Hyde County landmark set to reopen in 2010

Backed by state money and oversight, renovations begin this month on the historic Mattamuskeet Lodge in Hyde County 20 years after local historian Lewis Forrest began a one-man salvation effort.

Last week, lawmakers appropriated $6.6 million for the project as part of the state budget awaiting the governor's approval. Combined with $2.5 million allocated last year and $6.5 million planned for next year, the lodge's renovations are to total $15.6 million. The building is expected to reopen in 2010.

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the lodge could become a local economic engine as an inn, museum, conservation education site and tourist site for an economically distressed region, drawing from approximately 100,000 annual visitors to the Mattamuskeet National Wildlife Refuge.

"This is not a pork-barrel project for Hyde County," Forrest said. "This is everybody's building."

He likened the project to moving and restoring the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse.

"Nobody saw that as a Dare County project," he said.

North Carolina State University is putting together a plan based on input from locals on how best to operate the lodge when it opens, he said.

Forrest plans a contest that he will advertise statewide hoping to attract old photographs of the lodge during its heyday. The best photo will win $1,000 for its owner and could be part of a promotional campaign.

Closed as a federally owned hunting lodge in 1974, Mattamuskeet Lodge was used occasionally for community events while it gradually fell into disrepair.

In 1988, Forrest began a campaign at his own expense to restore the 15,000-square-foot building, research its history and tell its story. In 1995, he formed the Mattamuskeet Foundation. Eight years ago, engineers closed the building to the public after discovering weaknesses in support columns.

In 2003, most of $3.5 million appropriated for the lodge went toward fighting wildfires in the western United States.

Two years ago, Congress passed a bill to convey the lodge and 6.25 acres from the federal government to the state of North Carolina. The lodge was no longer part of the Mattamuskeet National Wildlife Refuge, but with the support of state Sen. Marc Basnight, D-Dare, the state would allocate money for its renovation. The North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission is supervising the project.

"Preservation of Mattamuskeet Lodge will allow generations to come to experience this beautiful landmark and gem of eastern North Carolina," Basnight said Friday in a statement.

Forrest has researched water-damaged papers found in the lodge, collected photographs and artifacts and interviewed locals who worked there.

Built in 1915, the lodge served off and on until 1934 as a pumping station intended to drain the 50,000-acre Lake Mattamuskeet, the largest natural lake in the state. Early investors were land speculators hoping to drain what was seen as a nuisance, mosquito-breeding wetlands that sold for $2 an acre, into usable land that would sell for $100 an acre, Forrest said. Later, a drainage district that included 550 local farmers tried to drain the lake for high-yield farming.

In 1937, Civilian Conservation Corps crews began renovating the pumping station as a hunting lodge. Though remaining civilians, the men lived there in barracks supervised by military foremen, Forrest said. Plans are to recreate furniture still found there that was built by the Corps.

"That lodge stands as a monument to the work of the CCC," he said.

Of about 180 men who worked there, a few began having reunions in 1989. Of the group that attended the last reunion held in June, fewer than 10 were part of the CCC.

Jeff Hampton, (252) 338-0159, jeff.hampton@pilotonline.com