The Whitesideses purchased their Wrightsville Beach
cottage about a week after the North Carolina Holiday
Flotilla. Five years later, Arland says, “The more time we
spent out here, the more we wanted to be here.”
Seventeen years ago, circa 1996, they hired fellow
sailor and architect Cothran Harris to design an addi-tion
for the house and Dennis True, of True Builders,
to construct it.
True recalls the project’s challenges.
“A significant amount of shoring up and stabiliz-ing
had to be done to the original cottage,” True
says. “The goal of the team was to create additional
modern, usable space that looked like it had been
there all along.”
The original house was scarcely 1,500-1,600 square-feet,
had no real kitchen and no insulation, Harris
recalls.
“One thing they did have, which is rare on
Wrightsville Beach, they had land,” Harris says. His
first comment, he recalls, “If you’re going to live here
year-round, the first thing you need is a master bed-room
suite with a sitting room.”
By treating the entire original cottage as secondary
bedroom and bathroom space and creating a com-patible
addition, Harris balanced the aesthetic of a
restorationist with that of a renovationist. His design
configured around an H, or barbell floorplan, allows a
separation of the master suite from the public spaces.
“We wanted this to have an old cottage feel but we
The outdoor porch is styled
for a holiday brunch. Hot
cocoa and fresh-squeezed
orange juice is served.
50
WBM december 2013
wanted to have it
reimagined,” Harris
says. “We wanted to
immerse ourselves
in the details in the
timeframe of the
original cottage. …
As if the Whitesides
had moved into the
cottage and discov-ered
blueprints, and
said ‘Wow, they had
plans for an addi-tional
bedroom, let’s
build it.’”
From the West
Oxford Street eleva-tion
the addition
appears as if it was designed by the same person and
built during the same timeframe as the original cottage.
“The exterior juniper shakes were sourced nearby,
probably from the same forests as the originals. The
simple original finishes of the cottage such as interior
trim details, heart pine wide plank flooring, beaded
trim were easy to source and duplicate.”
Some windows were also removed and those frames