Last time I was home I stopped by the Adkins/Ruark house and saw that it was being renovated into a bed and breakfast. I was able to walk around and see the house and took some pictures that I wanted to put up here for all to see ( shoot film so it takes a while these days to get lab B&W done correctly). In the meantime they finished the house and created a website for it. The house has been added on to (the last addition was done by Ruark for his folks) and is now decorated to the hilt. It has also been repainted yellow. All in all, it looks great and I look forward to seeing it for real when I am home again. FYI, I do believe that room they call the Robert Ruark room was the one he stayed in when he was there as the front room had the only bathroom in the house at the time so it;s unlikely it would have been the guest room. Also, if you peek out of the window, to the left you can see the magnolia he apparently shot the mocking bird out. Alas, the fig tree in the back that he talks about has been removed due to the addition as well as a new kitchen added and more rooms.
The information on the site is not quite accurate, which is disappointing, but I can see how liberties were taken to give the house more provenance that it really has. Ruark did not really 'grow up' in Southport, never lived there full time, nor did he (to my knowledge, based on a lot of research) ever write for the papers there. He didn;t start writing until college. He also never really thought of Southport as home as in his words there were 'too many ghosts' there for him. He did buy the house, basically for his folks although there was probably a little sentimental aspect to it as he did mention once or twice he 'may' go back to live there. On the other hand, when he thought he might want to have another house in the US after being in Spain for so long, he decided to build in Culpeper, Va, near Walker Stone.

Ok, enough verbosity... here is the link.

http://robertruarkinn.com

_BAxter

I just got my dvd of his movie shot in 1953 I think. I found it very entertaining. well worth the 29 bucks.

JD

BaxterB,

Thanks for the info and the link! I'm a real fan of Robert Ruark. I might just have to go there for a visit.

Cheers!
-Bob F.

Thanks for the tidbit of Ruarkana. I too acquired Ruark's 1953 hunting DVD and enjoyed it over Christmas.

Regards,
Ed