vintage summer rest By Victoria Carlborg
CROOM COTTAGE 307 Summer Rest Road
A poured concrete driveway, inlaid with crushed oyster shells, leads to Robert Gibbons’ Gothic Revival Style home,
Wrightsville Sound’s historic Croom House. The driveway is one of many modern improvements Gibbons has installed to
mimic the old ways, since he purchased the cottage from owner Mrs. Beatrice Croom in 1986.
That same year, the Croom House was listed in the book “Historic Architecture of New Hanover County North Carolina.”
Originally a three-room cottage where families like the Crooms took their summer rest, the home was moved from the nearby
Pembroke Jones estate around the turn of the 20th century. It was renovated in the 1940s with room additions and indoor
plumbing.
Mr. Gibbons has continued the home’s evolution during the 27 years he has been its caretaker, preserving the original
charm of the home, but making it more comfortable for a year-round resident.
Inside his home, Gibbons, a golf course designer, has furnished his space with what he calls early American garage sale
décor. Each piece has been carefully selected, arranged and dusted.
He made home improvements after every hurricane. Replacing the cottage’s outhouse with a guest retreat, opening up a
screened-in back porch, adding an upper balcony, enhancing a front porch, adding a laundry area; all of these projects indeed
create a more functional space, but doesn’t alter the character.
In the mid-’80s, the Croom House had fallen into a state of disrepair. Gibbons would pass by it while driving to Landfall
where he was a project manager. Just out of college, his parents thought the purchase was a little overwhelming, but Gibbons
had a vision for the home and made it his own. He worked on the renovation and maintenance first, decorating later. He
considers it still a work-in-progress.
The Indiana native says, as he peers out the floor-length first-story windows to view the Intracoastal Waterway, the boat
slips and the water, “This house got lucky I bought it,” Gibbons says.
If the old heart pine walls could talk, Gibbons knows they would tell him, “Thanks for taking care of me.”
PHOTOGRAPHY BY ALLISON POTTER
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WBM november 2013