Inside, the staircase details were inspired by another historic New Bern house, and the elliptical transverse archway on the first floor has a local precedent. “That’s part of the poetry,” Franck says. “Connecting with the place and connecting with a time, so 100 years from now, someone might recognize that some elements came from somewhere else, just as someone would notice today when looking at an old home.”
Of course, the very forces that would make it unlikely an old home might have endured on Figure Eight Island through the ages—hurricanes, high winds, and flooding—were the very forces Franck’s design would have to address if Chadsworth Cottage is to survive into the future. The house is grounded to the site using an interlocking grid of wood pilings that were driven 16′ into the sandy soil and nearly 50 concrete grade beams.
“The engineering is a marvel in itself,” Davis says. “I rode out Hurricane Ophelia in this house for 16 hours, and it was solid.” As protection against both hurricane-force winds and everyday sun, Franck specified Bermuda shutters for the southern windows and found a company that produced PVC shutters that looked as good as traditional wooden shutters but would be more durable in this harsh environment. Franck also turned in part to local builder Jim Murray of Murray Construction for guidance. “All they do is build along the coast, so they have a tremendous body of knowledge,” she says. “When I insisted on wood windows, for example, they explained that during a hurricane, the blowing sand literally sandblasts off the paint, so based on their experience a clad window was best.”