Many years ago, I learned about the OSV portion of Assateague Island in Maryland, where you can drive on the beach. With my new pass in hand, my car loaded with tools in the event I got stuck, off I went down the beach. My wife and I drove the whole 12(ish) miles until we reached the very end, the Virginia state line. And, we didn’t get stuck!
When we reached the end, we saw the fence posts with the wire keeping cars and Assateague’s wild ponies out of the Virginia side of the island. The ponies are regulated by each state….the National Park Service (NPS) controls the Maryland heard while the Chincoteague Volunteer Fire Department handles the Virginia heard. But at the very end, at the state line fence, we noticed a house. You couldn’t miss it, it’s a rather large house! But how did it get there? Who owned it? Why is it abandoned and falling apart?
When my wife and I got home that evening, I spent the majority of the night googling anything I could find on the house. I found a few studies by the NPS, and a historic context study that had information on the house, including the name, The Clements beach house.
So now that I had the name, my google searches continued with very little information.
So that’s it? It’s a private family beach house, the government took control of it, and they left? It seems like there were more questions than answers. So…back to Google I go. Long story short, in the early 1950’s Assateague Island was in the process of being developed into a housing development called Ocean Beach. A massive storm on Ash Wednesday in 1962 came and destroyed the majority of homes built on the island. There was a big push from locals to put a stop to the building because they were saying Assateague Island is uninhabitable. To an extent, they were right. The fight went all the way to Washington DC and the White House. In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signed a bill designating Assateague Island as a National Seashore.
With the new National Seashore signed, residents were paid for their properties, or what was left of them, and told to vacate the island. Many hunting lodges, along with the Clements house, withstood the storm and they too were given a fair property value of their home, except they were given 25 year rights to use the property before they had to vacate. The government leased the properties back to the owners at $0 per year, and after the 25 years, they left.
Other than that, there was VERY little information on the Clements house. I figured eventually I would run into someone who knew the family, or even someone who went to the house when it was in use and learn more, but until then, I hit a dead end. I’ve always been fascinated with the Clements home, and always wanted to make a YouTube video like the other lodge videos I made, but with little information, my project couldn’t be done. I figured time would tell if it were ever possible to make a video about this awesome home.
Fastforward a few years later and insert: Jon Clements. Jon sent me an email saying he saw one of my previous Assateague Island videos where I brought up his dad’s house and asked if I needed or wanted more information on it. How could I say no?! We scheduled a date and time to talk on the phone and I couldn’t have been more excited!
Since then, Jon and I have talked numerous times. His dad, Bob Clements, built the house. It turns out, everything in the context study was wrong! I learned Wylie Maddox sold the land to Bob and it was Bob who built the house, NOT Wylie. I heard how the family enjoyed the home, hilarious stories of when the house was in use as well as other facts about the property and how Bob built the house. With Jon’s permission, I am finally able to do a Clements Beach House video! I broke it up into a series because of all the information I was given. I hope you enjoy it and can imagine what the house once was!
