Mace House History

Long before Mace House, this part of the  world was settled by the Waccamaw Native Americans, who mostly were enslaved by  colonists and died in captivity. Later what is now Waterford Heights was part of the Waterford Plantation, owned by Plowden Charles Jenrette Weston.  After the Civil War, it was largely used for hunting and fishing until the 1960's when  it was surveyed into lots by Joe Havel who retained several lots. still owned by members of his family, who put the forested portion near Highway 17 into the Nature Conservancy.

Mace House was built in 1972 because our parents, Mary and Parke Mace, knew that Pawley's Island was the best place to be. But before that, generations on both sides of the family had loved and spent many summers at Pawleys and the other beaches nearby.

Our grandfather, Otis Arrowsmith, spent much of his youth (in the 1880's and 1890's) in Georgetown, and family stories tell of him swimming with dolphins. Luna, his wife, came to the beach with friends from Kingstree in the early twentieth century, and soon brought her son and daughter (our mother Mary Arrowsmith Mace). In those days, the trip to Pawley's even from Kingstree was long and hard. First they drove the rough back roads in a wagon or later a car (probably with very bad springs!) and then came to Georgetown, where they spent the night. The next day, with all their heavy luggage and boxes of food (no grocery stores on the island in those days), they waited for the ferry to take them across the Waccamaw. 

Once they were there, though, life was a party, just as it is today. Usually they hired local people to work as cook and "creek boy," bringing fresh-caught shrimp, crabs, flounder, and any other good fish he could get. Farmers from the mainland came over and sold fresh vegetables--tomatoes, lima beans, okra, corn--from the back of their wagon or pick-up truck. The ice man came by with big blocks of ice to go in the icebox. Families and friends piled into big houses, staying up late at night to dance and play cards and tell stories, and getting up early to play in the ocean or walk along the beach looking for shells.

When a hurricane came, there was little warning in days before radar and TV and internet. The phone and radio helped some, but often the first news was a sheriff's deputy knocking on the door. Mary Mace remembered a hurricane in 1939, when she saw a tide coming in but not going out and waves breaking over the dunes on the north end (and they were big dunes, in those days).  Her brother drove down to meet them at the ferry, but the trip across was rough. But when the storm passed, everybody was ready to come right back  and play some more.

When we (Nancy Mace Kreml and Jane Mace Davis) were children in the 1940's and 50's, things were a little easier--a bridge had been built to replace the ferry, and Lachicotte's store sold milk and canned food. A bowling alley and drugstore had opened on the island, and the big kids could go down to the pavilion and dance.  Refrigerators had electricity, and stoves had propane tanks. Not much else had changed, though.

We came with our family, with cousins and friends, and stayed on the island in a house that's still there: Fre-Ma-Nap, on the North End, that in those days had only one outdoor cold shower, one little toilet and sink off the side porch, and a kitchen connected by a breezeway. We also visited friends in a little house called Tranquility at the end of the North Causeway, now gone.

Years passed, and Mary and Parke Mace were nearing retirement. They had always dreamed of a house on the creek--in those days, houses on the mainland side of the creek were rare.  Parke knew Joe Havel, who owned several lots along the creek as well as others inland, and bought a creek-side lot from him. With a small inheritance, they were able to build Mace House in 1972, the year their first grandchild, Theo Posselt, was born. Only the builder of the house, Johnny Walker, and a few other people had had built houses in Waterford Heights by then. In those days, the upstairs of Mace House was not yet finished, so John Davis and Ted Posselt, the husbands of Nancy and Jane, worked to add insulation and boards to the rooms where they stayed.

For many years, the family came to Mace House, though Mary had gone back to work and she and Parke were never able to live at Mace House full-time. Grandchildren were born over the years and added to the crowd: Daniel and Theo Posselt are Nancy"s sons, and Jason and John Parke Davis are Jane and Johnny's sons. When Parke's health deteriorated, an elevator was added to the north end of the big porch in 1982, though he died in 1983 before he could use it often. It's since been removed for safety. Mary continued to come with her Boston terrier, Beau, and she painted, gardened, walked on the beach and fished, and enjoyed friends in the neighborhood that was gradually growing.  

Hugo hit in 1989 but Mace House stood. Parts of a house from the island landed in the yard, and a full refrigerator was on the front landing. Big repairs then included expanding the roadside porch, re-screening the porch and replacing the roof, and enclosing the outside shower. The breakaway storeroom under the house did wash away (since rebuilt). But when a big storm is coming, we always bring anything valuable upstairs, so the loss was minimal.  Jane and John, along with Nancy and her second husband Bill Kreml, helped Mary, along with many builders and yard workers, and by summer, Mace House was itself again, with one group or another joining Mary for the annual Fourth of July remembrance of Parke's birth on July 4, 1904.

Soon all the boys had gone away to college, and Mary grew old.  After her death in 2000, the family realized that they would need to start renting the house since we all had jobs and couldn't live there fulltime, and the taxes and insurance had begun to skyrocket. We had the dock built, but painted the house inside and out ourselves in the early 2000's! The elevator no longer worked, and finally was removed. More recently, painting  has been done by professionals.

Later, our friend and handyman Paul Denton helped us replace the carpeted downstairs floor with recycled hardwood, remodeled bathrooms, and made the great sunrise railing on the roadside porch. More recently, David Harbaugh, who owns Cypress Sunrise next door, has done much of the upkeep and repair, though John Davis does a good bit. We've also been lucky to have consistent professional house cleaning done by Pristine Cleaning!  In spite of ever-increasing expenses, we keep working on Mace House, and now welcome Nancy and Jane's grandchildren (Julianne, Esme, Eleanor, Sam, and Gus)--the fifth generation at least to love Pawleys, and the fourth to live in Mace House!

(Pictures  from past years and present are in the frame on the main floor, at the bottom of the stairs.)