National Treasure WRIGHTSVILLE’S FIRST NATIONAL REGISTER DESIGNATION BY MARIMAR MCNAUGHTON PHOTOGRAPHY BY ALLISON POTTER Four white platform rockers face Banks Channel between the bridges in Wrightsville Beach. The summer’s southwesterly breezes reach the covered porch where crisp blue and white pillows pad the seat backs. Newly furnished, everything else about this porch and its waterside view hear-ken back to 1937. The house was built for James D. and Frances Sprunt for the purpose of escaping to the seashore to retreat from the heat of their Market Street, Wilmington home and for entertaining family and friends, says new homeowner Sam Sugg. As Sugg leans on a porch railing one summer holiday, he casts his gaze across Banks Channel and ruminates. “We had a get together last night with friends and I thought, ‘This porch has hosted the same group of people doing the same things all these years,’” he says. Sam and his wife, Laurie, say they were looking for a Wrightsville Beach house for some time. She grew up in Wilmington and he in New Bern. They had already rescued a house in Morehead City, and were looking for something on Wrightsville’s Harbor Island when the Sprunt Cottage, one block from the beach strand, came on the market. Sam says he knew right away the house was worth the investment. Laurie needed a bit more coaxing. “I knew how much work it was going to be,” she says, laughing. Laurie is referencing the sensitive restoration that earned their summer home a designation on the National Register of Historic Places. She conferred with historic preservation consultant Beth Keane of Retrospective to document the home’s history and the architectural significance of the cottage. Keane says she visited the site four or five times during the yearlong restora-tion, but she was already familiar with the cottage. Ten years earlier, she con-ducted the research that led to its inclusion on the Wrightsville Beach Historic Landmark Commission’s list. “It was a good example of a Wrightsville Beach cottage still in fairly good shape at that time,” Keane says. “After that it had been vacant for seven years.” For the National Register designation Keane says, “I had to document the building as it was when I first saw it, take exterior and interior photos. In this case it was being worked on. ... I could not complete the application until the process was finished.” The application is a two-step process, she explains. Red cedar shingles imported from Washington state and original wooden shutters, six-over-six sash windows, punched tin door screens and hand-built lattice surround platform rockers arranged beneath ceilings painted an authentic shade of deep green, over floors an authentic gray at the revived Sprunt Cottage on North Lumina Avenue in Wrightsville Beach, the summer home of Sam and Laurie Sugg of Raleigh. 40 WBM july 2014
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