‘Christmas in July’ originated at N.C. summer camp

Fannie Webb Holt popularized the phrase “Christmas in July” in 1933 when she was the director of Keystone Camp, a summer camp for girls in the western North Carolina community of Brevard in Transylvania County.

 

Holt dreamed up “Christmas in July” as a whimsical and festive activity for her campers, according to Heidi Coryell Williams (shown below), a contributor to Our State magazine.

 

Holt saw “Christmas in July” as an opportunity to inspire the girls during crafting sessions, encouraging them to make items for a “Secret Santa” gift exchange among the campers on July 25.

 

Williams said that The Washington Post covered the inaugural 1933 “Christmas in July” celebration at Keystone Camp, “making it the first recorded event of its kind,” complete with caroling, tree trimming and “cotton snowball” fights.

Instead of hanging stockings, the campers used their laundry bags, and Santa Claus mysteriously appeared to load them up with candy, Williams wrote.

 

Today, the “Christmas in July” tradition continues “to spread joyful cheer” at Keystone Camp, and the staff has also incorporated aspects of Hanukkah and Kwanzaa into the celebration.

Keystone Camp was first organized in 1916 by Fannie Holt (left) and Florence Ellis. They were coordinators for a day camp for girls that was operated by St. John’s Episcopal Cathedral in Jacksonville, Fla.  

 

Williams reported that “Holt and Ellis spent their time swimming, picnicking and playing lawn games with young ladies of the parish. What if, they wondered, such an opportunity could be afforded to many girls over many summers?”

With the goal of building “a bridge between childhood and adulthood,” Holt and Ellis found a permanent home for their camp in 1919, when they purchased a 40-acre site in Brevard with a stream and a small swimming lake.

During those early years, there were no cabins. Instead, the girls, ranging in age from 7 to 14, slept in 18 tents placed strategically around the central camp.

Williams said: “Holt and Ellis believed in the power of rigorous outdoor activity to help each camper reach her fullest potential.”

 

“Bonding with horses was part of the equestrian program. Horseback riding was a required activity at Keystone, in part because it taught campers an important life lesson: Always get back on the horse. The ‘Bit-the-Dust Club’ made falling off the horse – and getting back in the saddle – a point of pride.”

 

The camp’s 1920 marketing brochure emphasized: “Regular hours for retiring, rising, care of quarters, recreation, exercise, meals and rest stimulate punctuality. Rigid inspection of the tents makes neatness and orderliness habitual. It is among these surrounding influences in this happy and healthful out-of-doors life that real Camp Spirit abounds.”

Today’s Keystone Camp is recognized as the oldest continuously running private girls camp in the Southeast. Summer camp enrollment is limited to 140 girls per session, because that is the capacity in the dining hall and the 16 sleeping cabins.

Williams offered a bit of insight when she wrote: “Summer after summer, the rising bell at Keystone Camp has rung at 7:30 a.m., and campers have filed down the hill and gathered ’round the flagpole for the ceremony that starts the day.”

This ritual is as revered today as it was 110 years ago in 1916, when Holt and Ellis promised their girls that they would have “a good time, the freedom to explore, a chance to learn new things and make new friends.”

That almost sounds like an invitation to experience “Christmas in July.”

 

The phrase also has connections to the entertainment industry. 

Next time, let’s review the 1940 comedy film “Christmas in July,” starring Dick Powell and Ellen Drew.

Editor feels drawn to Carteret County’s Atlantis Lodge

You might say it’s a case of “saving the best for last.”

The final article in Our State magazine’s “Annual Coastal Issue” in June 2026 is a short essay contributed by Executive Editor Todd Dulaney and illustrated by Laura Poss.

 

The article on the final page (232) is simply titled “Atlantis Lodge.”

 

Here’s a bit of what Dulaney had to say: “Live oaks draping lazily over the pool. Atlantis had me before I ever checked in, but the best was still to come – every balcony opening over the Atlantic, the stretch of Pine Knoll Shores beach below marked by the resort’s telltale yellow umbrellas.”

 

“Is it possible to walk the swash at dawn – paws skimming the surf, footsteps trailing behind – or again at evening, as gulls swoop and caw, and not feel it?”

“For more than 60 years, through tempests like Florence, Irene and Ophelia, Atlantis has offered its allure to guests,” Dulaney said. “People arrive for the beauty and find themselves pulled back by something deeper. The same pull she has on me.”

 

Indeed. The three-story Atlantis Lodge has been a popular spot for travelers to bed down on the Crystal Coast since 1963 – it’s been described as “a seaside hideaway.”

Dulaney had written a piece about the Atlantis Lodge for Our State that appeared in 2021, when he took his family for weekend stay, including two dogs. This is when we learned that the 42-unit hotel has been classified as “pet friendly” since the very beginning, at the insistence of the original manager, Ruth “Mabee” (pronounced “Ma-B”) Bray.

Mabee ran the place that was built by her daughter Dot Hall and son-in-law A.C. Hall. He was the city planner in Raleigh. The Halls had dreams of building an oceanfront motor lodge with “an unobstructed ocean view.” They found their ideal site in present-day Pine Knoll Shores.

 

Dulaney likes the down-home charm and feel of the Atlantis. “The patio and lawn behind the lodge really do make it feel like you’re sharing someone’s home,” he said. “There’s a grill and picnic tables for guests’ cookouts. There’s a huge pot for seafood boils. And there are deck chairs that practically beg to be napped in. It’s the nicest backyard around.”

 

Previously, in 2012, Our State had sent Leah Hughes King to do a story about the beach hotel. “The Atlantis isn’t retro, it’s authentic,” she said. Everyone says: “Don’t change a thing.” Yellow and turquoise paint still covers the exterior walls.

 

Dot and A.C. Hall are now deceased. The four Hall children decided the best course was to sell the Atlantis Lodge in 2025. The property was acquired by Heron Hospitality LLC, based in New Bern.

The Hall family heirs shared with Kathleen Hopewell of the Carteret County News-Times that it had “always been the family’s intention to entrust the Atlantis to a suitable caretaker to carry forward our grandmother’s and parents’ legacy once they had passed.”

Hopewell reported that Heron’s CEO Charles Cushman intends “to retain the authentic charm. We cherish the old-growth trees and dune vegetation and will never disturb those. Few places combine the natural world with bold architectural design like this place.”

 

“We are huge admirers of the Hall family and only wish to share the unforgettable destination that they established with the next generation or two,” Cushman said.

 Marketing materials have a nostalgic tug. “Once in a while, you find a place that just feels right. A place that welcomes your whole family and makes you feel at home. A place that works in harmony with the sun, sand and surf to give you the vacation you need.”

Location, location, location…

The Shoreline community newspaper archivist in Pine Knoll Shores reported that Dot and A.C. Hall were intent on finding property along the coast “that had plenty of trees. Most of the sites they visited in 1959 didn’t qualify, but when they arrived at tree-covered Bogue Banks, they were encouraged.”

“They met with real estate agent Shelby Freeman, who informed them that a parcel of Alice Hoffman’s property being developed by the Roosevelt family was still available.”

“Shelby drove the Halls down a bumpy, partially paved road to an area where the beach was nearly inaccessible because of the dense maritime forest. Nodding his approval, A.C. declared, ‘This is it.’ That 300 feet of oceanfront property became the site of the Atlantis Lodge.”

The Halls opened their resort hotel in 1963.

 

 

She was known as the ‘Queen of Bogue Banks’

Former New York City and Paris, France, socialite Alice Green Hoffman bought 2,900 acres of land near the center of Bogue Banks in 1917 and lived in the woods at her secluded home named Shore House.

A niece, Eleanor Butler Alexander Roosevelt, was married to Theodore Roosevelt Jr., the eldest son of President Theodore Roosevelt and Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt.

 

In 1944, the Roosevelt Trust for Alice Hoffman effectively transferred the ownership of Hoffman’s vast Bogue Banks estate to the children of Eleanor and Theodore Roosevelt Jr. 

In 1949, the trust donated approximately 62 acres of the land to the Episcopal Diocese of East Carolina to establish the Trinity Center, a Christian oceanfront camp and conference retreat.

 

After Alice Hoffman died in 1953, at age 91, the Roosevelt family began to sell off parcels, mostly for residential development. “They envisioned creating a beach town in a forest.”

The community of Pine Knoll Shores was incorporated as a town in 1973, but before there was a town hall, the Atlantis Lodge served as a community gathering center. The Hall family provided office space for the town clerk and the constable.

In 1971, the Roosevelts donated 292 acres of the barrier island’s only remaining intact maritime forest to the State of North Carolina to form the Theodore Roosevelt State Natural Area to serve as a living memorial to the 26th President’s dedication to conservation.

The donation stipulated that the acreage be “kept in its natural state, maintained as a nature preserve, and used for the primary purpose of nature and wildlife education and estuarine studies, with emphasis on marine life, ecological advances, environmental balance and research in the methods of conservation.”

Another provision allowed for the establishment of a “Marine Resource Center” on about 25 acres of the property. 

This center opened in 1976 and later became the North Carolina Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores.

 

The Aquarium is observing its 50-year anniversary in 2026.

 

 

Meanwhile, back at the Atlantis Lodge, the heated, lagoon-style saltwater pool is a soothing alternative to a refreshing dip in the ocean.

 

The four Hall children (Donna Hall Nally, Barry, Tod and Rick) all have been involved in various aspects of the Atlantis Lodge business, but Donna enjoyed the longest tenure as the property’s general manager. 

Our State’s ‘coastal issue’ comes to Carteret County (N.C.)

(Most photos are from the Our State website.)

Jeri Rowe, Our State magazine’s Editor at Large, has made it his business for nearly 40 years to “chase stories across North Carolina.”

Lucky for us in Carteret County, N.C., he made his way to Cape Lookout National Seashore to spin a yarn that appeared in the magazine’s June edition, its “Annual Coastal Issue.” 

It begins: “After decades of quiet, a historic Coast Guard Station will soon open its doors to Down East visitors to explore the science, stories and wild beauty of North Carolina’s coast.”

 

Rowe wrote: “In 2024, James H. “Bud” Doughton (of Raleigh) helped secure a 20-year lease for the Cape Lookout Coast Guard Station, reviving the longtime vision of an environmental studies program.”

A project of the Cape Lookout Foundation, the plan is to restore the 2,000-square-foot, two-story building, which was built in 1917 and decommissioned in 1982.

 

Doughton’s family vacationed at Cape Lookout when he was a boy. Rowe said that although Doughton is now 72 and a semi-retired commercial real estate broker, he still remembers:

 

“One of the most amazing things out here is a full moon on a clear night. The sand reflects the light, and it’s unbelievable how bright it is. On the nights when there is no moon, you’ll see every star there is.”

As a young man, Doughton periodically crewed aboard the sailboat ferry named the Diamond City, which ran visitors from Harkers Island over to the Cape on a regular basis. The boat was owned and operated by the legendary captain Josiah Bailey. Those were the good old days.

With the full support of the National Park Service, the foundation is making great progress to breathe new life into the old Coast Guard station, Rowe said.

Author and outdoorsman T. Edward Nickens of Morehead City is a regular contributor to Our State. He said he and his wife, Julie, live about three blocks away from Parrot’s on Eleventh, a cozy restaurant on the edge of the Promise Land section of town.

 

Nickens said they always enjoy the fine dining experience in a casual coastal setting, preferring a table on the front porch of the old home that was converted to restaurant in 2014.

 

Also featured in this issue of Our State is the historic Beaufort waterfront home of best-selling novelist Christy Woodson Harvey, who has earned the reputation as “Queen of the Beach Read” by reviewers. Several of her books contain “familiar” Crystal Coast landmarks.

 

Wide and gracious porches make the Harvey family’s Front Street house, built in 1903, a real charmer. She writes:

“I love to stand on the widow’s walk and think about the generations of women before me, waiting for boats to return to this same spot. I love that no matter how often I sweep, granules of sand still stick in the grooves between the age-old hardwood planks….” She said these grains of sand connect her to family beach vacation memories.

 

Christy also has a good view of the Rachel Carson Reserve in Beaufort.

Our State contributor Ryan Stancil noted that Carrot Island, Bird Shoal, Town Marsh and Horse Island constitute “Rachel Carson’s Muse.” It’s the ecological home turf that propelled Rachel Carson to prominence as “one of the nation’s most consequential writers and a leader in the modern environmental movement.”

 

Regular Our State food columnist Lynn Wells, wrote about her favorite happy place, where she goes to unwind – Harkers Island. 

She said while lounging in a beach chair and listening to the “seagulls gossip,” she dreams of beachside dishes, like pickled shrimp, dilled butter beans and crab pie.

 

We’re not done.