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WBM july 2011
She attributes that connection
to the Mount Olive
home place in which she was
born, in which her mother
was born, where her mother spent her
entire life, and where Estelle lived with
her grandmother.
“We never moved and I just
thought people had houses and lived
in them forever,” Estelle says.
With a family history of generations
gathered beneath one roof, the Baker
home is also a home away from home
for the couple’s two adult children
and their spouses, and the Bakers’ six
grandchildren, ages 6 to 17.
Both eastern North Carolina
natives, Estelle and Johnnie settled
permanently in Wrightsville Beach
in 1970 moving into a cottage on
Greensboro Street where they reared
their children, Allison and Jay.
Johnnie commuted to Charlotte for
the next 25 years where he owned and
operated an environmental testing
lab. When the chance to sell out and
move the lab to the coast surfaced,
the Bakers invested in the waterfront
property on Airlie Road where they
built a restaurant instead, opening
the Bridge Tender in 1976. The
lab went to Wilmington. The house
that anchors the corner of Airlie and
Stokely Avenue came along in 1995.
Built by Chris Stone and Robert
Montgomery, Estelle says she began
designing the house in her head at least
five years before they broke ground.
“I wanted a dining room; I knew
I wanted a living room and they had
to be separate. I wanted a symmetrical
house, a house that looked like it
belonged here. It had to have a front
porch,” she emphasizes. “That was
probably the most important thing. I
cannot stand a winky porch,” she says,
“I have to have a porch big enough to
cuss a cat in (without getting fur in
your mouth).”
She turned the pages of Southern
Living and found a house that
Johnnie liked too. It was designed by
renowned architect William Poole
who had recently moved his offices to
Wilmington. The Low Country bungalow
was modified by sets of Poole’s
plans to create a custom style for the
Bakers.