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By Odile Fredericks • Photographs by Scott D. Taylor 



for Porch es 



In the Caribbean, where I grew up, 

 the veranda was a place of gusty salt breezes 

 from the ocean that whistled past your ears 

 on windy days, blowingyour thoughts out to sea. 

 It was a place to watch the goats chomping on red hibiscus. 

 It was where tea arrived as unpretentiously 

 as buttered toast every afternoon amid gossip. 



into the distance ... letting go. 



The feeling of connection was no 

 accident. Although no one can say 

 for sure, it is believed that coastal 

 North Carolina porches — also called 

 galleries, verandas or piazzas — 

 developed from a convergence of 

 French, Indian and African influences 

 in the Caribbean islands. 



The idea of living outside in the 

 breezes, yet sheltered from the 

 harshness of the elements, may have 

 first been born in the minds of 

 African slaves from the Caribbean 

 and carried with trade to coastal 

 North Carolina. 



"The porch may have been an 

 architectural idea rather than a form 

 — to be sheltered from the rain and 

 sun," says Michael Southern, an 

 author and research historian with 



t was a place to think and 

 listen to the croaking of toads as 

 bats flew at twilight. At noon, the air 

 stood still enough for thought. 



At my sister's house in town, 

 overlooking the street shimmering in 

 the heat of the day, the veranda was 

 a place to see and be seen. We 

 didn't miss much from that perch as 

 the sweetness of the early morning 

 with bicyclists hurrying to work gave 

 way to honking cars and laconic 

 walkers at midday. 



I arrived in the Carolinas in 

 1 988, after exactly a decade of living 

 without a veranda. The sun on my 

 new front porch welcomed back my 

 childhood, stirring memories. I felt 

 at home as I wandered neighbor- 

 hoods where people sat motionless 

 on their porches, staring unseeing 



the N.C. Historic Preservation 

 Office. "It provided shelter adjacent 

 to the house where you could work 

 or rest or eat without being inside a 

 stuffy building." 



The North Carolina porch took 

 root and thrived along the lower 

 Cape Fear River, settled by Barbadi- 

 ans and people migrating from 

 South Carolina, and in port towns 

 such as Wilmington, where Carib- 

 bean trade prospered. 



Called piazzas in 18th-century 

 North Carolina, these porches were 

 broad, functional and important as 

 social places in ports from Wilming- 

 ton to Edenton, says author 

 Catherine W. Bishir in her book 

 North Carolina Architecture. Piazzas 

 overlooked and often projected into 

 the street, making them part of 

 community life. 



The colonial affection for 

 piazzas is obvious in the diary of 

 Edenton's James Iredell, who is 

 quoted in Bishir's book: 



"January 23, 1 773. After Dinner 

 til Sunset writing in my Office. Then 

 came home and drank tea. Being by 

 accident in the Piazza I heard Mrs. 



Continued 



COASTWATCH 13 



