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The new Down East Wood Works shop recently opened at the 900 block of North Broad Street in Edenton. 

The new Down East Wood Works shop recently opened at the 900 block of North Broad Street in Edenton. 

While the town of Edenton often boasts its creative spirit, Down East Preservation is looking to spread that across the region.

Having just opened their new Wood Works shop on North Broad Street, Down East is using the new space as a springboard to jumpstart creativity from the Outer Banks to Oakum Street.

Lucas Belton, who is taking over as woodshop operator, gave the Chowan Herald a tour of the expansive new space, pointing out rooms for painting, lighting and of course general millwork.

Sawdust was everywhere as expected, and only contributed to the hardworking atmosphere of the place.

“So far, we’ve been able to run over 5,000 board feet in three weeks,” Belton said of the operation, which currently seeks to renovate the revered Blue Moon Beach Grill in Nags Head by the end of March. “I’d love to have people come in here and observe, maybe even learn something.”

For Blue Moon’s bartop, Belton masterminded an ocean-styled epoxy pour, which takes around four pours of epoxy of various color and blending to recreate ocean waves lapping against the beach.

While Edenton’s Herringbone boasted tobacco leaves in its bar, Blue Moon will sport shimmery mica-infused beaches just beneath bottles of ice cold beer come summertime. A result of Belton’s brainchild.

Hailing from Charlotte, where he worked with reclaiming old wood to re-craft into furniture, Belton moved to Edenton in September 2021 and quickly became enamored with the work of Down East. Not too long after, the carpenter joined Dawson Tyler and Burton Swain’s team of designers and craftsmen.

Shifting gears, Down East took charge of Blue Moon Beach Grill’s renovation after an initial meeting roughly a year ago with restaurant owner Scott Shields.

“We chose Down East for the work because I’ve been friends with Dawson for a while,” Shields said. “I checked them out on social media and saw he was a history buff and I was fascinated by what he was doing in Edenton.”

Shields praised the work of the team, who now venture down to Nags Head every Tuesday for project meetings.

“My wife and I were in the beginning stages of our design aspects [for the restaurant],” Shields continued. “We needed a designer and reached out to Dawson for help with paint colors and it just snowballed out of control.”

Shields said that some of the design elements have included brick from the 1700s, copper from the 1800s, light fixtures out of old crab buoys, driftwood sconces that are locally sourced and some millwork that is also sourced from the area.

Down East’s Briley Rascoe elaborated on that a bit more, saying that the color blue was a big focus in the design process.

“We want to use all blue hues and blue shades,” she said. “The outdoor bar is wrapped with different shades of blue tile, it looks like a mermaid’s tail.”

In the restaurant’s bathroom: turquoise. Around the restaurant, sentimental items of value from Shields’ family that Down East sought to preserve and repurpose for the “new” Blue Moon.

“We’re saving sentimental things from the old restaurant,” Rascoe said. “Some of these things Scott’s dad had made.”

Some additional lighting touches include old red and green nautical safety lights, emphasizing the idea of a living museum inside a venerable Outer Banks hangout.

Back at home, Tyler also noted that in addition to the expansion of the woodshop and an ongoing project nearly an hour away, the company is also looking to expand its community reach locally, teaming up with other contractors and educational institutions.

The goal? A summer camp for local youth aimed at delivering hands-on experience in vocational trades. To achieve this, Down East has partnered with a few area tradesmen as well as the College of the Albemarle and the Boys & Girls Club of Edenton.

In the woodshop, Belton said he and some of the other woodworking boys pushed for the camp to become a reality.

“This will be a two-week camp and we have been working with Down East, COA and the CTE department at [ECPS],” said Elizabeth Mitchell, Executive Director of the Boys & Girls Club. “Ten kids will be in the camp and will work to build a shed, which will have HVAC, electrical and plumbing.”

At the end of the two-week camp, the shed will be auctioned off, with the proceeds benefiting the Boys & Girls Club.

Mitchell even mentioned the prospect of having the camp attendees achieve a saw blade certification or something similar. The camp will host local students ages 15 and up.

“This is really the start of a lot of good things to come,” Mitchell said of the local collaboration.

During the recent tour of the Wood Works shop, Belton mentioned the fact that some of the shop employees are younger men, some fresh out of high school. An alternative path other than college, often focusing on trades and vocational education, has been a big focus in business and academic spheres throughout the area for quite some time.

Some trades have the opportunity to pay out nearly double what some college-oriented careers can offer, proponents say.

One example of that is Camp Morris – a 2021 graduate of John A. Holmes High School and now Down East Wood Works employee – who said that jumping into the trades after high school helped him gain a lot of experience in the workforce.

“You don’t have to know just one trade, you can know multiple,” Morris said. “But this has been my favorite so far, it’s a fun job.”

Morris emphasized that not everyone has to take the college route.

“People say that if you don’t go to college, you won’t have the same opportunities, that’s not true at all,” Morris explained. “It’s all about how much effort you put in.”

While he didn’t take shop class at Holmes, Morris said he would often go home after school and help his dad with projects.

“This job has really helped me hone a lot more of my skills and equipment [knowledge] and I’m grateful for that,” Morris said. “I feel like, with the stuff in my head now, I can go anywhere and get a job.”

Tyler Newman can be reached via email at tnewman@apgenc.com.

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