Uncle Jacks Yellow House Gallery met with the wrecking ball today. UJ reminisces in his blog about the building he owned for many years. Thursday, June 05, 2014 End of an Era It is with some sadness that Uncle Jack reports the demise of yet another historic Nags Head building. In this case it is the little cottage at the 11 milepost on the Beach Road that for the past 38 years has been known as Yellowhouse Gallery, a business with which he has had more than a passing acquaintance over the years. He and the first Mrs. U.J. bought the building in 1977 to house the art gallery they had operated at the First Colony Inn for six summers before that. After learning that they would have to vacate the First Colony premises they were driving up the beach road one morning scouting out potential new locations when they noticed a For Sale sign on a building near the 11 milepost which they were sure had not been there the day before. They called the number on the sign which turned out to be that of one Terry McGovern, Realtor, whose office was then located in a house across from the remains of the old Coast Guard station on the Beach Road. His secretary told us that he had just gone up the road to put a For Sale sign on the house we were looking at but she would send him back to us as soon as he returned. He drove up a few minutes later, apologizing that the building was such a new listing that he had not yet received a set of keys from the owner. He then produced a pry bar and forced open a back window to gain admittance to what proved to be a three-bedroom, one- bath cottage of considerable charm that looked like it might, with a lot of work, serve admirably as an art gallery. After deciding they could afford to buy it they followed Mr. McGovern back to his office, made a down payment, signed a dozen forms and took possession of a building that would keep Uncle Jack busy for the next 30 years. It was also probably one of the fastest real estate transactions ever recorded on the Outer Banks. They learned later that the cottage had been built in 1935 by the Culpepper family who also owned and operated the Old Nagsheader Hotel across the street at that time, making them two of the oldest buildings on the Beach Road. The hotel burned in a spectacular fire later in 1978, nearly taking Yellowhouse with it as flaming embers flew across the road and landed on the shingle roof. Nags Head firemen continually doused the roof, prolonging the life of the building by another 36 years. Buying the building was just the beginning of a decades long process of converting an old cottage into a functioning retail space, a work-in-progress that continued nearly to demolition day. One of the first tasks was to remove a small concrete block building in back of the cottage that had once housed a laundry for the Old Nagsheader. Uncle Jack hired a burly young man named Tim Sullivan who then lived at Snug Harbor, a rooming house next door, to do the deed. In a remarkable display of strength and smarts Tim knocked the building down with little more than a sledgehammer and pry bar for tools and cleared the space for a parking lot in just a few days. Uncle Jack then turned his attention to the small frame building at the back of the lot which would become his framing shop.
Posted on: Fri, 06 Jun 2014 00:45:56 +0000
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