“I’ve been fortunate to do a lot of interesting things and go to interesting places,” Sutton said. “But I also knew I’d always wind up back in the South.” Sutton was born in Beaufort in 1958. Her father, Ned, was a photographer born on Parris Island and her mother, Trannie, was a writer. She grew up in a home on the Beaufort River that was the former site of the Beaufort Boat Club. Her father purchased the property from Kate Gleason, a businesswoman, philanthropist and a matriarch of modern Beaufort.

Beaufort’s city limits and its population were much smaller then. Where a waterfront park, restaurants and art galleries now beckon out-of-town visitors, residents once conducted the essentials of their civic and commercial lives. Nan and her mother could walk to church from their home, and they usually stopped along the way at Koth’s Grocery on the corner of North and Bladen streets to buy a Coke with crushed ice and a pack of Nabs crackers. Her grandmother ran Sally’s Alterations on West Street, in a building now occupied by the Old Bull Tavern. Sutton plied change from her grandmother, then walked around the corner to Edwards 5 & 10 to purchase candy. That store is in the same building that now houses Sutton’s business, LuLu Burgess.

Across the street was the Breeze Theater, where Sutton’s older siblings, Steve Brown and Cindy Brown, snuck 4-year-old Nan into a Frankenstein movie, thereby instilling her lifelong fear of horror movies. During high school, Sutton spent her summers sailing and skiing on the river and her winters working at Belk’s department store, where she landed her first job wrapping Christmas presents. “This was a great place to grow up, at a time when everyone knew everyone,” Sutton recalled. “There was a real sense of community, and that never left me.” Sutton, however, would leave Beaufort.

After graduating from high school at Beaufort Academy, she studied at the College of Charleston and nurtured her interest in drama. After earning her degree, she was working in the Sea Pines Real Estate marketing department when she received a call from a casting agent on the recommendation of one of her old college directors.

Sutton reluctantly answered a casting call in Charleston a few days later and landed a role in the low-budget Wes Craven move “The Swamp Thing,” which was released in 1982 and became a cult classic. Sutton played the role of Linda Holland, sister of film’s protagonist. Though her lines were overdubbed in postproduction to cover her thick Southern accent, Sutton decided to try her hand at professional acting. She moved to New York and studied under renowned coach Uta Hagen for five years.

Sutton appeared in several off-Broadway productions, and despite her aversion to the genre, she scored one more film role in a horror flick, “My Boyfriend’s Back,” playing a reporter named Brenda in the 1993 zombie comedy. Nonetheless, roles weren’t coming fast enough to pay the bills, and Sutton worked several odd jobs. In fact, acting was “falling by the wayside” when she started working for the catering company that serviced the United Nations building.

“I never did consider coming back to Beaufort (at that point), though,” Sutton said. “I was always fascinated with the city. I’m a very curious person, and I loved learning and I loved the energy of New York.” Sutton started as a waiter but was soon promoted to a managerial position that she described as “incredibly high-stress.” Her job was to coordinate large dinners and other events, requiring adherence to the diverse dietary restrictions of guests, as well as diplomatic protocol.

“It was fascinating,” she said. “I was there for the 50th anniversary of the UN — Yaser Arafat was there, Boris Yeltsen, Margaret Thatcher, the Pope came. It was amazing.“ However, in 2000, Trannie Brown, by then in her 80s, was diagnosed with breast cancer for the third time. Nan, never married and ready for a new challenge, came home after 16 years in New York to be with her mother for her final months and decide what to do next.

Despite little experience retail, Sutton opened LuLu Burgess in a leased space inside the Old Bay Marketplace. The gift shop was being renovated by Mike Sutton, who grew up on Fripp Island and had also recently returned to to the area after spending much of his adult life elsewhere.

“I came back thinking I’d just sort of go through life being single, but the day I walked into this space, there stood Mike Sutton and his brother,” Sutton recalled. “He later told me he felt like one of the Village People, standing there in his construction hard hat.” Sutton felt a spark but assumed Mike Sutton — newly single, relocating and and launching a new career — would have little interest in a relationship. She assumed wrongly. They dated for four years, then married in 2004.

In addition to starting new businesses, both Sutton and her husband were engaged in community service. Nan served on the Main Street Beaufort board for seven years and is also a director for the Child Abuse Prevention Association, an organization for which her mother was a longtime volunteer. She also started regularly attending Beaufort City Council meetings in 2008, the year Mike was elected to council. Sticking to a campaign pledge to limit himself to two terms, Mike did not seek reelection in 2016.

“Honestly, I attended the meetings as a concerned businesswoman and to support my husband. I never really had any intention of running,” Sutton said. She said she disagreed with her husband’s stance on term limits — “If there’s somebody good and honest willing to work for your city, who is really a watchdog, I think they should stay on.” Unable to change Mike’s mind, Nan decided to run for his open seat and was elected in 2016. “Beaufort is a lot different than it was when I was growing up, but that’s OK. Times change,” Sutton said. “I think back over the time Mike was on council, and I think the city had a good leadership team that made a lot of progress. I just want to make sure we keep moving forward.”