The Showboat Motel is a bright beacon welcoming you across the causeway entering Atlantic Beach in southeastern North Carolina. We walk past the empty rooms, filled with old furniture and sagging ceiling panels, we could feel the memories encapsulated in these ruins. Families on vacation, bright colored swim suits, feet covered in sand and sunburnt faces. What remains of the structure serves as a vessel for dreaming and imagining, peeling back layers of time as the Haint Blue paint peels off the exterior of the building.
Who built this Motel? When did the first guests spend the night in the brand new lodging spot? How was this land used prior to the construction of this 42 room structure?
[recently the town planning board gave the green light for the property to demolish the old motel and redevelop the lot into townhouses] view
The Haint blue color and tradition comes from the Gullah Geechee culture, the blue-green color represents water and evil spirits aren’t able to pass over water. As we gaze into our reflections on the glass windows of this forgotten leftover of capitalism, we sit with these spirits and memories unable to pass over this decaying vestige of times gone by. It stands, for now, as an affirming artifact of our effect on the environment and the colonizing of this land.
People have been living and caring for this land for thousands of years before European colonizers arrived. The Spanish arrived in what is now known as the southeastern United States with diseases that decimated the indigenous population. The Showboat Motel sits on the homeland of the Lumbee People- “we are the ones who remain”; they are the survivors of centuries of decimation and conflict. As European colonizers claimed more and more land, the Lumbee’s ancestors came together in the shelter of the Lumbee river’s pines, swamps, and dark waters. view
Colonial settlements continue to expand across the continent. Capitalism extracts and depletes resources from the land, taking more and more. Factories, processing plants, strip malls and parking lots cover the land with concrete and asphalt. Decades pass, businesses fold but the concrete and asphalt remains, continuing to disrupt habitats even through the building no longer serves a function. The sun, wind, and rain are strong forces constantly beating on these edifices, slowly gradually chipping away at them.
This porch without a house is located in what is now called New Smyrna Beach, Florida. The main structure of the home had been demolished, but the flooring and back porch remain. Porches were a recurring theme during our time in the south; this line of thinking was introduced to us by Charlie Hailey who recently published The Porch: Meditations on the Edge of Nature.
“Come with us for a moment out onto the porch. Just like that, we’ve entered another world without leaving home. In this liminal space, an endless array of absorbing philosophical questions arises: What does it mean to be in a place? How does one place teach us about the world and ourselves? What do we—and the things we’ve built—mean in this world? In a time when reflections on the nature of society and individual endurance are so paramount, Charlie Hailey’s latest book is both a mental tonic and a welcome provocation. Solidly grounded in ideas, ecology, and architecture, The Porch takes us on a journey along the edges of nature where the outside comes in, hosts meet guests, and imagination runs wild.”
“As close as architecture can bring us to nature, the porch is where we can learn to contemplate anew our evolving place in a changing world—a space we need now more than ever. Timeless and timely, Hailey’s book is a dreamy yet deeply passionate meditation on the joy and gravity of sitting on the porch.”
And thanks to Ira Tattelman for sharing this structure with us!
New Smyrna Beach is on Seminole lands. Similar to the Lumber peoples, the Seminole took shelter in the swamps and have remained free and Unconquered. They continue to fight for their freedom and “have moved the war from the battlefield to the courtroom”.
“We are a sovereign government with our own schools, police, and courts. We run one of the largest cattle operations in the United States. We own Hard Rock Hotel & Casinos, an international business with locations in 74 countries. We still continue our traditions of sewing, patchwork, chickee building, and alligator wrestling. The world has changed, as it always has, and we have adapted, as we always have; while keeping our ways, our culture, and our lives, to remain the Unconquered Seminole Tribe of Florida.” view
