THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, September 22, 1995 TAG: 9509210177
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 08 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY BILL REED, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 133 lines
NOT LONG AFTER the turn of the century some wealthy Northern industrialists discovered what folks here had known for ages.
This area now called Virginia Beach was a duck and goose hunter's paradise.
It was and remains a primary stop - a virtual O'Hare International Airport - for hundreds of thousands of wildfowl that make their way north and south along the great Atlantic Flyway each fall and spring.
The birds provided a dizzying array of colors, sounds and fancy food for those well-heeled early visitors who oared their way through tangles of marsh grass to hunt them and admire them.
The abundance of sheltered bays, sounds and coves, with wide expanses of marsh, provided ample food and cover for the likes of the Canada goose, white swan, mallard, pintail, wigeon, black duck and the wood duck, not to mention hundreds of varieties of other birds that visit the area.
So, the moguls of industry erected a few huge and elaborate hunt clubs, hired local guides and grounds keepers to maintain them, then they and their buddies rowed out to bag hundreds of the migrating fowl each year for trophies and table delicacies.
A glimpse of this now long-gone and sinfully self-indulgent way of life and the glorious birds that brought it about can be viewed at the Atlantic Wildfowl Heritage Museum. It will open at noon Saturday on Atlantic Avenue at 12th Street.
This will be the grand opening of the facility. On hand will be expert decoy carvers like Capt. Don Ewell of Knotts Island and master boat builder Pat Daniels. Until Nov. 1 no admission will be charged. After that, visitors must pay $2 per adult, $1.50 for seniors and active duty military personnel, and $1 for students. Children age 6 and younger will be admitted free.
The heritage museum is housed on the ground floor of a 100-year-old oceanfront cottage once occupied by the family of a Norfolk banker and cotton broker named Cornelius DeWitt. He likely did a little duck and goose hunting himself.
How it became a museum is a long and tortuous story that involves the reconciliation of commercial interests that now surround the cottage and the determined efforts of civic-minded individuals to preserve the city's water-related history.
Housed inside the refurbished brick and frame structure, museum patrons will find bits and snippets of that history, including a mock up of an old hunt club sitting room. The room comes complete with overstuffed chair, fireplace, a rack of fowling guns, decoys and waterfowl paintings.
There are displays of migratory paths of the ducks and geese that make their way to the city. Interactive computers with touch screens enable visitors to gain quick insight into the life and times of a diving or dabbling duck. A touch screen will even show patrons how to paint a decoy.
In addition, there are displays of decoys and paintings - known as flat art to wildfowl aficionados - of wildfowl; antique guns used to bag the birds; a decoy making exhibit, complete with the the tools and an expert on hand to show how it's done.
Facing Atlantic Avenue is a boat-building shed with the exhibits of hunting and work boats that once plied the Virginia coast and its tributaries. A craftsman will be on hand to show how a flat-bottomed hunting boat was built from scratch.
The exhibits and their arrangement in the wildfowl heritage museum are the work primarily of three individuals: curator Bill Walsh, a retired architect and decoy and hunting artifact collector; museum director Bob Harvey, a retired Army colonel who has helped arrange exhibits in places like the Mariners' Museum in Newport News, Colonial Williamsburg and Monticello; and Fletcher Bryant, a local insurance man and president of the Back Bay Wildfowl Guild.
The museum shares its ground floor space with a gift shop, which opened June 14 and features knickknacks, toys, jewelry, artwork and carvings.
Proceeds go toward the operation of the museum. Both shop and museum are the responsibility of the Back Bay Wildfowl Guild, which is now headquartered in the museum.
The shop opening was designed to kick-start interest in the heritage museum and to spur private donations to pay for museum improvements and exhibits.
The second floor of the old cottage has been renovated and is set aside for meeting rooms and office space for museum staff members.
The grounds outside have been resodded, landscaped and fenced with cooperative efforts from the city and local garden clubs.
The result is a quaint, yet rustic presence on the resort beach that harks back to the early 1900s, when the local shoreline was sprinkled with shingled frame cottages and many of the resort's streets were dirt and sand.
Over the last three years the DeWitt cottage has undergone a complete makeover, at an estimated cost of $270,000 in cash and in-kind services.
The structure was built in 1895 by B.P. Holland, the resort town's first mayor, who then sold it to DeWitt in 1906.
In the last decade the building had fallen into disrepair and was placed on the market as commercial property by DeWitt's heirs.
It languished until February 1991, when the Wildfowl Guild won permission from the city to use it as a museum that would feature artifacts and crafts related to the city's bird-hunting past.
A deal ensuring the continued presence of the cottage on the resort strip was finalized between the city, the Virginia Beach Foundation and representatives of four sisters - heirs of Cornelius DeWitt.
Terms of the agreement called for the city to provide a yearly annuity for the surviving DeWitt sisters. The Virginia Beach Foundation, an umbrella organization for local cultural, civic and charitable programs, agreed to take title to the property and spearhead renovation work.
Now that the work is done, the foundation is to turn over the title of the property to the city. The city will assume responsibility for the insurance and its upkeep. The agreement also calls for the Back Bay Wildfowl Guild to use the cottage as a museum and headquarters. In return, the guild promised to help the foundation raise the money to fix up the building. ILLUSTRATION: Staff photos, including color cover, by CHARLIE MEADS
This model of a buy boat is located in the museum's boat-building
shed, which contains exhibits of hunting and work boats that once
plied the Virginia coast and its tributaries.
A pair of hand-carved wood ducks ``takes flight'' in the museum.
Expert decoy carvers will be on hand for Saturday's grand opening.
This display shows a duck decoy in the different stages of being
painted.
A museum touch screen also will show patrons how to paint a decoy.
ABOVE: The museum shares its ground floor with a gift shop, which
opened June 14.
LEFT: Bob Harvey, the museum director, displays a Sharpie boat.
RIGHT: Fletcher Bryant is president of the Back Bay Wildfowl Guild,
which is headquartered in the museum. Bryant studies a decoy in an
old hunt club sitting room.
KEYWORDS: DECOY by CNB