beachbites
When Tulsa,
Oklahoma, native
Richard Neal first
saw the Frying
Pan Tower on the US government’s
General Services Administration
auction website, he
didn’t know he would
find himself in the GSA
office months later
haggling over the
tower’s price with a
man in a brown three-piece
suit.
After winning the
tower as the only bidder
at just more than
$11,000 on its second
time listed for auction,
Neal says the man
in the brown suit
informed him that the
tower’s undisclosed
minimum market value
had to be met. A few
Richard Neal
sips iced tea at
his Frying Pan
Shoals Light
Tower.
rounds of negotiations later Neal walked
out $85,000 lighter, and the proud owner
of Frying Pan Tower.
“The long and short of it is, I had no
idea what I was getting into,” Neal says.
“I had never even been out in the ocean
deep sea fishing.”
Three years later, the tower is now
open as a bed and breakfast for the
adventurous and young at heart with
eight single or double twin bed rooms, a
full kitchen, heating and air, hot and cold
water, Internet and a variety of activities
for passing the time 34 miles offshore
from Wrightsville Beach.
“The only thing that is different about
it than a beach house is there are abso-lutely
zero insects, which is really nice,”
Neal laughs. “It is also surprisingly peace-ful
and quiet; when you are on the beach
you hear the pounding of the waves but
out here we hear the lapping of waves
against the legs. It has astonishing views
because when you are 85 feet above the
water you can see down in it very well so
The High Life
All Along the
Watchtower
by COLE DITTMER
14
WBM august 2013
PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESTY OF RICHARD NEAL