Just as Alix Madsen is finishing up architectural school, Adelaide Kingsley dies and wills her, for one year, the use of a charming nineteenth-century Nantucket house. The elderly woman's relationship to the Madsen family is a mystery to the spirited Alix, fresh from a romantic breakup, but for reasons of her own Alix accepts the quirky bequest, in part because it gives her time to plan her best friend's storybook wedding.