Saving Grace

A 79-year-old beach cottage in North Carolina gets a brilliant revival from a team committed to honoring its past while reimagining the future

- Patricia Shannon

Some things are worth preserving. While that’s often a conclusion gained with hindsight and served with a side of regret once all the good stuff has been tossed, leveled, or neglected beyond repair, every once in a while, something special falls into the right hands. Those who are eagle-eyed enough to spot the original treasure become custodians of a legacy that honors the past while bringing the present (and future) into full view. Such was the case with a circa-1947 seaside cottage in Atlantic Beach, North Carolina, that charmed Trent Mooring and his wife, Caroline, from the start. “It wasn’t a beach house,” Trent says. “It was a cottage, and that’s what we loved.”

The bones were good, and so was the location. The Moorings followed a passel of Caroline’s family members who already lived on the street, putting their stamp on the third house to join the block party that eventually grew to five.

As the years went on, the dunes encroaching on the view from the ocean-facing, two-story property grew taller, and the Moorings family expanded, but their love for the charm and the character of their home never diminished. It became clear that a renovation was in order.

The couple knew just the candidate for the job. Architect Stan Dixon of Atlanta-based D Stanley Dixon Architect has an appreciation for historic homes, traditional design, and nuanced details; a perfect fit, says Trent. “I said, ‘This is what we want to do. I think you’re the one to do it,’” he told Dixon at their first meeting. “He came back with the floor plan and elevation, and we really changed nothing—I mean, it was incredible.”