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Dale Varmnam’s Fort Apache

Sometimes we find some of the most interesting places along the NC Coast when we aren’t even trying!

Dale Varnam’s 28-acre Fort Apache in Supply NC is one of those places that you stumble upon in wide eyed wonder that brings to mind the old saying that “one man’s junk is another man’s treasure”. He likes to call it a” Contemporary Art Museum”.

Driving down the old Stone Chimney Road heading towards Holden Beach, you will come upon an open toilet with a couple of legs legs protruding from it.

Even before you enter the premises through the front gate you will encounter stuffed dummies sitting in police cars while an enormous bus called the Crack Head Express warns passing drivers of the perils of drugs and to “stay off the rock.” Several cowboy-like figures hang from nooses.

This odd spectacle is just one part of a huge collection of random junk and artwork that comprise this 28 acre spread named Fort Apache. Much of the material comes from regional film and theater work.

Back in 1957, Varnam’s father, Olaf, started a junk yard and scrap metal repository just up the Lockwood’s Folly river from their family homestead of Varnamtown. Over the ensuing years it has metamorphosized into a stockpile of American memorabilia and oddities that are stuffed, hung, parked and placed in every available space.

Varnam can’t remember exactly why he named it Fort Apache, and it has drawn stares from people driving down Stone Chimney Road through Brunswick County for years.

“I guess I’d just call it art,” says 66-year-old Dale Varnam the owner of this odd roadside attraction.

Varnam collects the props from movie and theatrical sets, and puts them out for people to look at.

But Varnam said he also wants to make people think.

“Sometimes,” he said, “it’s hard to tell the dummies from the real people.”

Varnam’s past is also well-known in the area as he was caught up in a federal drug raid that made headlines in the 80’s known as “Operation White Tide” .

That part of his life started when Dale graduated Shallotte High School in 1971 and fell in love with money. He the found the best way to gain loads of it was trafficking in drugs.

He didn’t cared whether the cocaine he was unloading was pure or not as long as the money was.

“It was pure greed that I was addicted to,” said Varnam, now 65. “It was in 1972. I started dancing with the devil. I became addicted to money. I didn’t care about the drugs, or drinking. I just brought the drugs in for distribution. I never sold it retail to dealers on the street.”

In 1988, Varnam avoided prison time on three dozen cocaine trafficking charges after helping investigators indict 70 others in the wide-reaching sting.

Four years later, though, he was sentenced to 35 years after pleading guilty to several breaking and entering charges.

Varnam left prison in 2001, and became “saved and baptized,” and soon was dedicating himself to creating his unique version of a “theme park”.

Varnam and his cornucopia of the bizarre has been the location for a movie “Don’t Know Yet”, the subject of a documentary “Another Man’s Treasure”, and an episode after of the television series when back in 2011 The History Channel’s “American Pickers” spent a day indulging their curiosity.

“They called two days before they came to tell me they were coming,” Dale said.

The cast and crew of “American Pickers” arrived in Brunswick County and spent more than 10 hours digging on Dale’s property.

“So many people had told them they had seen my stuff and told them they needed to check it out,” Dale said.

In the summertime his business attracts a lot of attention from out of town and out-of-state guests who drop in to see what his displays are all about and to hunt treasures.

“They did their history on me,” Dale said. “They knew I like to help people out. I try to help so many people to keep them from going down a bad road. I’ve been down that road. There is the old Dale and the new Dale. If you dance with the devil some day you have to pay the piper.”

Dale said he did sell them some items but the thing they wanted most he wasn’t ready to part with.

“They loved my old cars,” he said. “They really wanted the cars from ‘The Godfather.’ I have all the papers and they knew what they were. But I held on to my cars. I did promise to contact them if I sold them.”

They bought a few signs, flight jackets and little cars. Dale said he was pretty sure they bought things that won’t air simply because there is so much to look at.

Dale said the guys were really down to earth and he enjoyed spending the day with them. “I was proud to have them,” Dale said. “And proud they were here with the new Dale instead of the old one.”

My Right Hand to Goodness: The Life and Times of Crazy Dale Varnam

Buy It Here $19.99

Islands Art Featured in South Brunswick Magazine

When Gary Pope opened his store in 2011, he named it Islands Art & Books because it’s halfway between Ocean Isle Beach and Sunset Beach and he wanted to be welcoming to both communities.

Gary Pope was born in Manhattan and grew up in southern Connecticut. After graduating from Staples High School in Westport, Connecticut, in 1973, he joined a band in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He played electric guitar in the band for two years in gigs all over the Southeast. In 1977 Pope went to Shallotte to stay with his grandmother for two weeks and help her after a hospitalization. He fell in love with the area and decided that he didn’t want to leave.

“The whole Sunset Beach, Ocean Isle Beach and Calabash area was very rural then, and I liked everything about it – the wide open fields, the horses and cows, the ocean and being able to sail often,” Pope says. “I’d grown up swimming and sailing in the Long Island Sound off the coast of Connecticut, but that was tame compared to sailing in the Atlantic Ocean.

“The laid-back feeling appealed to me, plus wherever I went it seemed that people were really friendly and helpful. I quickly realized that I had found a new home here in Brunswick County.”

His parents, Helen and Miller Pope, sold their house in Connecticut and moved to Ocean Isle Beach in 1975 so family was close by. Pope met his future wife, Martha, who’s a native of Greenville, South Carolina, through a mutual friend in Ocean Isle Beach.

Pope worked in construction plus helped manage The Winds Resort on E. First Street in Ocean Isle Beach, which his parents opened in the 1970s. When the Internet came along, Pope created his first website for the family’s resort. He then went on to set up the initial “official” town websites for Ocean Isle Beach, Sunset Beach and Shallotte, and for the past 25 years he’s been a web designer.

Pope’s father, a longtime professional illustrator on Madison Avenue in Manhattan, had opened an art gallery at 6885 Beach Drive SW in Ocean Isle Beach. Afterwards, a bookstore took over the space but relocated. When Pope looked at the space and its location, he realized that it was ideal for Islands Art & Books. The shelves and lighting were already there.

“Our customers are locals but many people drive here from Wrightsville Beach, Oak Island, Holden Beach, Southport and other areas,” Pope says.

Islands Art & Books focuses on local books and high-quality prints of local art and photography. Folks can purchase the prints in multiple sizes that all fit standard frames.

“They can purchase just the prints, but we also carry frames that we buy direct from the factory so we have great prices,” Pope says.

The store also features handmade gold and silver sea glass jewelry plus note cards, hand towels and more. Some of the most popular books they sell are about how to find seashells, how to find sea glass, shark-tooth hunting on the Carolina coast, The Southern Surfcaster and Gardening in the South. “We’ve noticed that customers love how-to books,” Pope says.

Islands Art & Books carries an assortment of fiction novels as well as romance novels. “Our Beach Reads section has romance novels that take place along the beaches of the Carolinas by popular authors,” Pope says. “Marybeth Whalen and Mary Alice Monroe’s books are always in demand.”

Pope also notes that people who have relocated to or visit Brunswick County want to know the history of the area. “It seems that people are really hungry for knowledge about their new home towns, about what it was like in the old days before the area grew, so any local history books go quickly,” he says.

He adds that people love their vintage beach prints, which offer a heartwarming glimpse into yesterday. They also come in all the same sizes as the other prints. The black-and-white photos that fly off the shelves are of the people and the towns 60 and 70 years ago, the old ferry that once serviced Ocean Isle Beach, the old pier, 1960s billboards and the filling stations.

Pope estimates that about 50 percent of his customers are locals and 50 percent are visitors. His busiest time at Islands Art & Books is between Memorial Day and Labor Day, but people can order books, artwork and sea glass jewelry any time from his website.

Want to go?

Islands Art & Books
Beach Drive Center, 6885 Beach Drive SW, Unit 3, Ocean Isle Beach
(910) 579-7757
islandsartstore.com
Hours are Monday to Friday from 10 am to 5 pm and Saturday from noon to 5 pm.

Written by Claire Lynch for South Brunswick Magazine. See the original article https://lifeinbrunswickcounty.com/all-about-islands-art-books

Gardening Books for the Perfect Spring Garden!

If you’re getting antsy to put on your gardening gloves and get out in the yard, you don’t have to wait for the official arrival of spring. Here are some helpful guide books for planning and preparing your Spring garden.

Carolinas Gardener’s Handbook

The Carolinas Gardener’s Handbook is your one-stop source for all your questions about gardening in the Carolinas!

Creating a flowerbed that draws admiring looks from passersby, complementing the look of your home with a beautiful landscape, and harvesting your very own homegrown edibles fresh from the garden does not happen by chance.

No matter where in the Carolinas you live, you know that gardening success depends on knowing not only how but when to perform certain tasks.

Carolinas Gardener’s Handbook features chapters on edible gardening, including fruits, herbs, and vegetables, ten popular plant categories, from annuals to trees, Monthly to-do calendars for each of the plant categories, information on sustainable and environmentally sound gardening practices, a special section on growing roses in the Carolinas.

With input from a number of seasoned gardeners from both North and South Carolina, we have compiled a complete garden reference to answer any question. Happy Gardening!

$29.99

Get It Here

Gardening in the South

Here’s a fabulous book for learning all about… you guessed it Gardening In The South! A gardener’s plant choice and garden style are inextricably linked to the place they call home. In order to grow a flourishing garden, every gardener must know the specifics of their region’s climate, soil, and geography.

Gardening in the South is comprehensive, enthusiastic, and accessible to gardeners of all levels. It features information on site and plant selection, soil preparation and maintenance, and basic design principles. Plant profiles highlight the region’s best perennials, annuals, trees, shrubs, and bulbs. Color photographs throughout show wonderful examples of southern garden style.

Gardening in the South is for home gardeners in Virginia, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana.

$32.95

Get It Here

Garden Perennials for Coastal South

Finally: a book that addresses the unique challenges of gardening in the coastal South.

Master Gardener Barbara Sullivan provides an authoritative guide for gardeners from Tidewater Virginia to North Carolina To Florida and all along the Gulf Coast from Florida to Texas.

Combining helpful gardening advice with an A-to-Z plant guide that describes more than 1,000 plant varieties and cultivars, Garden Perennials for the Coastal South will become an essential reference for both experienced and novice gardeners in this region. The book is organized to allow planning a year-round garden or focusing on a particular season.

Sections separate subtropical plants, vines, herbs, groundcovers, ferns, heat- and drought-tolerant plants, shade plants, bulbs, ornamental grasses, and annuals, as well as address disease-resistant roses for the region. More than 200 color photographs illustrate individual plants and provide examples of beautiful landscape design. Rounding out the book’s usefulness is information on the basics of landscaping, soil preparation, plant care, propagation, diseases, and pests.

Whether you are new to the coastal South or a lifelong resident, you will find Garden Perennials for the Coastal South an indispensable addition to your gardening bookshelf.

$39.99

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Ivey Hayes

All About Sea Glass

Sea Glass, also known as beach glass or mermaid tears, is a shard of glass that can be found on just about any coast in the world. The pieces of glass have been smoothed and frosted by years of being tossed and tumbled by the waves of the ocean.

It is most commonly found in pastel shades of blue, green, brown, and white, but you can also find more rare colors such as reds, darker blues, purples, and oranges. Human civilizations began using glass around 3500 B.C., most early civilizations settled near large bodies of water, and when it was discarded it often found its way into oceans. So often it is most often found near areas where large populations dwell.

WHERE TO FIND IT:

There are some beaches that are known for sea glass, the most popular is Fort Bragg, California, which was previously a dumpsite where glass was left in abundance. Another popular place is Kauai Island in Hawaii, where glass gets trapped in between lava rocks and makes it way to the shore.

There are also several areas of both North and South Carolina that offer a plethora of sea glass in a wide array of colors. The Brunswick Islands, located just south of several industrial shipping ports and shipping offsets, produce a variety of glass. It is often easier to find on more secluded parts of theses beaches and in coves and inlets, which help trap the glass.

In recent years, sea glass has become harder to find as people have started recycling and beaches are putting greater efforts into keeping their shores clean. Also, the increased use of plastic bottles as opposed to glass has contributed to the decrease in sea glass.

COLORS:

Before the 1960s most household products and foods were packaged in glass or tin, although in coastal areas tin would rust. Green glass often came from beer, wine, or soda bottles; Brown glass is now from beer bottles, but also Clorox and other household cleaners were packaged in brown glass years ago. White sea glass often comes from soda bottles or window panes.

You can guess the age of white sea glass by looking for a tint, a light purple shade will be more recent as manganese is added to glass and turns purple with sun exposure, a green shade indicates that the glass is much older.

Light blue or orange are the rarest colors to find since those colors were not commonly produced to market goods. If you located a piece of aqua-colored sea glass, it is most likely from a Coca-Cola bottle, which used silica. Cobalt blue colors are often from old medicine bottles or poisons.

A piece of red sea glass, is an incredibly rare find. There are only a few producers of red glass, including Anchor for vases or kitchenware, Avon, and Schlitz beer. Orange can be attributed to boat warning lights or traffic warning lights, but not much else.

Ultimate Guide to Sea Glass

The Ultimate Guide to Sea Glass: Finding, Collecting, Identifying, and Using the Ocean’s Most Beautiful Stones

As the owner of one of the world’s most elaborate sea glass collections, Mary Beth Beuke gets to talk about these prized ocean gems on a daily basis. Unfortunately, with each passing day, sea glass becomes more and more difficult to find, making the hunt more of a challenge to the seeker–especially one with limited experience in sea glass hunting.

There are several reasons why the hunt is so important to the sea glass seeker. Some find their Zen moments in the solitude and beauty of the hunt. Some collect to add color to their life. The history, mystery, and discovery of sea glass are also strong forces that draw collectors to shorelines around the world, looking for these pieces of physically and chemically weathered frosted glass.

Whatever your reason for wanting to learn about and start your own collection of sea glass, the window for doing so is closing as pieces are becoming more elusive due to a growth in sea glass popularity and a decrease in recent glass bottle production.

In The Ultimate Guide to Sea Glass, Beuke provides information that will help first-time seekers start new collections and veteran hunters learn more about their current sets. Beuke shares her experiences in gathering her own collection via photographs of vibrant and rare pieces, as well.

Buy Here It In Our Online Store – $29.99

TIPS FOR FINDING SEA GLASS:

If you are looking to comb the beaches for sea glass, the best time to do so is an hour before the tide goes out. Also, storms have a tendency to bring up glass out of the ocean so after a large storm is a good time to look along the shores.

You should also look in the areas of wet, damp sand or where the wet sand meets the dry sand. Sea glass is easier to see when it is sunny, because the light will reflect off pieces, so choose a bright day. Walk slowly and closely scan the shore, so you don’t miss any.