For nearly 30 years, it’s been a gathering place for neighborhood children and a center for social gatherings. It’s been the site of sleepovers and dinner parties; summers sitting in the sun and diving into the river to cool off; where children piled into one big bed to watch movies, though they had a movie room of their own.

But three decades of living has brought about change: growing up, graduations, marriage. Now 4,000 square feet is too much house for Gray and Nancy Murray. They’re hoping to pass the baton along to another young couple — and a home that provided an idyllic childhood for their own children.

The Murray’s home sits on Short Drive, a little branch of a road between West Main Street and the Tar River. Many people have lived in Washington for decades without knowing the location of this narrow street that divides West Main Street backyards from Short Drive front yards, but for those who live there, and grew up there, it’s one of Washington’s best kept secrets.

Parking may be at a premium, but riverfront property within the City of Washington is at a premium, as well.  Some of the best to be had is on Short Drive: giant pecan trees and an opposite shoreline completely devoid of development give the illusion of being elsewhere.

“We’re in the city, but we’re in the country,” said Nancy Murray.

“But we’re on the river,” added Gray Murray, with a laugh.

It was a serendipitous event that led to the Murrays meeting; it was another that brought them to Washington. After college, they met in New York City where they were both working. Gray Murray was from Greensboro; Nancy, from Virginia, but the Southerners found one another in a sea of humanity. Gray Murray had ties to Washington that preceded his generation — his father worked on a Coast Guard cutter at the old Buoy Tender’s station in Washington — but it wasn’t until Gray Murray left for school that he was introduced to the town firsthand, visiting with boarding school buddy Neil Partrick.

“One of the reasons I fell in love with Washington was because I’d always heard about it,” Gray Murray said. “We kind of always knew we’d end up here. But we thought we’d retire here.”

It didn’t work out that way, as years later, Gray Murray visited on a business trip and left having bought a house. The couple said they fell in love with their neighbors (most of whom were young couples also raising families), with being able to walk downtown, but especially with summers on the river.

“We would literally camp out there (on the river) from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.,” Nancy Murray said.

A bulkhead and dock frame the river side of a large yard that shares equal amounts of sun and shade. The Murray’s house has an informal feel — though it’s filled with both inherited and purchased English antiques. Step inside and it feels like a river house even as the hum of traffic over the U.S. Highway 17 bridge on the Pamlico is an intermittent reminder the home is in the heart of town. Like most river houses, it’s oriented toward the better view — the river — reversing the normal layout of the house: kitchen is on the street side; living areas on the river side.

Built in 1929 by Fred and Annie Ruth Outland, it’s only had two owners since: the Coiner family and the Murray family. The Coiners were the ones who enclosed a screened-in porch to make another large living area that invites the river view inside with its many windows. The Murrays have made some changes (central air conditioning, storage rooms, a playroom turned guest suite), but nothing that made such a difference as enlarging the kitchen, incorporating a mudroom and adding an exterior door, with stairs leading onto a terrace with a view and river breezes.

“We live out here now,” said Nancy Murray.

The Murrays are downsizing, not leaving Washington, they said. Deciding to sell the home in which they raised a family was a tough decision for them, and one they don’t take lightly, for themselves and future owners.

“I would love for a family to move in here,” Nancy Murray said. “It’s a family house. We lived in every inch of this house.”