
DATE: Saturday, March 8, 1997               TAG: 9703080230

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA 

SOURCE: BY LANE DeGREGORY, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: HATTERAS VILLAGE                  LENGTH:  102 lines

GRAVEYARD OF THE ATLANTIC MUSEUM HATTERAS VISITOR ATTRACTION EXPANDS IN SIZE AND COST

Plans for a proposed Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum have almost doubled the size of the facility during the past year.

The price tag has jumped from $1.7 million to $4.5 million.

And the project - which was scheduled to open for visitors this summer beside the Hatteras Village ferry docks - has been postponed. Construction was slated to start a year and a half ago. Now, building probably won't begin until spring at the earliest.

Officials say the museum could be ready in time for the 1998 summer season.

But organizers still have to collect artifacts, plan exhibits and begin a $3 million fund-raising campaign. They've already secured $1.5 million from federal, state, county, corporate and private sources. But the nonprofit venture needs a much larger nest egg.

Executive director Joseph Karl Schwarzer II said he hopes to receive more state money soon. And he's asked elected officials to help him get permission to display some of the artifacts from the newly discovered shipwreck off North Carolina's coast that historians think might be Blackbeard's pirate boat.

``We still don't have a great deal of artifacts. We're making sure the museum is built first,'' Schwarzer said Thursday from the museum's headquarters above the Hatteras Village Post Office. ``It's just taking a lot longer than we thought.''

Almost 12 years ago, Dale Burrus and some other Hatteras Village residents began planning for a place to store shipwreck artifacts. This week, Burrus said he never envisioned anything like the enormous undertaking now under way in his isolated Outer Banks community.

``It seems like this thing expands in some way every day,'' said Burrus, who sits on the museum's board of directors.

``I never saw it as this big. In the beginning, what we went for was a place to store artifacts from the (Civil War ironclad ship) USS Monitor. Of course, we lost those to the Newport News Mariners' Museum.

``Lord, we've been frustrated since Day One,'' Burrus said. ``But as the time this thing takes increases, so does the quality of the project.

``I'm thrilled we're finally getting to this point. But I'm scared, too.''

Designed to trace the 400-year maritime history of North Carolina's Outer Banks, the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum will include artifacts, interactive displays, multimedia films and presentations, classroom and exhibit space and information on many of the more than 1,000 ships that sank just off the barrier islands between Corolla and Cape Lookout.

The 18,768-square-foot facility will be built to withstand Category 5 hurricanes. The same weather patterns and opposing offshore currents that have claimed so many ships continue to plague Hatteras Island - especially the southern tip where the museum will be located.

``We had to keep modifying the plans to make sure the building would withstand the storms,'' Schwarzer said. ``The delays have been necessary, productive and positive.''

Cost increases, according to the director, are due to the expanded size of the museum, alterations to the architecture and including additional funds to acquire exhibits.

Some of the artifacts that will be on display are parts of private collections. Families have called offering to donate old Coast Guard or Lifesaving Station uniforms and medals. One man gave Schwarzer a shipwreck commissioner's log book from the Civil War that includes descriptions of being bombarded by blockade runners. Pieces of shipwrecks - including brass-covered portholes - have been promised. And hundreds of photographs from the first World War to the present are in people's attics, waiting to be hung behind the museum's glass cases.

Other displays will be on loan from nearby maritime museums in Newport News and Beaufort. Schwarzer said he is talking to officials at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington about borrowing some of their seafaring collection. And Hatteras museum officials are commissioning their own film on shipwrecks to be shown in a small theater near the gift shop.

During the first few years the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum is open, Schwarzer said he expects about 60,000 visitors annually.

Admission to the one-story facility probably will cost $4 or $5 per person. The museum is supposed to be self-supporting, with admissions revenues netting about $240,000 per year. But a prospectus on the project prepared by the National Park Service and Schwarzer shows annual expenses will be at least $440,000 - almost twice the expected income.

``Other sources of revenue include net profits from museum store sales, interest income from endowment, memberships, annual fund raising, direct mail solicitation and visitor contributions,'' says the 25-page document.

Three weeks ago, architects finally finished a $5,000 model of the museum. It is on display at the East Carolina Bank in Hatteras Village. The stylized white-and-brown building includes curved roof lines and an open entryway similar to the outside of a ship.

``This is something people have been asking for for many years down here,'' Burrus said. ``Shipping was the only way to travel and transport goods until this century. And thousands of ships went by our coast.

``This museum will be a window to the development of a nation.'' ILLUSTRATION: [Color photo]

LANE DeGREGORY/The Virginian-Pilot

The Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum is expected to appear as

depicted in this model.

IN HONOR OF SHIPWRECKS

The Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum is scheduled to open in

summer 1998 at the Hatteras Village ferry docks. Organizers need

artifacts to display, volunteers to help and donations to finance

the $4.5 million project. For more information, or to offer

assistance, call (919) 986-2995 or write Graveyard of the Atlantic

Museum, P.O. Box 191, Hatteras, N.C. 27943.