Corrections
An article about the Storybook House on Hypoluxo Island that appeared in the December issue misstated the date that the first bridge to the island was built. The first wooden bridge was constructed in 1925.
In a photo appearing with the same story, a caption indicated a young girl standing in front of the Storybook House was the owner’s daughter. This was incorrect. The young girl in the photograph is unknown.
By Mary Thurwachter
Roseanne Vaughn has spent 35 years — half her life — in an endearing little house backing up to the Intracoastal Waterway on Hypoluxo Island.
When she discovered the cottage back in 1975, it was love at first sight.
“There were pots of geraniums on either side of the front door and it was so charming,” she recalled. Besides, the house had a history, having been built by one of the island’s pioneers. In no time at all, the house became her “home sweet home.”
Neighbors frequently comment on how enchanting the house is, she said. One friend, a lawyer who lives down the road in Point Manalapan, told Vaughn that every time she drives by, she thinks about how much the cottage looks like it came right out of a storybook — hence the name Storybook House.
Built by a King
Lewis King Hughes — who went by his middle name “King” — built Vaughn’s Storybook House.
His daughter, Jan Hughes of Markham, Ontario, and Boynton Beach, says her father built the house for her grandfather, Robert Hughes, in 1946 after World War II.
“The house originally was supposed to be a prefab home shipped down from Canada,” Hughes said. “That didn’t cut it with the border bunch, so instead, they used a very similar design, and just built the same little house locally.”
Her grandparents lived in the house all of her young life. Her grandfather died in 1962.
“I have some pictures of my father and gramps out the front, when South Atlantic (it was then Southwest Atlantic, not just South Atlantic) was a shell road,” she remembered. “They both look terribly debonair. Gramps also owned the lot across the street, which was his orchard.
“Gramps was quite the gardener, grafting mangoes to papayas, oranges to grapefruit, and God knows what all else. He grew the most incredible roses, using fish bones and guts, so, while they were beautiful, you really couldn’t stand to get near the rose garden due to the smell.”
“My gramps, if nothing else, loved his red brick, and bloody everything had red brick arches,” Hughes said by phone from Canada. “He was a bandy-legged little guy with a bald head, and love for everyone. He talked to absolutely anybody who passed by, and I remember he was just about the happiest old guy in the world. Unfortunately for me, he died when I was only 8.
“My best friend, Teresa, lived just to the north of him, so we were all around and about all the time,” she explained. “Back then, there were probably only 80 houses on the whole island. That was grand.”
The early days
Lewis King Hughes died in 2002 at age 93. He first arrived on Hypoluxo Island in 1915 with his family. The island was an orange orchard then and the bridge from the mainland had yet to be built. Residents — and there weren’t many — rowed out to the island.
“His mind,” his daughter wrote in an article for the Hypoluxo Island Property Owners Association newsletter “was a steel trap.”
His family owned an iron and aluminum foundry in Toronto and King went on to become a successful manufacturer of everything from landing craft in World War II to
prefabricated homes after the war.
Though his Canadian ventures were his main livelihood, he dabbled in some development deals locally, his daughter wrote. In 1949, he had an agreement to buy the entire north end of the island for $45,000. But when he showed up the next day to close on the property, the seller told him he had just sold it to someone else.
“I believe his competition was the man who went on to develop Singer Island,” his daughter wrote. “That year he settled for purchasing only three lots on the southern half of the island.”
In the 1940s, the island was a place of raw beauty, with an Intracoastal Waterway so clear you could look down and see the bottom, with huge schools of fish of every color, as well as crabs, and everything else that swam or crawled.
Remembering the ’50s-’60s
Jan Hughes grew up on Hypoluxo Island in the 1950s and 1960s.
“Back then,” she said, “we were considered crazy to live on this island. It was overrun with bobcats, raccoons and so many birds my father couldn’t take a nap in the afternoon because of their loud squawking.”
She remembers playing in the garden at her grandfather’s house (now called the Storybook House).
“It had red brick pathways,” she said. “It was a magical garden.”
After her gramps died, his widow, Jeanette, remained in the house for several years.
Withstood hurricanes
Over the years, Vaughn made some changes to the cottage. She put dark shingles on the front, added shutters, a canopy and a large sunroom in the back. She remodeled the kitchen and turned two
closets into a large master bath.
“My house is one of the oldest on the island,” she said. “I’ll miss it when I’m gone, but it’s time to move on.” She and her husband will split their time between houses in North Carolina and near Gainesville, where their children live.
The three-bedroom, two-bathroom house has withstood many hurricanes over the years, said Vaughn.
“It’s a sturdy house,” she said. “It’s a little treasure.”
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