VIRGINIA BEACH — Tucked away on a quiet North End street is an unassuming structure with a long history, where the women of Princess Anne County and the small beachfront town came together almost 90 years ago and established a clubhouse of their very own.
The home, at 301 53rd St., has changed a lot since it was built on a small pile of sand in 1930 as the Women’s Club of Princess Anne County. Then it was a single room meeting place for the ladies of the town and the county. Since January 2012, it has been the quaint home of Paul and Donna Macy and a landmark listed on Virginia Beach’s Register of Historic Places.
For the Lacy’s, the “English Cottage” as it’s also known, offered an opportunity to downsize as well as to live in and preserve a historic structure.
“We lived around the corner on 52nd Street for 20 years,” said Donna, a retired art teacher who has also co-authored and illustrated two children’s picture books. “After our sons were grown, we were ready to downsize but didn’t want to leave our friends and neighbors. We feel very lucky to have gotten first dibs on this house because smaller, older homes are becoming a rare commodity at the North End.”
Fundraising for the “clubhouse” began in 1925 after the Home Demonstration Club of Kempsville reorganized into a more far-reaching body. That first year, club membership hit 150 and the members performed dramas and put on festivals.
Five years later the clubhouse was built. It was one big room with identical fireplaces at each end, facing each other across maple floors that were made for dancing. The exterior siding was fir, intended to discourage insects.
Donna said that both she and Paul, a semi-retired financial advisor, love old houses.
“There is just something intriguing about them. We both had noticed the ‘English Cottage.’ We thought it looked warm and inviting, like a relaxing, pleasant place to spend time. It looked perfect for our retirement house.”
The Women’s Club kept the structure for just seven years, selling it off in 1937 – in the midst of the Great Depression – rather than endure the cost of maintaining it. (As a side note: According to a tidbit in the local history book “Princess Anne County and Virginia Beach – A Pictorial History,” two decades later some of the proceeds from that sale were used to purchase a structure on 22nd Street and establish a library, which would eventually evolve into the Virginia Beach Public Library System.)
The club was almost certainly the place to be in the 1930s, serving as a spot to gather and to have fun. Even if the fun was sometimes perhaps … illegal.
“One story our neighbor Bob Weaver told us was pretty funny,” said Donna. “He had been told that in the 1960s the house was elevated for a new foundation. When it was lifted up they discovered hundreds of old flasks and liquor bottles from the days of Prohibition. Paul speculates that some of the men probably needed their liquid courage to get out on the dance floor.”
Donna said one of the reasons she and Paul love their North End neighborhood so much is the “hodgepodge” of old and new houses, with big family homes next door to tiny vacation cottages, all of various styles and ages tucked in next to each other.
Unfortunately, it appears that photographs of the original clubhouse are few. Or perhaps just one: a grainy black and white that shows the cottage sitting alone in the sand.
“I wish we would get more stories,” said Donna. “We seem to get more questions than stories these days.”
