2017 · Community
October 24, 2017: Fifty Years of Brierwood Estates
At a community meeting organized by the new Association, the Town of Shallotte presented a proclamation honoring the 50th anniversary of Brierwood Estates' beginnings.
Brierwood Estates' fiftieth year could easily have passed in a sour mood. The course had closed in June. Instead, residents chose to mark the anniversary of the October 10, 1967 land purchase with a celebration.
On October 24, 2017, the Town of Shallotte issued a proclamation honoring the 50th anniversary of the beginnings of Brierwood Estates. It was presented at a community meeting planned by the Brierwood Association's Community Activities Group, the first major event the five-week-old Association had organized.
The proclamation recognized something the course's closure had obscured: Brierwood Estates was never only a golf course. It was, by 2017, one of the largest established neighborhoods in the Shallotte area, home to hundreds of families, many of whom had lived there for decades.
The meeting also set a pattern. The Activities Group went on to plan community gatherings for years, and the calendar on this website still carries the community's schedule.
The fiftieth anniversary closed the first chapter of Brierwood Estates' history, the chapter that belonged to Dr. Ward and the golf club. The second chapter, in which residents themselves carry the community forward, began the same night.