The white picket gate swings open, and the thud of happy feet springs up the brick-lined walk at the home of Bob and Roberta Wishart. From the verandah, Cali’s muffled woofing becomes clearer as the footsteps draw closer to the front door.
The cheerful sound of giggling children is met by the family’s panting dog — part Pyrenees, part golden retriever — as the door opens into an environment that blends a cultured lifestyle with an unbridled zest for living in the moment, where the interior living rooms are unencumbered by walls. Instead, windows welcome the sunlight and invite the outside beauty of the landscaped courtyards indoors, and Handel’s classic water music is underscored by the gentle splash of fountains, spilling from the bricked trellis wall into olive urns.
When their grandchildren arrive — Savannah, 9; Andrew, 7; Annabelle, 4; and Isabel, 2 — the boys, Bob and Andrew, fetch their fishing rods and tackle boxes and head down the sun-kissed Olmstead Lane to one of the freshwater ponds that surround the Parkside neighborhood. Like a rerun of an Andy Griffith show, the scene could be confused for a rural North Carolina setting where the passions of one generation are passed to the next.
“It’s catch and release,” Roberta says. “We let him keep one fish.”
“It’s still in the freezer,” Bob adds.
The couple that moved from Burlington to Wilmington to be nearer to their grandkids relishes every moment spent with the family.
“We’re five minutes from anything we need or want to do, but when you’re back here, you feel like you’re in the country,” Roberta says. “It’s so nice. There’re families with young children, old geezers like us, everything in between.”
The couple was first attracted to the coast because of the beaches. In 1996, they ventured to Topsail Island. “Just on a whim, we decided to take a look, and fell in love, and found a place within 48 hours of going up there the first time,” Bob says.
Several years later, when their oldest granddaughter was born, they relocated permanently, settling in Parsley Woods on Bradley Creek, where they lived for three years. Initially, they thought that might be their retirement home, “but it didn’t live the way we wanted it to,” Roberta says.
The day they decided to visit Parkside, the corner lot had just come on the market. For the first time ever, they have a house that truly accommodates the way they want to live. Built by Whitney Blair and completed in 2007, the Whishart home has been an award winner for the builder, Jeff Sanderson, earning him the highest of accolades from the North Carolina Builders Association and the National Homebuilders Association. Just last month, Sanderson was named Southern Living Builder of the Year.
With interior designer Vicky Serany of Southern Studio, Roberta Wishart orchestrated the understated, yet elegant, furnishing and finish plan around a palette of celadon, cream, pale teal, aqua and turquoise, oriental carpets and brocaded upholstery.
“From every space, to be able to see something pretty,” Roberta says, “seating areas at every window, easy access to the side porches, the charm of extending the living space inside and this area” — the open kitchen, dining and living room were plans mapped out with Allison Ramsey Architects in Beaufort, S.C.
“In the cold months, we spend a lot of time up over the garage, where we have an office and a studio,” Roberta says, and an in-between space for playing bridge. With windows that overlook the backyard, they are never far from home.
In warmer weather, their garden is like an oasis, enclosed by pairs of 100-year-old wrought iron gates, and the oversized poured-concrete pavers, individually formed, then textured, are placed in the lawn, suggesting a floating patio.
“You can mow the yard with a pair of scissors,” Bob jokes.
Splashing water, the squeals of children playing, the sizzle of grilling fish, the tinkle of ice cubes in a glass and the final ovation of the songbirds roosting for the night spread like a smile beneath a canopy of Carolina blue sky that dissolves into golden sunsets.
It’s a white picket-fence world at the Wisharts. Bob says, “We’re out there from morning to bed time.”
