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www.wrightsvillebeachmagazine.com WBM
We restored an 86-year-old
beach cottage. Totally
brought it up to date and
added an addition. Our
architect was Cothran Harris
and our builder was
Dennis True. That’s it.
There is no designer/
decorator, just me and
whatever friends suggest
and I like. Nothing fancy
at all but old beach style.
There is no landscaper,
just me and palm trees.
—Arland Whitesides
here were three sets
of china waiting for Arland
Whitesides when she and her
husband Chip took possession
of a relic beach cottage on West
Oxford Street in the fall of 1990.
Those sets of china once belonged
to Eleanor Emerson Van Leuven,
Atlantic Coast Line Railroad heiress
and wife of Cornelius Van Leuven.
“Why she had three sets of china,
I don’t know,” says Arland Whitesides,
who ditched her fine china and ster-ling
when she and her husband left
Wilmington for the beach.
In fact, the only silver to be found
at the Whitesides home is locked
inside a trophy case filled with
engraved loving cups, Jefferson cups,
tankards, tumblers, goblets and coast-ers
won during sailing regattas.
For the Whitesideses, like the early
Wilmingtonians who colonized
Wrightsville in the mid-1800s, this
is a family of avid sailors, all long-time
members of the Carolina Yacht
Club, the oldest active yacht club in
America, established in 1853.