Corpus Christi Caller Times Caller.com

Marketplace \| Services \| Contact Us \| Community \| Arts & Entertainment \| Local Guides

Published by the Corpus Christi Caller-Times. CLICK FOR NEWSPAPER DELIVERY

Home & Garden readers might also want to read Keep it Green, a gardening column by Michael Womack.

Saturday, August 4, 2001
Seaworthy lawn art
Port A residents turn seashore loot into front-yard treasures before beach cleanup crews haul it all away
By Dan Parker
Caller-Times

David Pellerin/Caller-Times

It’s legal to take any non-living object that washes up at Padre Island National Seashore except for items of archaeological value, says Phil Slattery, education technician at the seashore. Some Port A residents have prowled miles of beach in search of yard art.

PORT ARANSAS - When David and Sandra Hayes go looking for a new lawn ornament, they won't just plunk down a few bucks for a cement bunny rabbit.
   They drive dozens of miles along local beaches and heave massive hunks of driftwood into their pickup. Digging at the shoreline with shovels, they wrestle 100-foot lengths of thick, soggy castaway ship rope from the mud. And they pluck seashells, coconuts and small buoys from the beach and haul it all back to their Port Aransas home, where they arrange it all - just so - on their front lawn.
   For the Hayes family and others in the Coastal Bend, simply living close to the beach isn't good enough. They bring remnants of marine living to their front doors. Sodden pieces of driftwood become naturally sculpted artwork for the front yard, and wayward buoys lend a certain funky cool to the exterior of a coastal home.
   "We love everything to do with the beach," said David Hayes, a 33-year-old general contractor. "We go to the beach all the time. We're always sandy. ... I was born and raised around the beach. It's been in my life all my life."
   Coastal resurrection

David Pellerin/Caller-Times

This 100-foot length of thick, castaway ship rope adorns the fence at the Hayes’ home.

   The Hayes family may be resurrecting a trend in this coastal town.
   Using beach treasures as yard art is something that's been on the decline, said Suzanna Reeder, a real estate broker who has lived in the beach town since 1971. That's partly because it was only in recent years that city workers started cleaning the beach, leaving little behind for lawn ornaments.
   Also, Reeder said, more and more island houses are being built out of concrete and brick instead of the traditional cedar.
   "With the cedar, you wouldn't paint it, so you'd decorate it up, because it would kind of look drab," Reeder said. "You'd decorate it up with things you found at the beach, making it a little more novel and colorful."
   Concrete, she said, "doesn't lend itself so well to the funky island motif."
   Beach collectibles
   While city and county workers clean many area beaches, tons of driftwood, coconuts, ship rope and all kinds of other booty speckles dozens of miles of beaches at Padre Island National Seashore.
   It's legal to take any non-living object that washes up at the national seashore except for items of archaeological value, such as 500-year-old Spanish coins that are found once every 10 years or so, said Phil Slattery, education technician at the seashore. But he cautioned that people should leave castaway containers alone if they look like they might hold chemicals.
   The Hayes family has prowled miles of Padre Island National Seashore in search of yard art. They've come home with truckloads of stuff, piling driftwood along a fence, looping a 160-foot section of thick ship rope around their swimming pool and scattering coconuts liberally around the front yard.
   Sandra Hayes said she likes these beach collectibles partly because she doesn't know where they came from. Converging currents in the Gulf of Mexico push debris onto Coastal Bend beaches from as far away as Cuba and Central America.
   "For me, part of the attraction is the mystery of where they came from," Sandra Hayes said. "It could have come from Louisiana or Florida. It's amazing what comes from the sea."
   'Getting citified'
   On Padre Island, Michael and Darla Montaño have beached a 7-foot-long wooden rowboat in their front yard and filled the rustic little vessel with Mexican heather, marigolds, lantana and hibiscus.
   Michael Montaño found the boat abandoned and full of mud in a shallow section of the Laguna Madre off Flour Bluff.
   "We love the island, and we are trying to do a totally island house," Darla Montaño said. "We just love the whole island theme."
   Back in Port Aransas, Mike and Kay Leahy have hung a long section of ship rope on their upper deck, looping through support beams like bunting. They've also draped green shrimp net over a banister and scattered several weather-beaten wooden ship pulleys on an outdoor table.
   They're proud that their home has an authentic island feel about it, while some other yard art around town is store-bought.
   "It's getting citified here," Mike Leahy said. "The people coming here now are satisfied with stuff they buy at Pier 1, and that's OK. The natural stuff might be salty and smelly at first. But you rinse it out and let it dry out, and it won't smell anymore, and it's pretty and aesthetic."


Contact Dan Parker at 886-3753 or parkerd@caller.com

| Talk about this story | Next Story | Home |

[ Printer-friendly version ]
[ Subscribe to newspaper ]

SEND THIS PAGE TO A FRIEND