Local News

December 18, 2009

Serendipity has a suitor who proposes to move it and restore it

By IRENE NOLAN

A western North Carolina businessman and his wife said this week that they will buy Serendipity, the iconic cottage in Mirlo Beach in north Rodanthe that has become both famous and infamous in recent years.

Ben Huss of Newton, who owns a bail bond company and a furniture store and has other business interests in Catawba County, said that he and his wife, Debra, will move the house to an oceanside lot in northern Rodanthe.

He said he has lined up Expert House Movers, the company that moved the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse in 1999, to move the cottage almost a mile to the south and that he hopes the move will happen the first week in January.

Huss said that he already has a CAMA permit to locate the house on the new lot.

Once it is moved, Huss said he will restore the house to the glory it enjoyed as the setting for the popular feature film, “Nights in Rodanthe,” based on the Nicholas Sparks romance and starring Richard Gere and Diane Lane.

And he will rent Serendipity to the many fans who want to stay at the Inn at Rodanthe, as the house was named in the film.

Huss said on Thursday that he has signed a contract for the purchase.

Michael Creasy of Champion, Pa., who has owned the house with his wife, Susan, since 2003, confirmed in a telephone interview yesterday that the sale to Huss is pending.

“We have a verbal agreement,” Creasy said, “and it’s just a matter of the paperwork coming through.”

Creasy added that the owners and sellers had been talking directly for some time and that he did not see any problems at this point in the sale.

Huss’ pursuit of Serendipity comes at a pivotal time.

Earlier this month, Dare County sent the Creasys a notice that the house was being declared a public nuisance and that the couple had 10 days to appeal the decision or remove it from the property.

The Creasys hired an attorney and had planned to appeal, but Creasy said the appeal, which Dare County had tentatively scheduled for the Jan. 4 meeting of the Board of Commissioners, will be unnecessary if the sale proceeds.

In fact, both Creasy and Huss said that the closing on the Serendipity sale is now tentatively scheduled for Jan. 4.

The beach cottage Serendipity stands almost as if it is the island’s sentinel at the northern edge of Rodanthe in the Mirlo Beach subdivision – the first house you encounter as you travel south on Hatteras.

The views from the house are magnificent with the ocean to the east and the sound to the west and the expanse of undeveloped Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge to the north.

When it was built in 1988 by Roger Meekins of Manteo, Serendipity was really large by Hatteras Island standards. Those were the days when modest one-story “beach boxes” dominated the rental cottage market, and Serendipity was an attention getter.

In the past five or six years, the house has gotten attention for being overwashed and surrounded by the ocean in almost every coastal storm, however minor.

After every storm, Hatteras islanders would ask each other, “Is Serendipity still there?”

Islanders became irritated that in every storm, or so it seemed, ocean water washed down the driveway of the cottage – and others in Mirlo Beach -- and closed Highway 12 to traffic.

Why, they asked, should persistent flooding from private property close a public highway, the only access to Hatteras Island?

So Serendipity became a sore point with some islanders and visitors.

However, in 2007, Serendipity found fame when it was transformed into the Inn at Rodanthe for “Nights in Rodanthe.”

The film production company rented the house from the owners and totally remade the exterior of the house, which had been battered by northeasters, into a glorious beach cottage with new stairs, windows and decks, a gazebo, bright blue storm shutters, and landscaping.

Ironically, a northeaster that sent tides soaring around the house and damaged some of Hollywood’s special effects delayed filming for several weeks.

With the release of the film in the fall of 2008, hundreds of fans began flocking to see the cottage and photograph it.

However, the owners had a building permit from the county only to make the cosmetic changes on a temporary basis. When the movie filming was finished, Serendipity’s makeover was gone.

Ben Huss said he fell in love with the house when his wife gave him a DVD set of Nicholas Sparks films for Christmas last year.

Last April, Ben and Debra Huss made a trip to Hatteras Island to see Serendipity.

“I was just like everyone else,” Huss said, “wondering when I could rent it."

By then, of course, the cottage looked nothing like it did in the film.

“We just had to save it,” Huss said.

So they called the owners.

He says they have been working toward the buying the house in stops and starts and that discussions became more serious in recent weeks.

Huss, who is 60, said his wife finally had enough and told him just to go for it.

“She told me, ‘You’ve always been a dreamer’.

“I’m just an old redneck guy who has taken chances all my life….In the bail bond business, I’ve taken a chance on people all through my life.”

Huss says he has all the folks on board he will need to take a chance on Serendipity – from the People’s Bank in Newton, colleague Mike Price who is a commercial developer, Realtor Marsha Brown in Rodanthe, and Jim Matyiko, one of the partners in the family-owned Expert House Movers.

Yesterday, Michael Creasy was philosophical about the pending sale.

“We’ve loved it, and we’ve shed quite a few tears,” he said.

“We hate to lose it,” he added. “But we are not wealthy people. We put all of our life savings into buying it.”

Michael and Susan Creasy bought the house just months before Hurricane Isabel in 2003 for $525,000.

And the Creasys have continued to spend money to repair the house after the storms that have battered it.

“I’d rather see it right where it is at,” he said, “but you can’t fight City Hall.”

Having the house declared a public nuisance was more or less the final straw for the Creasys. They said they couldn’t afford to move it or to fight a lengthy legal battle with Dare County.

“It was never an issue as far as Serendipity being relocated,” he said. “We understood that.”

However, the owners apparently were blindsided by Dare County’s declaration that it is a public nuisance. The house, he said, suffered less damage than others in Mirlo Beach and is still structurally sound.

“It is going to good people,” Michael Creasy says. “At least it will stay in Rodanthe and be part of the community and that’s a good thing.”

The Creasys were asking $499,000 for their property, and neither the sellers nor buyers would reveal the selling price until the sale is finalized. However, Creasy did say that the Husses were getting a good price.

"We’re going to miss it something terrible,” Creasy said. “But we will be back – to stay there in Serendipity.”

Both he and Huss said that part of the condition of the sale is that the Creasys get a free week in the house every year.

The sign that welcomes travelers to Mirlo Beach says, “Dare to dream the impossible dream.”

“I guess I’m just an old dreamer,” Ben Huss said this week. “And this is a dream I want to come true.”

“I just don’t want to see that house go down.”

For More Information:

Northeasters in north Rodanthe: A retrospective, starring Serendipity, WITH A SLIDE SHOW

November 19, 2009

Dare County says Serendipity must be moved or torn down

By IRENE NOLAN

The owners of Serendipity, the iconic cottage on northern Hatteras Island that has become both famous and infamous in recent years, will soon be on notice from Dare County that they must move it or tear it down.

Dare County’s planning director Ray Sturza is in the process of notifying the owners that the county has declared the property a public nuisance.

“The owners will have 10 days,” Sturza said, “to abate the nuisance or make an appeal.”

He said their choices to abate the nuisance are to move the house to another property or dismantle it and cart it away.

Sturza said the county had intended to send the notice to property owners this week.

Today he said that “out of fairness” to the property owners, the county will wait until Highway 12 is fully repaired.

“We don’t want to start the clock ticking,” he said, when transportation to and from the island would present a problem for the owners to move ahead with the remedies.

The beach cottage Serendipity stands almost as if it is the island’s sentinel at the northern edge of Rodanthe in the Mirlo Beach subdivision – the first house you encounter as you travel south on Hatteras through villages with many oceanfront houses.

The views from the house are magnificent with the ocean to the east and the sound to the west and the expanse of undeveloped Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge to the north.

When it was built in 1988 by Roger Meekins of Manteo, Serendipity was really large by Hatteras Island standards. Those were the days when modest one-story “beach boxes” dominated the rental cottage market, and Serendipity was an attention getter.

In the past decade, it has gotten attention for being overwashed and surrounded by the ocean in every coastal storm.

After every storm, Hatteras islanders would ask each other, “Is Serendipity still there?”

Islanders became irritated that in every storm, it seemed, ocean water washed down the driveway of the cottage and closed Highway 12 to traffic.

Why, they asked, should persistent flooding from private property close a public highway, the only access to Hatteras Island?

So Serendipity became infamous.

However, in 2007, Serendipity became famous when it was transformed into the Inn at Rodanthe for the film “Nights in Rodanthe,” based on the Nicholas Sparks romantic novel and starring Richard Gere and Diane Lane.

Ironically, a northeaster that send tides soaring around the house and damaged some of Hollywood’s special effects delayed filming for several weeks.

With the release of the film in the fall of 2008, hundreds of fans began flocking to see the cottage and photograph it. With every storm, The Island Free Press gets inquiries about whether or not the house has survived another ocean assault.

It was well built and continued to withstand the assaults, though the county is ready to make a move on the getting the house removed.

Dare’s commissioners have asked the state Department of Transportation to condemn and tear down Serendipity and several other Mirlo Beach oceanfront houses and to nourish the beach and strengthen the dunes in the area.

The state has so far made no move to do that.

Sturza says the county will “light a fuse,” to get the process going, but that several agencies are involved in the final solution.

“We just think it’s time,” Sturza said.

The county, Sturza said, is concerned with several issues as it works with the owners, including their property rights.

One is public domain – or who actually owns the property on which Serendipity is located after the erosion of the past few years. Is the house is still on private property or has the beach eroded so much that it is now in the intertidal zone -- state public trust waters?

Also, Sturza said that the county is concerned with public safety issues – and not only the safety of the traveling public on Highway 12.

“Serendipity has gotten our attention from a regulatory point of view,” he said, “because of its notoriety and fame.”

Since the house has become so well known after the film, fans have flocked to Hatteras to photograph it, look around, and even peek in the windows.

Sturza says these fans are putting themselves in danger to get a closer look at the house.

They sometimes walk out to the house when it is in the water, walk around a debris field after a storm such as last week’s, or try to climb damaged stairs to get a closer look.

Serendipity’s septic tank and drainfield have been destroyed twice in recent years and damaged several other times.

Fred Flythe, director of the Dare County Environmental Health Department, says the septic tank is out of the ground and the drainfield was washed out in last week’s storm. He said his department considers it “inoperable and unusable.”

The septic system was also destroyed in a 2007 storm. The owners got a permit to repair it in December, 2007. Those repairs were completed in September, 2008.

The system was damaged again as Hurricane Bill passed off the coast in August, causing high seas and coastal flooding in the Mirlo Beach areas.

Mo Clark, who is a caretaker of the property for the owners, Michael and Susan Creasy of Champion, Pa., says the house is still sturdy and sound, despite its beating by the ocean over the years.

Indeed, Roger Meekins built it to last. The piling are driven down 14 feet and set in concrete. However, Meekins says there was 400 feet of beach in front of the house when he built it 20 years ago.

Owner Susan Creasy said in a telephone interview yesterday that she and her husband are doing everything they can to comply with regulations and be responsible members of the community.

“We’ve just tried everything and gotten permit after permit,” she said.

The couple bought the house in 2003 just before Hurricane Isabel for $525,000.

Susan Creasy says they are not rich oceanfront property owners who bought the house for speculation.

They fell in love with the house the first time they saw it and still love it and its setting on the edge of the Pea Island Wildlife Refuge.

“Everything we have is tied up in it,” she said. “We’ve kept paying our mortgage even though we’ve had no rent for two years.”

The Creasys have stayed in the house at times in the past two years, but it has not been rented because it has been condemned and uncondemned numerous times.

Susan Creasy said the couple has had the caretaker erect a sturdy dune in front of the house each winter to try to keep ocean tide from washing through the property during storms.

She said she isn’t sure what they will do next.

And the attempt to legally condemn the property as a nuisance appears that it could be a lengthy process of wrangling over regulations and legalities.

Meanwhile, the Creasys have the house for sale for $499,000.

TO READ ANOTHER STORY ABOUT SERENDIPITY AND ITS HISTORY AND PROBLEMS, GO TO http://www.islandfreepress.org/Archives/2007.11.29-ShootingTheBreeze-MirloBeach.html