How this project came to be. ….
17 years ago this story began when I flew to Ocracoke island with some buddies in two planes for a day fishing trip. In my haste to get to the fishing part of this trip, I forgot to turn off the master switch in my aircraft. Just like with cars, the battery ran dead. But unlike cars, planes require specific equipment for jump-starting. So thus I met the one and only man on the island of 500 inhabitants who could help me: Phil Platt. He was kind enough to help and we struck up a unique aviators’ kinship. I began frequent visits to the island and came to know his significant other, Nancy Carlson.
Nancy was a kind and gentle, sweet woman with many talents of her own and amazing stories of her own worldly travels that would always leave you looking forward to the next visit and more of her stories. Late one evening while I was off island I got one of those calls that no one wants to ever hear and you know from the moment the ring comes what it is… Nancy was in tears and telling me Phil had just passed from a massive heart attack!
This event sent both of our lives on much different courses than either of us could have expected. Phil was a man of projects and he had invested most of both their available funds and credit into houses and planes which he was trying to work on himself with very little help. He was an Aeronautical Engineer and even worked for NASA back during the Apollo Missions, so he knew how to build things. Phil did an amazing job on the structural aspects of the buildings he constructed here. But he was short on funds and help – this wasn’t a good mix for someone who had plenty of good ideas and ambitions.
This was the first time I had ever been first hand witness to the devastation that one can be left with from a life partners passing without proper safe guards in place for the “what ifs.” I spent the next six years traveling to the island more to help this sweet elderly lady work through the hardships that were dropped in her lap, rather than pursuing any fishing adventure. There were planes to get rid of and houses to sell, and she herself needed something manageable to live in for which she didn’t owe more money than it was worth. She and Phil had been running a B+B on island up to his passing where he also was flying customers on and off island so without him, she had no income or means to make one.
After getting rid of trash and selling what could be sold, Nancy took a job at the local ice cream deli and she has been working there ever since. For the first few years after Phil’s passing, Nancy spoke of selling the building we are now working on, which she and Phil referred to as “Pelican North.” I told her I would love to buy the place from her but that was a pipe dream at the time because I hadn’t the funds to invest and it would have been impossible to get a load on the property in the condition it was in, especially since within the next couple of years to follow the real estate market had crashed here just as it had across the entire country. So the building sat year after year and I think she and I were both waiting for the market to get better, the right person to come along who’d take it as is, or the least likely of things, for me to come across the need funds to do something with it.
Six years ago two needed things to make this possible happened in my life. 1st was to meet the woman that had the key to my soul and inspire me like no one had ever done before, and the second thing was I invested what little money I had into a property that I could with my skills “flip” as hey say and create a much larger cash supply. So as of 2 years ago I approached Nancy (granny) with the idea that I purchase the property for what I could afford to pay and use the rest of the money I’ve been saving up to make the repairs needed and finish this project the best way I knew how.
Partly to make all this possible, I also bought my own airplane so that I can fly back and forth from the island to my now temporary home in the Raleigh Durham area while we work here. And now just as Phil had dreamed to do, I hope that once this project is finished, I might be able to fly guests on and off the island while providing and quiet serene vacation for those who otherwise might miss this opportunity to be a part of this breathtaking landscape and vibrant atmosphere on the island due to the long drive required and ferry boats to catch in route. I come from a family of career pilots and I certainly see this as my calling and just where God wants me to be. Fewer things in life have ever been so clear to me and I have to give thanks to God and many who have encouraged me, but mostly to the woman who has always been my inspiration to dream for this.