This brings us to 1926, the men from New Jersey and the next chapter of our real estate history. Allen R. Hueth and Frank Stick, both from Asbury Park, came here on a hunting trip. Unlike other hunters who visited our barrier islands, these men fell in love with the place. As residents of the booming Jersey Shore they envisioned a time when the little resort community of Nags Head could spread from Kitty Hawk to Hatteras. They soon began buying up Outer Banks real estate. Among their earliest purchases was an ocean-to-bay tract which included Kill Devil Hills and the site of the first flights in a heavier than air machine by Wilbur and Orville Wright. Hueth and Stick subsequently sold the tract to Charles Baker and Susan Sutton, also residents of the Jersey Shore, to raise cash for other real estate activities. A condition of the sale was that Baker and Sutton were required to donate Kill Devil Hill to the federal government if ongoing efforts to have a memorial erected were successful. The oceanfront part of this tract, which extended north for nearly a mile from the Kill Devil Hills Coast Guard Station, was first developed as Carolina Shores, then changed to Kitty Hawk Shores. The undeveloped back part is now the site of the Kill Devil Hills town hall, beach library, First Flight schools complex, and the Baum Bay subdivision.
Hueth and Stick purchased another ocean-to-bay tract a mile or so north of Kill Devil Hill and began developing it early in 1927 under the name of Virginia Dare Shores.Associated with them in this venture was Captain Dan Hayman, a Kitty Hawk native, and the centerpiece of Virginia Dare Shores was a one hundred-foot wide avenue (as compared with the sixty foot-width of other streets in the development) named Hayman Boulevard. Virginia Dare Shores was laid out in blocks running 500 feet east to west and 200 feet north to south.Ocean Boulevard extended the length of the development, 250 feet back from the high water mark, and Bay Avenue paralleled the shoreline of Kitty Hawk Bay. In time a long dock was built as the south side end of Hayman Boulevard, with two large buildings over the water on the south side of the dock. One of the buildings was used as an office, kitchen and dining room. The other, the pavilion, was designed for concerts and programs for excursions coming in by steamboat from Elizabeth City and tidewater Virginia, and for dances. There were two cement block cottages owned by the Virginia Dare Shores developers on the south side opposite the dock. In addition, one private summer cottage, also made of cement blocks using beach sand as the aggregate, was built adjacent to the proposed Ocean Boulevard. Known as the Weeks Cottage, it was the first summer cottage built north of the old Nags Head resort. And is still there, on the northwestern corner of the intersection of Virginia Dare Trail and Walker Street.

For the 25th anniversary of the first flight, December 17, 1928, the Virginia Dare Shores pavilion served as headquarters for the commemorative festivities and banquet, and Frank Stick met Orville Wright and rode in the back of a pick-up truck from Virginia Dare Shores to Kill Devil Hill with Amelia Earhart Putnam, the famed aviatrix.

Not only was Virginia Dare Shores the first full-scaled planned real estate development on the Outer Banks, in a relatively short period of time it also became the first real estate failure. The total lack of roads and bridges for vehicular access to the Outer Banks was a known problem. The death of Allen R. Hueth by heart attack on the Kitty Hawk-Point Harbor ferry was something else again. And by 1929, when Frank Stick moved his family from New Jersey to Skyco on Roanoke Island, the great depression cast an ominous shadow over the future; He had to give up on the Virginia Dare Shores venture in order to save what he could of his other real estate investments on the Outer Banks.

Frank Stick emerged from the depression retaining only a one-quarter interest in his Croatan Shores subdivision in Kill Devil Hills, and a tract in Salvo which he donated for the Cape Hatteras National Seashore, the proposed ocean park he had conceived and ardently promoted. In the process he lost his one-half interest in a large ocean-sound tract in Nags Head extending from just south of today’s Village at Nags Head to below Jeanette’s Pier; his one-third interest in a tract on Big Colington Island (now Colington Harbour); and other smaller pieces of property, from Duck to Avon, which in most cases were taken over by former fellow-investors from the Jersey shore, or were bought in at the courthouse door by local businessmen.

From Nights In Rodanthe

What started out as a routine trip, ended as my worse night in Rodanthe. First, I usually don’t take listings more than 15 miles from my office. This time I had no choice as it was assigned to us by the bank. I should have known it would not go well!

The day before the inspection I called the water company and was told the meter was indeed on and all I had to do was “turn it on in the house”. I knew that was too simple to be true. First, where in the house? This is a large, beautiful home, custom built with the best of everything. But where did they hid the water valve? I looked everywhere inside then outside with wind and cold coming of the Atlantic. Finally I located the valve and it was already on! Now what?

After several calls to the local water company, it was clear she was not returning my calls. My company’s own service department was not responding. The former property management company that no longer had any financial stake in this property turned out to be my rescuers. But I am ahead of myself.

And I had to be back in the office. So off I drove, another 50 miles back up the beach, all the time hoping someone would come to my aid and praying that the water company person would call. Oh, and cursing public utilities along the way. Once back at the office I called the main office of the water company as a last resort. All the water company departments are set up here by region and no one will help you if you are not in their region. Well, no one was helping me in my region so I gave it a shot! Finally! An actual person answered the phone with an offer of help. Her name was Angela but I think of her now as my angel. It was now 4:20 in the afternoon. The water people knock off at 5 PM. Angela promised to have the water turned on at the meter (which it was not, as I had been told) before 5 PM. She also told me it had never been turned on in my name even though I paid a hefty deposit.

Now another BIG problem. What will happen when the water is turned on at the street by the water guy? Shouldn’t someone be in the house to make certain there is no flooding? But who. It will take me over an hour to get back there, by which time the whole place could be under water. Again, I called the old property management company asking for help. Can someone there please check on the house after the water is turned on and call me? I was on my way at the time. Well, they knock off at 5 PM also. Yikes! Then I called back to ask if I could pay one of their service people to help me after he was off the clock at 5 PM. These incredible people refused payment and said they would send their serviceman to check for me when his shift ended at 5 PM. Now I am really speeding to get there because there will surely be at least 15 minutes between the time the water is turned on and he gets there to check.

THE phone call came when I was still 40 minutes away. The laundry room is floor is wet! I had carefully closed every faucet in the house, so this was surprising. Still another 40 minutes before I get there. The floors are all beautiful hardwood, even in the laundry room, so water could be a disaster if there is enough of it! Again, I call the wonderful property management company begging for someone to go mop up any water. Nope. Everyone is gone. Wait! One woman who was just leaving her job there offered to help. She does not know me nor does she know my real estate company. This is truly an act of the good Samaritan.

When I got to the house, laundry room floor was dry. Going under the house to check, again with wind, cold and now a flashlight, it was evident that there had not been much of a water leak. The ground under that room was dry, the plywood overhead under the house was fine. After checking on every faucet and valve in the house and hiding a key for the inspector, I was ready to head home. I dropped a check off at the property management company to help compensate the nice folks for their help. We plan to have lunch delivered there for the management staff who were so gracious.

This property management company saved the house, the day and and me! I hope the new owners hire them to manage their property! (don’t tell the rental side of my company!) They could find no better group to help them. I drove home at 9 PM, cold, hungry and relieved. At least it was over. For now! Where is Richard Gere anyway?

No matter, nothing helps. Not knowledge, wisdom, cleverness or genius. This is the best example of powerlessness I have experienced in a while. A good reason to accept it as it is, conjure up some patience and wear more layers. And then, a miracle, the sun comes out.

Do you think it will be out again tomorrow?

Winter Ocean In Southern Shores NC

Organized real estate activity was slow coming to the Outer Banks even though there were some big-time early property transfers. The first land granted by the Lords Proprietors of Carolina after they received their charter from King Charles II in 1663 was described as “the island heretofore called Carlyle now Colleton Island,” which they transferred to Sir John Colleton, a fellow Proprietor. Six years later Governor Samuel Stephens of Virginia received a grant for Roanoke Island; and about 1719 John Lovick acquired Ocracoke Island.  But these were instances of property acquisition by wealthy individuals, with no resemblance whatsoever to what we know today as real estate activity.

The establishment of the town of Portsmouth on the Core Banks side of Ocracoke Inlet in 1753 figured more closely in the entrepreneurial pattern, since John Kersey, the owner of the land upon which the town was to be located, was to receive all of the proceeds from the sale of Portsmouth lots.  In authorizing the establishment of the new town, however, the colonial assembly named five leading citizens of mainland communities to lay out Kersey’s fifty acres in half-acre lots with convenient streets, and then contract for lot sales with prospective purchasers.  The initial price was twenty shillings per lot, and each buyer was required to build what was described as “a good, substantial, habitable framed or brick house or good substantial warehouse, of not less dimensions than twenty feet in length and sixteen feet wide,” within eighteen months of purchase.

The stringent conditions and covenants imposed on both the seller and the purchaser of Portsmouth town lots were typical of government involvement in land development activities throughout the colonial period.  More often than not, before a property owner could get an act through the assembly authorizing him to establish a town, the enabling legislation would call for setting aside prime property for public wharves, a Town Common, and usually a courthouse and jail as well.

When North Carolina reached statehood, things changes dramatically, and by the time the first summer tourists began showing up at Nags Head in the 1830’s, the State allowed the property owner to do just anything he wanted with his land without worrying about government rules and regulations.  As the south side Nags Head resort expanded, individual lots were transferred by metes and bounds descriptions.  By the latter part of the century, however, the regular summer visitors became more interested in locating their cottages closer to the ocean, and the development activity became more.  Lowe, who acquired property in south Nags Head from sound to ocean, platted it organized.  One of the first to actually lay out a development was a man named John under the name of Lowe Hotel Lots.  This is where the St. Andrews by the Sea Episcopal Church is located.

Possibly the first organized land development activity on Roanoke Island was west of Manteo in the early 1900s when John and Asa Evans laid out a subdivision of small lots they called Manteo Extended, though people soon began referring to it as California.

By that time the invasion by northern sportsmen had begun, and large tracts from Currituck to Ocracoke were being put together for private hunting clubs. Sizable pieces of Outer Banks property still had not been claimed for private ownership, and as the demand for club property increased a few individuals began taking advantage of a State law that allowed a North Carolina citizen to file an application for a grant of unclaimed property. The grants were issued by the Secretary of State and the individual claiming the property was required to make a small payment for his new land, sometimes as little as fifty cents to a dollar an acre.  In some instances local people got the grants, then sold the land to the northerners for their future hunting clubs.  In others, since non-North Carolinians were not eligible for grants, a local individual would serve as the non-resident’s agent, filing the claims and then transferring title to the wealthy out-of-stater.   A classic example of this was when a man named Brisbane, with a Mrs. Gaskin of Hatteras as his agent, acquired more than a dozen different tracts between Buxton and Hatteras Inlet including Cape Hatteras itself.  That these Brisbane tracts, later acquired by the Henry Phipps family, contained miles of untouched ocean frontage, was of little note; the big push then was for more land for the private hunting clubs.

Steve spinning John Mason's favorite discs!

This was clear to those of us who knew Steve Thomas – he was amazingly different from his peers.  Modeling and DJing aside, Steve had layers of characteristics that took time for us to discovered.  Outwardly he was a performer.  Inwardly, he was a caring human being, a devoted father,a loyal friend and a beach lover as well as a man of service.  I remember the first time I met Steve.  He was in the Food Lion with his daughters in tow.  To call him Mr. Mom would have been too limiting; he seemed to be their whole world.  As the years passed, he continued in this role no matter what other circumstances developed in his own life.  He was a daily presence in their lives, an integral part of their growing and learning, of their sports and music.  But wait, there is more.  Steve spread his love for life, children, music, sports and friends all over the Outer Banks.  The Outer Banks organizations that have been the receipents of his largess are numerous.  Rarely did he turn down an opportunity to make even one child smile.  I think his lust for living coupled with his ability to be comfortable with himself created a magnet for young people.   He had the qualities we admire in small children who have not yet learned that life can serve up disappointment and hurt.  That is not to say that Steve was childish.  To the contrary, he took his responsibilities seriously.  When Steve made a commitment to be somewhere, he showed up.  If he promised his help, he never let you down.  But he did this with the joy and zest one finds in the youngest among us.  And with lots of energy!

I think this was Steve’s real gift.  Yes, he was a successful model in New York, an actor, singer and entertainer.   But he accomplished these things BECAUSE he was able to see the joy in the day, the excitement in a good wave, the light in the eyes of everyone.  He was aware these qualities existed around him, unlike most of us who rush through the day missing the very aspects of life that lift us up.

When it came to children, he missed very little.  A quick story about his caring attention to my granddaughter, a 4 year old whom he had not met before this incident.  Lucinda is afraid of mascots; of anyone dressed up or costumed as some one or something they are not.   She becomes very distressed and uncomfortable.  At a Dare Devils game this spring Steve was playing Pamlico Jack with his usual enthusiasm when he noticed her behavior.  My son and daughter-in-law decided to take her away from the game and began walking to the parking lot.  About half way there Steve came up behind us to say hello.  He spoke directly to Lucinda in the softest voice, but still in character as the great pirate.  In a few seconds she was laughing, no longer apprehensive, and enjoying herself in spite of her fears.  Then he said goodbye and walked back to the stadium leaving a little girl with a happy memory of the evening.  What a gift that was to my family!

Steve showed me what it means to be yourself no matter what, to follow your dreams, and to really care about others.  This is what will be sorely missed on the Outer Banks.  I know of no one who can fill this void.  Steve was one of a kind in every aspect of himself.   He was Steve The Dream, Steve The Dad, Steve The Friend, Steve The Son and Steve The Amazing Example of what it means to be totally true to oneself.  He always looked to see what was needed and tried to provide it.  Just ask any of the hundreds of people who streamed into Kitty Hawk United Methodist Church tonight to share their love of Steve with his family.  They all know we have lost the rarest gift on the beach.