YOU ARE HERE Each month, we’ll throw a dart at a map and write about where it lands. LOCATION: Bridgehampton neighborhood
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Straddle Up BRYAN AND SARAH HARTLEY knew the North Carolina-South Carolina state line ran through their neighborhood and near their property when they bought their home five years ago. They were amused that when they stepped out their back doors and looked left, to just beyond the creek that bordered their backyard, they could see South Carolina. Two years ago, they refinanced their mortgage, and the new property survey showed that a slice of their yard, on the other side of their fence but before the creek, is actually across the state line. “That was kind of a surprise,” Bryan Hartley laughs. “We said, ‘Really?’” The oddity of a 544-home neighborhood in two states is great conversation fodder at cocktail parties, although Bridgehampton residents don’t discuss it much except during introductions,
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when they ask each other, “What side are you on?” Pull into the entrance at Johnston and Ardrey Kell roads, and you’re in Charlotte, North Carolina. Jump in the neighborhood pool, and you’re in Indian Land, South Carolina. School buses from both states pick up and drop off in Bridgehampton. Property values for the stately 4,000- to 5,000-square-foot homes vary widely; houses of identical size sell for $60,000 or $70,000 less on the South Carolina side. The Hartleys say they love raising their two daughters in Bridgehampton. Nine kids ages 9 and under live on their culde-sac. A few months ago, a neighbor sent them photos of a wild boar traipsing through the Hartleys’ property, just outside their fence. “Of course,” Bryan Hartley says with a chuckle, “he was on the South Carolina side.” —Cristina Bolling
SHAW NIELSON; CRISTINA BOLLING
Bryan and Sarah Hartley roll with life on the border
