) June 4, 2026 — When Kelly Emery founded Nantucket Quarterboard Company during lockdown, he thought it was a great way to honor Nantucket’s maritime heritage, provide a useful service to people, and some of the craftsmanship required was related to his previous work of crafting outdoor sculptural musical instruments.

He never imagined that one day he would be creating dozens of quarterboards for the interior of a Navy ship, the USS Nantucket (LCS 27), all of them named for Nantucket locations. He also never imagined that programming proprietary software would be part of the job, but this summer, his sixth in business, he has launched an online configurator to allow people to design their own quarterboards through his website. He also has two other online configurators, one for house number signs and one for Nantucket street signs.

“I wanted to start my own business, and I wanted it to have a strong connection to Nantucket,” says Emery, a Nantucket native. “The signs are made on island. To me, it’s important that a local business is producing quarterboards, because they are such a unique part of the island’s history. All of my designs are based on historical Nantucket quarterboard designs.”

Growing up on island, Emery appreciated quarterboards as part of Nantucket’s built environment, but making the ornamental signs was a learning process that involved trial and error to discover best practices and produce a high-quality, durable product. The company started from the ground up and has established a strong presence on island and beyond. Now in its sixth year in business, it’s poised to have made more than five hundred signs by the end of 2026.

In addition to quarterboards, Emery makes business signs, house numbers, and street name signs, and it also refurbishes quarterboards. The company offers a growing list of design options for quarterboards as well as custom designs, gold leaf, and other metallic accents. Emery draws inspiration for designs and approaches from both Nantucket history and his wide-ranging international travels in the off-season.

New for the 2026 season are:

• Three online configurators to allow people to experiment with designs and font styles for quarterboards, house numbers, and street signs
• A blog featuring news about signs
• New quarterboard designs: the Moby-Dick with a 3D whale’s tail on each end and the Rothschild
• A rental option providing quarterboards and signage for weddings and other events

During the summer season, Nantucket Quarterboard Company is a regular presence at the Sustainable Nantucket Farmers and Artisans Market as well as select pop-ups, and year-round it can be found online at www.quarterboards.com and on Instagram @nantucketquarterboard.

“It’s a lot of fun seeing the house names people come up with and hearing the stories behind those names,” Emery says. “Some people know right away and some people agonize over it and change the name many times.”

The company’s recent clients include the USS Nantucket (LSC27), a Navy ship that commissioned thirty custom quarterboards, each named after a place on Nantucket. The signs were white with Nantucket blue lettering and trim except for three signs for the officers’ quarters that were lettered in gold. That project was funded by the Great Harbor Yacht Club. In addition to homeowners ordering quarterboards for their houses, other business clients have included Nantucket Pharmacy, Stubbys, Jimmy Choo, Nantucket Crisps, Chadtucket, Dairy Boy, Cailini Coastal, Nantucket Land Bank, and the Nantucket Atheneum.

About Quarterboards

Quarterboards displayed ships’ names and are called quarterboards from their position on the aft quarter of ships; after the war of 1812, the US government required ships to have their names affixed to distinguish legitimate vessels from pirate ships. The large number of shipwrecks off Nantucket led to islanders salvaging ships’ signs and displaying them, which evolved into today’s practice of ornamental quarterboards with house names.

About Nantucket Quarterboard Company and Kelly Emery, Founder and Owner

Nantucket Quarterboard Company was founded in late 2020. Emery created his first sign, a gift for his father, in a makers’ lab in Colorado, where he spent part of lockdown before moving back to Nantucket. Establishing his own business was inspired both by Nantucket’s strong tradition of craftsmanship and by his parents, who both created businesses on island—his father founded Indian Summer Board Shop in the late 1970s (now Broad Street Surf Shop) and his mother founded and ran the Nantucket Sewing Center on Main Street for more than thirty years. Emery is also a professional trumpet player who plays in the local reggae/rock band Foggy Roots and with other bands both on- and off-island. He previously made outdoor instruments, including an aluminum xylophone that he installed at Tom Nevers Field in 2019.

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