Saving Serendipity

The beach cottage Serendipity is without a doubt the second most photographed structure on Hatteras Island ? after the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse.

And the move of the house out of harm?s way on the oceanfront ? or in the ocean more often than not lately — has been almost as well documented as the move of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse in 1999.

Serendipity, the northernmost house on Hatteras Island in Rodanthe?s Mirlo Beach, has captured the imagination of both islanders and visitors who have been trekking here to take pictures of the house for years and were on hand for the move this past week.

First they came by the dozens to see the house being prepared for the move. Steel beams and wooden cribbing were placed underneath for support.

Then last Friday, Jan. 15, a larger crowd gathered at the site to see Serendipity?s pilings cut away and watch it being lowered by the hydraulic jacks onto the big fat tires on which it would rest for its trip down Highway 12.

It was quite a spectacle when it finally made the trip on Monday, Jan. 18. Traffic was stopped.  Utility companies lifted power and cable lines.  A couple hundred people lined the highway, watched from decks and windows along the way, walked beside the house on the trip, and took photos and videos on their cameras and cell phones.

Now, Serendipity sits at its new location ? an oceanside lot, also in Rodanthe, less than a mile from where it was built in 1988.

I?ve written about the iconic beach house and its precarious position on an eroding beach that is regularly pounded by coastal storms. I?ve written about Dare County?s attempt to have it declared a public nuisance. I?ve written about the feelings of many that the ocean tide that spills down the driveway of this house ? and others in Mirlo Beach ? and closes Highway 12 is both an inconvenience and threat to public safety.

And as the drama over the house, its future, and the move has played out, I?ve been amazed by both the public interest in the house and some of the events of the last few weeks.

Permits for the move were issued by normally bureaucratic (as in slowly moving) state and the county agencies at a dizzying rate and in record time. They wanted to see the house out of there.

And the Atlantic Ocean just would not back off.

The movers had hoped to finish the job last Friday, but, ironically, the ocean tides dealt them a setback.

Jim Matyiko, president of Expert House Movers in Virginia Beach, said he was ?shocked? when he arrived at the site Friday morning and saw how badly the high tide overnight had messed up their prep work of the day before.

Now, Matyiko is no novice at moving structures.  He and several of his brothers from Expert House Movers moved the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse in 1999.

According to Island Free Press reporter Joe Ward, who was there that morning when Matyiko arrived, the mover looked at the damage and said, ?I hope this isn?t the last night in Rodanthe.?

Ocean tides had undermined the wooden cribbing and flowed all around the house.  It took many hours of pushing sand in front of it and redoing the cribbing work to get Serendipity ready for the move, which everyone thought would happen by late afternoon Friday.

Then in mid-afternoon when the house was ready to move, the fat tires upon which the steel beams rested got bogged down in the deep sand.  It was too dark to continue that night, so the house was moved to a position just off the highway, where it stayed for the weekend.

On Monday morning when the move was completed, the ocean tides were again surging around Serendipity and its former site.

However, the move came off without a hitch, and it took only 22 minutes to get the structure less than a mile down Highway 12 to its new location.

After the house arrived, I talked on the phone to Michael Creasy of Champion, Pa., who with his wife Susan bought Serendipity in 2003 before the erosion problems in Mirlo Beach were as critical as they are now.

Creasy was very emotional about the ?bittersweet? moment in their love affair with Serendipity.

The couple had planned to come down to Hatteras to watch the move, but Susan Creasy decided that she could not watch the house being pulled off the site where she first saw it.

Part of the Creasys? deal with the new owners ? Ben and Debbie Huss of Newton, N.C. ? is that they get a week in the house each year, free of charge.

Michael Creasy said he and his wife would return when Serendipity is restored to the way it looked in the movie, ?Nights in Rodanthe.?

He said they could not afford to move the house to a new lot.  They invested all they had in the purchase and in repairing storm damage in the past six years. 

However, Creasy said that he thought the Husses were the right couple to buy it and he thought they would be good to Serendipity.

The Husses can?t say enough nice things about the Creasys.  They vow to be good stewards of Serendipity.  Before all is said and done, they will have invested somewhere in the neighborhood of $750,000 in buying the house and new lot, restoring the exterior, and fixing up the interior to match the ?Nights in Rodanthe? film, even though those interiors were not filmed at the Hatteras house.

The Creasys had to swallow hard to let go of their dream house, and I?m sure the Husses had to think twice about investing so much money into a property with no guarantee of recouping their investment.

Lastly, there are the amazing fans of Serendipity, and there are thousands of them.

The Dare County Web cam focused on northern Mirlo Beach and the Web cam was down for repairs as the move approached. Serendipity fans were not amused, and Dare County got the Web cam up and running in time to focus on the house during the move.

I talked to some of them while the house was being moved this past week and have read the many, many comments we have received from our readers. 

The Island Free Press had about 15,000 visits to the Web site on Monday and Tuesday, and dozens of letters are now posted on the Commentary Page.

Serendipity leaped into public view with the release of the feature film, ?Nights in Rodanthe,? starring Richard Gere and Diane Lane.

That is how some folks came to love the house.  It looked terrific with its Hollywood makeover, which was removed after the filming.

But if you read the letters, you come to see that the film is not the real reason that these people love the house so much.

Nor is the house exactly a national historic site.  It was built just 22 years ago.

But it was one of the first big ?sandcastle? houses built on Hatteras Island.  It was the first house people saw when they came down Highway 12 into Rodanthe. Tall and narrow with its towers and nooks and crannies, it caught the public?s imagination.

Then it got beat up in a long line of coastal storms and hurricanes.  Ocean tide swirled around it.  Waves crashed against it and under it.

After each storm, both islanders and visitors wanted to know, ?Is Serendipity still standing??

And it always was.

And there was just something about that enduring sentinel that could withstand so much punishment from the ocean.

At the end of the day Monday, the sawed-off pilings from Serendipity looked forlorn and a little eerie on the north end of Mirlo Beach. They were, as they have been more often than not, overwashed by ocean waves.

It is likely that more houses will have to be moved or removed from Mirlo Beach in the not-too-distant future.

And it?s certainly possible that Serendipity will be oceanfront again, instead of just oceanside.  One house that stood in front of the new lot has already been moved back. Two more are in front of it now, perilously close to the ocean.

The move was a powerful experience for many, and certainly a reminder of the fragility of our barrier islands and the way we must adjust to live and visit here.

(For stories on moving Serendipity with slide shows and video, go to the Local News Page and to see what our readers had to say about the move go to the Letters and Commentary Page.)