home of distinction
E
VERY YEAR, Frank and Mary Thomas
would travel from their farm in Johnston
County to Sneads Ferry for a family
vacation. And every year before they
went home they would drive down
Big Hammock Road to Pelican Point,
enchanted by the waterfront peninsula.
“We came down here vacationing and we found this street
umpteen years ago,” Frank says.
One house in particular caught their eye.
“We’d always come by and see this house and stop and look
at it, how pretty it was,” Frank says.
It was built on a double lot, the largest on the street, sur-rounded
by mature live oak trees. The façade is striking, with a
big front porch, columns, arches, a widow’s walk perched on the
roof, and a four-car garage attached to the house by a covered
walkway.
On the way back home, they’d indulge in pleasant fantasiz-ing:
someday, we’ll move there.
Frank and Mary saw the house when it was under construc-tion
some 20 years ago. They watched it take shape, and over
time noticed increasingly complex landscaping, the addition of
the garage and then the apartment over the garage, and other
changes to the property.
“We’d come every year, and they’d be putting a bird house
here, be putting up something else,” Mary says.
70
WBM august 2018