N AGS H E A D ’ S STO R I E D B UC HAN AN COT TAG E
Time A T E S TA M E N T T O
P H OTO S BY CO RY GO DW I N / STORY BY H A N N A H L E E L E IDY
T
he term “old Nags Head-style cottage” immediately brings to mind a very specific image: a stately cedarshake house, rich brown in color, with shuttered windows and a sprawling porch. This image, and such homes, harkens back to earlier times when people first began to flock to the Outer Banks for vacations – and summer homes subsequently started to dot the oceanfront in Nags Head. Affluent families from Edenton, Elizabeth City and Raleigh built a significant number of these cedar-shake cottages during the late 1800s and the early 1900s. The beachfront homes lining the corridor of N.C. Highway 12 in Nags Head rapidly earned the nickname “the unpainted aristocracy,” referring to their bare, cedar-shake splendor. 18 | SU M M ER 2021
That same stretch of road then became the more formal Nags Head Beach Cottage Row Historic District after joining the National Register of Historic Places in 1977 – though for many it’s still known more simply as Cottage Row. These homes are now some of the oldest coastal cottages in the Unites States, and many remain heirlooms of the families who originally built them – preserving an image of yesteryear’s Outer Banks and brimming with stories from the generations of vacations they’ve housed over the years. Within this distinguished neighborhood, the Buchanan Cottage in particular has set itself apart since day one. John and Mattie Buchanan of Durham, N.C., had the cottage built in 1936 by Stephen J. Twine, the Elizabeth City architect responsible for many of the old
Nags Head cottages. He coined the structures’ iconic L-shape design (with the bend positioned to ward off the northeast wind), and embraced other features such as outward-leaning porch seating and slanted hip roofs. But while Twine’s influence was certainly felt in the plans for the Buchanan Cottage, the original designs for what would become the largest oceanfront house on the Outer Banks were actually first drawn up by a Durhambased architect named George Watts Carr – with Twine coming in afterward in order to bring Carr’s vision to life. And to this day, this nine-bedroom house remains the largest home on Cottage Row, complete with a covered wraparound porch and 63 windows. “It was terrible to hang curtains,” quipped Mary Frances Buchanan Flowers, the eldest of the Buchanan family’s five daughters and one of the home’s first residents.
