The Darnell Home at 1211 Shepard Street.


"I bought this house 12 years ago. It was a typical shotgun style house with three bedrooms, one bathroom, and a tiny little kitchen in the rear. The ceiling in that kitchen sloped down to a five-foot high wall at the back of the room. It was cramped, but a perfect getaway spot for my family. We absolutely loved the neighborhood! At that time, there were still lots of original Promise Land families living here. (Mine was only the second house on the street to be sold to folks who didn't live here year-round.)

"I've spent many hours sitting on my neighbors' porches listening to their wonderful stories of how things used to be. Most everybody here was living in the same house their parents, grandparents, or great grandparents had owned, and they'd all grown up with fishing and sea-related occupations as the mainstay of their lives. And most everybody was named Guthrie, Lewis, Styron, Fulcher or Willis!

"My best friend and backyard neighbor was Guylene Guthrie Scharf. She moved to Harkers Island a couple of years ago, but up until that time, she and her husband Ray lived in the same house that Guylene's great grandmother, grandmother and mother had lived in. Guylene talks about the wonderful and simple life that she experienced here in the 40s and 50s.

"There were no fences, and the children would play happily with each all over the neighborhood. They were always welcome at everybody else's house, and all the neighbors helped each other with the baking, the mending of nets, the caring for children, the ironing, or whatever was needed by these families whose existence was not always easy. She told me that Herman and Louise Guthrie lived in the house
I have now (with their children Lydia and Russell), and Miss Louise made gorgeous huge wedding cakes in that tiny little kitchen. (All the children called
the adults by their first names, preceded by Miss or Mister. When I moved here, I was immediately Miss Ginny to my neighbors' children.)

"After a year and a half of waiting in line for them to get to me, Ed and Lennie finally began their work here. During the wait, I had spent many months drawing up my dream plans. What had begun as a small kitchen addition was growing into something much larger than I had originally imagined. And Ed and Lennie were such a pleasure to work with, and had so many great ideas of their own, the three of us spent the next two years putting together this beautiful house! Every weekend, I would come to Morehead with something new drawn up on notebook paper, and those two would figure out a way to get it done. Because they are both natives here, they appreciated the heritage in this neighborhood, and they were very careful about maintaining the house's original integrity as they added on the new rooms.

"The house had gorgeous beaded board ceilings, and when we got ready to add the new ceilings, we couldn't find the same kind of grooved boards. So we bought
similar double-boarded lumber, and Ed took it all to the workshop at his house and ran a groove down every piece. Another interesting thing that happened was our finding that the walls of the house had been stuffed with newspapers to serve as insulation. The dates on those papers were in the 1930s, and I knew with that discovery that I wanted to do everything possible to maintain the character that lived in this house long before I did!

"My small kitchen addition turned into a glorious space that surprises everyone who visits here. I cherish this house, and I feel extremely fortunate to be in a neighborhood so rich in tradition and character. "

Ginny Darnell, April 2005

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