By Terri Glazer • Photography by Rory Doyle
For Martha and Bill Martin, a Coahoma hunting cabin has become much more than a retreat—it is a place where family, friendship and a deep love of the Delta come together
Martha Martin has always had a deep love for the Mississippi Delta. She was born and raised in Alligator to a family with roots in the area that go back almost a century. Fresh out of Ole Miss, she took a job in Memphis and met a boy from Montgomery, Alabama. Thus begins the story of Bill and Martha Martin’s hunting cabin outside Coahoma.
In chapter one, set in the late 1970s, Martha brings Bill, then her boyfriend, to her family’s Pea Licker Plantation, where he’s introduced to duck hunting. He eventually marries Martha, and also falls in love with the sport. A few years later, in 1983, he joins the newly formed Hull Brake Bottoms Duck Club with five fellow members, and the group starts to buy parcels of land in the Coahoma area.
As the next chapter begins, the Martin family has grown to include two young sons, Van and Gentry. “I started bringing them on the weekends down to the hunting club at a very young age, probably three or four,” says Bill. The accommodations were pretty sparse—a construction trailer with no running water. Martha recalls having to put all the food in a steel can to keep mice from getting into it, while Gentry’s memories of the trailer include “trying to get some water thawed out from whatever storage container we had.”
The bare-bones housing didn’t spoil the fun, though. “It was such a great way for two boys to grow up, going down there,” Gentry reminisces, although no one complained when the club upgraded to a mobile home in the early 2000s.
“I had always wanted to build a hunting cabin,” says Bill. He starts making that goal a reality in chapter three, set in the
2010-11 time frame, when he purchases land from the club to carve out a home site for his family.
Every good story has a plot twist, and this is no exception. The simple cabin Bill had in mind transformed into a rustic and charming gathering place when Martha became involved. The standard floor plan presented by the builder was revised, expanded and embellished, and the end result is filled with character and custom features that make it one of a kind and perfect for the Martins, family and friends. Bill recalls that he was reluctant for Martha to be involved at first, but now cherishes the love and diligence she poured into the cabin. “Every time I come here I see the deep love of the Delta and the Southern heritage upbringing that is the essence of who Martha is; I see her presence everywhere I turn,” he says.
The covered wrap-around porch sets the tone, inviting and wide enough to hold tables and chairs for a crowd when the family hosts dove parties and other get-togethers. Just inside the front door cypress-paneled walls rise to a vaulted ceiling. At the apex, a barnwood beam from a 150-year-old structure at Moon Lake forms the spine of the house. A masterful trim carpenter used the salvaged wood throughout the cabin, and Martha loves how it shows its age. “It has wonderful carpenter bee holes and saw marks and such great texture,” she says.
The living room is anchored by a stacked stone fireplace that almost always holds a roaring fire once temperatures drop. A large grouping of leather sofas and chairs gives the family and their frequent guests a comfortable place to relax. The space opens to the kitchen and the dining area, where a beautiful antique Eastlake dining table has been the scene of many memorable meals.
The piece is one of a trove of treasures Martha found while mounting her own kind of hunt, this one to furnish the cabin. Bill explains, “Martha is an expert at being able to rummage around and find really incredible antiques.” Acquisitions from her efforts fill every room; one of the most remarkable is the chandelier above the dining table. On the search with Gentry at South Front Antiques in downtown Memphis, she looked up, saw a dusty old wagon bolster hanging from the ceiling, and immediately envisioned it as a light fixture. After buying it for a song, Martha had a craftsman at Graham’s Lighting in Memphis transform it into its current configuration.
An open staircase leads to the second floor, home to five of the cabin’s seven bedrooms. Having hosted friends from far and wide to hunt over the years, Bill wanted to make sure guests had comfortable, private quarters rather than a sleeping porch. The bedrooms are cozy and quiet, with soundproof walls. Each space reflects Martha’s touch, too. Estate sale and antique store finds blend seamlessly with heirlooms that hold family history and meaning. Paintings by her late mother, Sis Stokes, hang in some of the rooms; a pastel drawing Martha did at age 13 graces another.
In a cabin full of unique and custom features, the main bathroom is among the most impressive. “I wanted a big bathroom, like a country club men’s locker room,” says Bill. The large layout with two sinks, two shower stalls with dressing areas, and two water closets can accommodate multiple guests.
The bathroom wall covering may be even more unique than the room’s layout. “They gave me the task of picking it and I came up with this,” says Martha of the unconventional and totally appropriate squares of tulip poplar tree bark that line the bathroom walls. “When I told them we were going to use bark on the interior, they all thought I’d lost my mind!” she laughs, adding, “Now it’s everyone’s favorite part.” Milled by a company called BarkClad in North Carolina, the product is more widely used in areas east of Mississippi. Gentry says it holds a special significance for him as it reminds him of childhood trips to Banner Elk in the Blue Ridge Mountains.
The overarching theme of the cabin’s story is the amount of thought that the Martins put into every room. Nowhere is that more evident than in the hunters’ locker room, thanks to creative thinking by the Martin sons. Says Gentry, “There’s no deficit of downtime on slow duck hunts. You can do a lot of pontificating, a lot of design work, and yet expectations are rarely met. But this is one of the fun ideas that we had drawn up in our minds probably 1,000 times over the years, and it’s rewarding to see it finally implemented.” Bill adds that the setup became a reality largely due to Van’s urging. “This room is Van’s passion. I wouldn’t have done it unless he had convinced me to. Not only was it his passion, he actually designed it, and so most of it is his creation.”
Details conceived on all those cold, wet mornings add immeasurable comfort and convenience to today’s hunts. With lockers for Bill, Van, Gentry, and their guests, there’s an individual place for everyone’s gear. A dedicated HVAC unit blows air through specialized vents to warm and dry boots overnight. Easy access via a barn door allows the family to bring equipment into the space for repairs or maintenance.
Perhaps the best aspect of the room is its convenient placement close to the boat canal that comes up almost to the house in the winter. Van says that convenience was intentional. “We wanted it to be easy—you can put your waders on in the warmth of the gun room, walk down over gravel without getting in mud, step into the boat, and be in the blind within ten minutes. On slower mornings, we can easily make a run back to the house, grab breakfast, and be back out in the blind in no time.”
Even in this most masculine area, Martha’s personal design touches are visible. Bark wallcovering reprised from the bathroom lines the built-in gun case and boot drying area, an antique pew she salvaged from a local church provides a sturdy place to sit. Large aerial photos of the property hang on the wall to map out each morning’s hunting activities.
Over and above the cabin’s thoughtful design, meaningful decor and ideal location, its greatest significance for the Martins is how it makes them feel. When Van, who lives in New York City for most of the year, heard that then-mayor Bill DeBlasio was threatening a “shelter in place” order during the early days of the COVID pandemic, he says he, “Packed two bags and got on a plane as fast as I could. I picked up our year-old Lab Millie in Memphis and drove down to Hull Brake to shelter. It was certainly two of the best years of my life getting to spend time with all my friends in the Delta.”
For Gentry, the cabin’s significance is rooted in family. “It’s a place where we can all come together,” he says. “It gives us a reason to gather during hunting season and around the holidays. We love it. We love hosting people there, and we love spending some quiet time there, too.”
It’s Martha, however, the Martin with the deep Delta roots, who feels the most profound love for the cabin she has seen as a respite from the time it was completed 14 years ago. “I can get claustrophobic in Memphis. I would throw the dogs in the car, and the dogs and I would come down here. The minute I would drive through the gate, it was like I could breathe again. It’s just a special place.”
That feeling, more than anything else, defines the cabin’s legacy. It is a place of comfort, belonging, and renewal, woven into the fabric of the Martin family. Now that their two sons have families of their own, a new chapter is unfolding. The cabin stands ready to welcome chapter four, ensuring that the traditions, stories, and memories made in the Delta will continue for years to come.
