"There is no avoiding that our community is changing," the youth said in his apology, "but this fact does not justify action that leaves people feeling threatened. Many of us have grown up at the beach, or brought our children here, or enjoyed our retirement here -- there's no questioning that it's a very special place. The irony of my mistake was that an action conceived of as protecting the community (albeit convolutedly and entirely wrong-headedly, I readily admit) resulted in nothing but the opposite in making homeowners and their families frightened and alarmed. For this I am truly remorseful." It was signed "A Remorseful and Apologetic Neighbor."
Some neighbors -- who were appalled by the arson threat -- nonetheless remarked on the quality of the language the young graffiti artist chose. "Erudite," one concluded.
This new home, disparagingly dubbed "the Twin Towers," is part of a heated dispute over building sizes in North Shores, Del.
(Photograph by Timothy Bell)
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RAY DAVIS AND HIS PARTNER, Martin Huber, are sitting on the front steps of their North Shores home, contemplating the design for their new swimming pool. It will be 20 feet by 40 feet, they say, with a deck landscaped in sea grass. It will sit a few yards from their curving driveway, already lined with crushed seashells.
Davis, 52, and Huber, 60, completed work on their five-bedroom, 5,600-square-foot dream house in March, and say they are thrilled with the results. Nearly four years in the works, the finished home is built tall and white, with a red roof inspired by a New England lighthouse.
Their move to North Shores began in 1998, when they purchased a dilapidated small home on the same lot and discovered renovating it was unrealistic.
"There was nothing architecturally important about it," says Davis, who is tan and blond and the more ebullient of the two. "When they tore it down, you should have seen all the [moldy] growth in the walls. It's a wonder we are still alive."
The pair downsized their home in Washington to a condo with the plan of moving to North Shores full time after Davis retires from his job in information technology for Marriott International. (Huber is already retired.)
Because this house will one day be their full-time residence as they age, they didn't hesitate to add such touches as an elevator, a necessity if climbing stairs becomes too difficult in the future. From the living room on the top floor -- whose centerpiece is a grand piano -- on clear days, "you can see Cape May," says Davis.
The kitchen has a tumbled marble tile backsplash above the sink, granite countertops and creamy glazed cabinets. It also has a butler's pantry off to the side. "We love to entertain," Davis says. "I think the concept of the whole butler's pantry is so cool. You can hide things in here. We congregate in the kitchen all the time, and when dirty dishes pile up, it's unpleasant."
They have filled the house with friends and family almost every weekend since they moved in. This weekend, for example, they are playing host to Huber's sister Barbara, a nun, and three other nuns.
On an upstairs balcony, Davis sweeps open the door and talks about the detailed process he went through in choosing exactly the right color red for his shingled roof. The builder, Davis says, spread out all the samples of roofing on the ground, "so I could make sure it was red enough. I didn't want orange."
Huber has quietly attended some of the neighborhood meetings on the proposed building restrictions, but he and Davis have mostly tried to stay out of the crossfire. Huber points out that only one of their neighbors took the time to review their plans when they were posted for public comment at the North Shores office. They ended up moving the house 20 feet forward on the lot to comply with the neighbor's request.
The couple say they are bewildered by the negative reaction to their home, which is the one some neighbors derisively call "the Red Roof Inn." While no one has been openly hostile to the couple on the beach or on the street, one mailing circulated by the Concerned Property Owners of North Shores complains that their home "looms" over the neighboring houses. Through it all, they've tried to maintain a sense of humor. They joke -- a tad mordantly -- that they ought to call the house "Looming Manor Inn," or "Looming Gate Inn."
"People do seem to be very emotional. They need to take a deep breath," says Davis, who adds, "We just want to get along."
ROY PARKS LIVES ALONE in a modest house about a block from the beach, obscured from the street behind a thick copse of trees.
Parks has a shock of white hair, a beard and the salty air of an avid fisherman. He bought his house in North Shores in 1967 and first used it as a vacation home while he pursued a career in aquaculture, farm-raising oysters and clams on Virginia's Eastern Shore. During the 1990s, he waged a highly public battle with Eastern Shore tomato farmers whose runoff was allegedly polluting local creeks and rivers -- a battle during which he became known as "the clam farmer from hell."
