HARKERS ISLAND — Located in the heart of Cape Lookout National Seashore’s Cape Village Historic District, the Guthrie-Ogilvie House is an important part of the park’s historic landscape. The park recently made substantial repairs to the historic house as part of a $200,000 rehabilitation project funded by the Great American Outdoors Act (GAOA) Legacy Restoration Fund.
The project replaced the house’s roof and repaired siding, doors, trim, windows and other exterior surfaces. Interior work included stabilization and repairs to surfaces and finishes.
The Great American Outdoors Act uses revenues from energy development to provide needed maintenance for critical facilities and infrastructure in national parks, forests, wildlife refuges, recreation areas, and American Indian schools.
National parks host more than 325 million visitors every year, and the infrastructure cannot keep up without significant repairs.
CLNS Park staff trained in historic restoration and preservation techniques were assisted by two interns from the Traditional Trades Advancement Program (TTAP). TTAP pairs skilled National Park Service (NPS) employees with youth and military veterans for a 26-week immersive experience that helps prepare the interns for employment in historic preservation.
“The repairs to the Guthrie-Ogilvie House are a fantastic step in the right direction,” said CLNS Superintendent Jeff West in a news release Tuesday. “The use of Great American Outdoors Act funds to complete this deferred maintenance and repair project, while simultaneously allowing for youth and veterans to become proficient in historic preservation skills, is a benefit to everyone involved.”
In order to facilitate cost-effective repairs to all of Cape Lookout’s many historic buildings, including the Guthrie-Ogilvie House, the park has created a new historic preservation wood shop.
According to the CLNS news release, “The shop allows the park to replicate historic building components such as windows and doors at a fraction of the cost of hiring outside companies to manufacture them. The addition of this wood shop will allow Cape Lookout National Seashore to continue restorations with the most efficient use of tax dollars for years to come.”
Luther Guthrie, a surfman at the Cape Lookout Life-Saving Station, built the house “for his daughter” sometime after her birth in May 1924. The house was intentionally built near the station and allowed Guthrie to be closer to his family while on duty. This structure, along with a few others, formed the heart of a small community, now referred to as Cape Village.
In 1928, after receiving orders to the Fort Macon Coast Guard Station, Guthrie sold the house to Robert and Henry Ogilvie for $225. The Ogilvie’s enlarged and improved the house, using it as a fishing retreat for several decades before selling it in 1954. The house changed hands several more times before being transferred to NPS in 2002.
The completion of the house’s repair was the second bit of great news from CLNS in recent days. Last week, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers approved a more than $6 million project to dredge Barden Inlet, with some of the dredged material to be placed on the beach in the Cape Lookout Lighthouse area to slow erosion that is threatening the lighthouse and other historic structures that are culturally and historically significant to Carteret County residents, especially Down East, and to park visitors.