Colin Whyte
Founding Principal and Owner
Martha’s Vineyard has felt like home to Colin Whyte since he first discovered it in 1965 when he and a friend started a surfboard rental business at South Beach. After brief studies at University of Florida Law School and art at Brown University Graduate School (his alma mater), Colin moved permanently to the Island and established Martha’s Vineyard Construction Company in 1971—a humble beginning that launched a rewarding lifelong career.
Colin took a circuitous route to find his calling. Born and raised in Miami Shores, Florida, he attended an all-boys preparatory school in Tennessee before moving farther north to attend Brown University in Providence, RI. During summer breaks he worked as a house-mover in Miami, a door-to-door dictionary salesman in Texas and California, an intern for a U.S. Senator in Washington, D.C., and bartender and carpenter on the Vineyard—earning his pilot’s license along the way.
Colin’s flying took him as far west as Yellowstone and Telluride, as far south as the Dominican Republic, numerous trips up and down the east coast, the Bahamas, and the Turk and Caicos Islands.
He worked for 10 years in his spare time on a floatplane conversion of a two place land plane. He also holds a patent for a portable dredge.
Boating has now replaced flying for Colin, first with a Tartan 27 sailboat and more recently with the 38’ trawler “Tortuga” which has made six journeys between Martha’s Vineyard and Florida.
Nearly 50 years after founding MVCC, Colin remains passionate about his career, involved in every project, and proud to be regarded as one of the most esteemed general contractors on Martha’s Vineyard.
