601 S Main St, Seaboard, NC 27876 $80,000 ~ Pending ~ Off Market

OHU50K NOTES

What a great house at a great price! This move-in ready beauty, owned and decorated by William Ivey Long, Tony Award winner and production designer for works including The Producers, Hairspray, Chicago, Grey Gardens and Cinderella, was built around 1890. The Long family have an extended history in theatre. William’s dad was a professor and stage director, and his mother an actress and playwright.

William Ivey Long, however is not the only well-known person who lived here. The residence is known as The Harris House because Bernice Kelly Harris (1891-1973), playwright and novelist, owned the home with husband Herbert Kavanaugh Harris, a farmer. She wrote such novels as Purslane, Sweet Beulah Land, Sage Quarter, Hearthstones and more. According to ncpedia.org, “Into the living room of her new home, where she continued to be called “Miss Kelly,” she invited the women of the town for classes in playwriting; these were moderately successful whenever the ladies could be turned aside from swapping recipes and local gossip.” Per the 1930 U.S. Census, although the home was valued at $15,000 (about $234K in today’s dollars), the couple did not own a radio.

The home is part of the Seaboard Historic District. As told by the National Register of Historic Places, Bernice Kelly Harris, or anyone for that matter who lived in Seaboard in the 1930s, would find little changed today from that era.

Seaboard is about six miles south of the NC/VA state line and about one hour and 40 minutes to Virginia Beach. Cotton and peanut field skirt the town of 632 residents. Here is an excerpt from The NRHP re: The Harris House.

4beds
2.5baths
2,421sq ft
0.77acres lot
Build date 1890
Google Map
Property Listing
Realtor: Rhonda Nixon with Wilkie Real Estate

REALTOR COMMENTS

Built post Civil War, this 1890 two story move-in ready Victorian style home has unique features and is in the general historic district. Owned by William Ivey Long, New York’s on-and-off Broadway, 17 time Tony Award winning costume designer!

The eat-in kitchen/back porch were added, but the house takes you back in time. It has the original intricate gingerbread brackets decorating the wrapped trim on the outside, 5 fireplaces (not used), including a wood burning stove and one with gas logs & handmade carpenter gothic trim in the parlor/library, some original fixtures, lofty ceilings, some beadboard ceilings and an appealing 2 story bay window in the front.

The 1st floor has an eat-in kitchen, bedroom with a half bath (being used as a formal dining room), library/parlor, living room with bay window, full bathroom and back porch with washer/dryer hookup. The second floor has 3 bedrooms and a full bathroom with a cast iron tub.