When the Hampton Terrace burned to the ground in 1916, one of its regular vacationers decided to build a summer home nearby.
For $1,000, Howard Carson bought a lot to build a summer cottage on what is now Butler Avenue, so that he and his wife, Nancy, could continue to vacation in North Augusta.
It came to be known as Sunshine Cottage.
When Al Lafavor bought the Sunshine Cottage in 1980, he could still see the river from the second story.
"He wanted (a house) up here on the hill," Lafavor said of Carson.
Lafavor said he wasn't much of a local history buff until he bought a house that had historical significance.
In researching his home, he discovered that Carson was a civil engineer and was one of the designers of the Brooklyn Bridge. His wife, Nancy, established North Augusta's library in the basement of the elementary school.
The library moved a few times before becoming permanently housed at it current location on Edgefield Road.
After the Carsons' deaths, the house became the property of the library, which rented the home.
Lafavor said he can't find much more information on the Carsons.
"They must not have had any children," Lafavor said. "They willed (the house) to the library."
He does know that the couple had at least one servant.
"There was a place in the attic that was plumbed," Lafavor said.
He said the Sunshine Cottage was vacant and had fallen into disrepair when he and his first wife fell in love with it.
He just liked the interior of the home. They could see through the windows that rich wood decorated much of the house and had never been whitewashed like many old homes, he said.
The library agreed to sell it and opened it up for public bidding. Lafavor said he believes theirs was the only bid.
The original wainscoting covers two thirds of the living room walls, and heart-pine still frames the doors and windows and gleams on the floors.
Glass-fronted wooden cabinets once used as a fuse box in the butler's pantry now hold spices and collectibles.
The house originally had brass plumbing instead of the more common copper or steel. It has always been tied into the city water system.
Electricity was spare, Lafavor said. In the living room, for instance, the only electric fixtures were two wall sconces on the outer wall.
"It only had two or three receptacles throughout the house when we moved in," he said.
The original fireplace once burned coal, but Lafavor refitted it to burn gas logs.
He and his wife, Kim, also built a sun room where an old narrow porch ran along the side of the house. On the second floor, above the new addition, they created a family room with heart-pine trim and flooring to match the rest of the house.
"You can't buy this stuff, so we had to make it so it fits in with the rest of the house," he said.
Lafavor said he is not sure who first dubbed the house the Sunshine Cottage, but it earned its name from the number of windows.
The house has 14 on the first floor alone, Lafavor said.
"Any time of day you just get sun from everywhere," he said.
This is part of a continuing series that features historic North Augusta homes and landmarks.
Reach Lisa Kaylor at lisa.kaylor@northaugustatoday.com.
