Built around 1910, this two-story frame Colonial Revival served as a boarding house for shipyard employees and sheltered 50 refugees during the 1919 hurricane that devastated the coast. In 1920, county judge Joe A. Harper and his new wife, Bertha Oertling Harper, purchased the home. Harper, a four-term county judge, was influential in bringing the first coastal highway to the area, spurring development. After Joe's untimely death in 1928, Bertha and her siblings lived in the home for almost 45 years while she continued her long career as a teacher for primary grades and at the First Baptist Church.