Posts in category: post

Are you prepared for your next tax bill? Do you know what it will be? Allow me to help.

By now you should have received this letter. It tells you what your home’s “tax assessed value” is. It’s the value placed on your home for property tax purposes. The more your house is worth, the more you pay. Spoiler alert… you’re about to pay more.

The new rates are as follows:

New Hanover County         47.5

Carolina Beach                   21.5

That means Carolina Beach will tax you 21.5 cents per each $100 of your homes value. To calculate your 2021 taxes just use this simple equation:

CB tax = Your home value  x  0.00215

NHC tax = Your home value  x  0.00475

For example, my little beach cottage is now valued at $370,100

CB tax     =   370,100 x 0.00215  =   $795          (43% increase)

NHC tax  =    370,100 x 0.00475  =   $1,795       (40% increase)

That’s a tough pill to swallow, considering that I never had such an increase.

Check out the graph:

The solid red line is my taxes per year. The dashed blue line is my property value per year (divided by 100 for comparison) and the dotted line represents what my taxes would have been had they increased by 3% every year (inflation.)

In 2004 I paid $1,161. 16 years later I paid $1,812. The increase barely kept up with inflation. You’ll also notice that taxes rose and fell significantly in re-evaluation years (like this year.)

Why is that? Well, I can’t say. I suspect that revaluation years are a good time to re-set the bar.

What I will say is this:

I will do everything in my power to keep taxes from rising again! My philosophy of simplicity and sustainability is geared toward that goal. We should make every decision based on the long-term costs involved.

Bikes and pedestrians are easier on our roads than cars and trucks. Alternative transportation is cheaper than the old model.

If you have questions about property taxes this is a good link:

https://tax.nhcgov.com/revaluation/

If I can be of help, email me at [email protected]

Remembering the Shoo-Fly Train

The story of John Harper and the Shoo-Fly Train is the story of the founding of modern Carolina Beach. Everyone should know it, so here it is again. It’s been written many times.

I’m borrowing a version from Elaine Henson (my favorite local historian.) This version appeared on the Federal Point Historic Preservation Society website. I highly recommend visiting their page to learn about our local history.

www.federal-point-history.org

By Elaine Henson

Captain John William Harper was born in the Masonboro area of Wilmington, NC on November 28, 1856.  At age 16 John went to work as a deck hand on the Steamer Eastern owned by his brother James.  By 1883 the brothers formed the Harper Brothers Steamship Company and ran steamers between Southport, Fort Caswell and Wilmington carrying mail and cargo.

Later in the 1880s Captain Harper was at the wheel of the Steamer Passport and often made stops at the recently completed New Inlet Dam. Some say it was Captain Harper who first called the project “the rocks”.

In 1886 Captain Harper and others formed the New Hanover Transit Company with the idea of making a resort at Federal Point. The first step was a transportation system to access the pristine mostly undeveloped land that would become Carolina Beach. They planned to bring visitors downriver from Wilmington on a steamer.

The company constructed a pier on the Cape Fear River, first near Sugar Loaf, later at Doctor’s Point where steamship passengers could board a train to carry them over to the sea beach. The train, called the Shoo-Fly, had a wood burning steam engine and pulled open passenger cars as well as flatbed cargo cars. As they neared the beach, the tracks ran along present day Harper Avenue which is fittingly named for Captain Harper.

The transit company built a pavilion on the ocean just south of the terminus of Harper Avenue. The pavilion was designed by Henry Bonitz who also designed Lumina at Wrightsville Beach.

They also built the Oceanic Hotel and a restaurant and had all of them open for the first season in June of 1887. The new resort proved to be so popular that by the end of July the Passport’s 350 capacity was enhanced by pulling a 150 passenger barge called the Caroline. An article in the September 30, 1887 Wilmington Star reported that between 17,000 and 18,000 people had visited the beach by the end of that first season.

Over the next few years the resort grew by leaps and bounds with other business establishments and cottages.

Captain Harper bought the Sylvan Grove in 1888 to bring excursionists to the new resort.Three years later it burned to the water line while in winter storage near Eagles Island.

He replaced it with the handsome Steamer Wilmington in 1891 which he purchased in Wilmington, Delaware. It was the perfect choice since it was already named the Wilmington. She had three decks providing ample room for its 500 passengers to dance to the music of an on board band and made four round trips in the season of 1892 with the ticket price of 50 cents for adults and 25 cents for children. The Wilmington is the best known of his steamers and the one most often associated with Captain Harper.

James Sprunt has a picture of the steamer and its captain in the front of his book Tales and Traditions of the Lower Cape Fear. Sprunt published the volume as a tribute to his friend Captain Harper in 1896.

The Cape Fear Transit Company was later sold to other investors but the Steamer Wilmington and Shoo Fly train continued to bring visitors until about 1919 when a fire destroyed the pier at the river and improved roads made automobiles the preferred mode of travel.

Captain Harper died on September 18, 1917 and was mourned by all who had known the jovial and popular gentleman who was known by his generous deeds as well as his skills as a steamer captain.

We remember him as one of the founders of Carolina Beach.