Every summer in the 70’s and 80’s, the Wilkins family would move from their house in Wilmington to Carolina Beach for the weeks between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Summer was filled with days of fishing, crabbing, boating, swimming, sandcastles, puzzles, and board games. Their summer house was filled with family— grandparents and cousins— and the walls contained their stories.

In the late 90’s, as one generation aged and kids moved away, the cottage was lock up tight and left unused. It remained that way for two decades— the hurricane shutters permanently closed and a chain pulled across the driveway so that even a passerby could not use it to turn around.

Then, four years ago on a warm March weekend, the next generation discovered the house. They opened the doors, raised the shutters and found rooms still filled with treasures from long ago— skis, lifejackets, jars of shells, photographs, books, records, artwork, and furniture. It was as though they had opened a time capsule containing the childhood of another time. They fell in love with the old pine-paneled walls and everything contained within.

Updates were needed as appliances had aged over the decades and the textiles were worn. So they kept the the artifacts that held the stories. The (slightly out of round) lazy Susan table too big to ever be removed from the kitchen, the yellow child skis, the fishing poles, printer trays of shells, the record albums, hurricane map and old lifegaurd photographs. They carefully curated the things that told the story of the house, while working to make the modern upgrades that were necessary.

Now, when guests enter the cottage, they comment that it feels like stepping into another time, like returning to their childhood home for the summer.

The family has decided to open the doors and offer the experience they have come to love, a step into a summer from long ago where technology was simple and things like fishing poles, kayaks, bait nets and buckets were the essential core of what summer meant. They decided to offer the house as a getaway for families who long for a summer the way it used to be.

The name Two Sisters comes from the most recent and fourth generation of summer house occupants. Caroline and Abigail spend their time at the cottage catching crabs, kayaking the inlet, wandering the shores in search of shells, and casting lines off the deck. The two sisters invite you to come create stories like these in the historical rooms and decks of their summer house.