Vera's Shines Again

They married and traveled the world in their yacht, transporting exotic wares from Bali and Bombay back to those 800 acres, which Doc parceled into a subdivision called White Sands, with the restaurant and marina as its locus.

Vera intended to return to Hollywood and achieve stardom, but the restaurant took off. It became a destination for the growing White Sands community to slip on a lei and drink a mai tai, and for yachtsmen from Annapolis and Baltimore to dock and be merry amid waitresses in grass skirts. Vera herself became the vivacious empress of White Sands. Her new vocation was hostess of a never-ending tiki party.

"I had such a plan for this place," she said. "You live it, you breathe it and you do it. There's nothing else."

Doc died in 1980, but Vera kept the dream alive. Even as she grew older and the yachts stopped coming, the legacy remained: White Sands matured into a community of 710 homes partly because of her hospitality and resolve. She has the notoriety to prove it, as well as the commendations of governors (from J. Millard Tawes in '64 to Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. in '04).

Richard Fischer, who owns the Lighthouse Inn in Solomons, worked for the Freemans as a dock master in the early '70s and was part of the crew on their yacht trips to New York and the Bahamas.

"When [Vera] walks into a room, anywhere in the world, people look," Fischer said. "She commands that kind of attention."

Near the end of lunch, a woman stopped by the table and put her hand on Freeman's shoulder.

"Hi, Vera. I know you don't remember me," the woman said slowly. "I'm Judy. God bless you."

"I have so many friends here," Freeman said, watching her go. "I don't know them. But they know me. And that's a warm feeling."

Work in Progress

With the vigor of a proud mother, Del Ricco hung the liquor license beside the bar.

"Now we're in business," she said a month before the planned opening. "I'm ready. My adrenaline is definitely flowing."

On that May afternoon, the termite guy sprayed into the cinder blocks behind the bar, whose leopard-skin facade was muddled by plastic wrapping. In the air were whiffs of exhumed dust. New glass doors glazed with palm tree silhouettes opened up to the new deck, where Del Ricco and Stanley rested between projects.