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Nags Headers John F. Blair, Publisher Nags Headers is the story of North Carolina’s first beach vacation settlement, whose roots extend to the Civil War. More particularly, it traces the multigenerational love affair between a group of families and a mile-long stretch of sand inhabited by a handful of cottages elegant in their simplicity—the famous Unpainted Aristocracy. Readers will make the acquaintance of S. J. Twine, the wiry carpenter and self-taught architectural genius who designed structures that have withstood hurricanes and countless northeasters. They’ll meet Mary Frances Flowers, whose family hosted President Franklin Roosevelt for lunch on a hot August afternoon. They’ll hear the words of hurricane survivor Virginia Flora Hall, now a centenarian, and of Beulah Wadsworth, who summered at Nags Head for many years as a servant of the Drane family. They’ll feel what it was like to comb the beach for artifacts from the Wright brothers or wreckage from ships torpedoed by German submarines, to toast marshmallows atop Jockey’s Ridge, to dance at the Nags Head Casino to the music of headliners as diverse as Glen Miller and Bill Deal and the Rondells. They’ll learn of a time when children could roam endlessly and freely without danger, when a vacation at the beach meant an entire summer, not a stolen week. Some of Nags Head’s old cottages are still occupied by descendants of their original owners. Author Susan Byrum Rountree tells their stories with the help of oral histories from Nags Headers ages twelve to one hundred, who reveal what house and family mean to them. Of special interest are the dozens of photographs gathered from private collections, as well as the new images that capture this unique community as it survives today.
Reviews “My family owns one of the cottages in the area this author writes about, and I've been going to Nags Head since I was just a few months old. Rountree accurately captures the flavor and feeling of the area as I remember it and as my grandparents remembered it (my grandfather first went to Nags Head in the 1930s).
The book is filled with many black-and-white photos from as early as 1900 and has interviews with many of the locals whose families were among the earliest settlers along the beach. There are stories told of names like the Midgett family, Rev. Drane, the Nixons, Ras Wescott, the Buchanans, the Rascoes, Carolista Baum, and of course, the cottage builder S. J. Twine.
This book would be a pleasure to own for any who remember the "good old days" when families traipsed down the sand from one cottage to another for a cocktail party every night; when mothers would come to the beach with the kids for the whole summer and fathers joined them on weekends; when Harris's grocery store was the best (and only!) place to buy your freshly ground hamburger; dancing at the Casino; driving Jeeps on Jockey's Ridge; pig picks and clambakes on the beach—the days before Nags Head was quite so filled with tourists and more populated by summer people. It's a real trip down memory lane, and I recommend it highly.”
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