THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 3, 1994 TAG: 9406300218
SECTION: CAROLINA COAST PAGE: 48 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Real Estate
SOURCE: Chris Kidder
LENGTH: Long : 110 lines
You might have heard rumors of a golf-course community planned for Currituck County's Outer Banks. You might know it's being called the Currituck Club.
But unless you've talked with Kitty Hawk Land Co., the developer, or Mike Nolan, the project's sales director, you probably know little more than that.
The Currituck Club hasn't done much advertising. There are no signs, no paved roads to funnel drive-by shoppers through the property.
There's nothing for sale yet, Nolan says. There's no brochure, no sales package of glowing promises and site plans.
In fact, Nolan just got his business cards last week, he says.
The developer is still working with county officials to draw up plans, which it expects to submit for approval later this year.
Yet more than 60 people have signed priority reservation agreements and handed over $2,000 each in fully refundable deposits for the chance to have first dibs on a Currituck Club lot. Does that tell you something?
The Currituck Club's obvious appeal is the proposed 18-hole golf course designed by respected architect and planner Willard Byrd. But for many would-be owners, the developer's reputation is an even stronger drawing card.
The Currituck Club is a joint venture between the owners of the historic Currituck Shooting Club, a hunt club formed in 1857, and Kitty Hawk Land.
These days, the shooting club is more a social group for its 12 member-families than an active hunting lodge. At one time, the club owned thousands of undeveloped acres between Duck and Corolla.
Its oceanfront acreage, the present-day Ocean Sands community, was sold years ago. Around 1990, members decided the tax bite on their holdings was sharp enough to merit divesting themselves of even more.
Rather than selling outright, hunt club members decided to join forces with Mickey Hayes and his Kitty Hawk Land Co. Hayes, a casual man who works in his office barefoot and dressed for the beach, says he talked with club members for years before consummating the deal.
``Thanks to the reputation of Kitty Hawk Land Co., they kept talking to me,'' Hayes says.
That reputation was built with Southern Shores, still a sought-after address after nearly 50 years. Much of the credit for the community's success belongs to Frank and David Stick, its visionary founders.
But since 1976, when the Sticks sold their Southern Shores interest, Kitty Hawk Land has overseen the development of the 2,600-acre community. Southern Shores set the standards for planned communities on the Outer Banks - long before such planning was either fashionable or necessary.
Hayes' stewardship of the Sticks' goals, along with other projects built under his guidance, earned him the respect needed to pocket the Currituck Shooting Club contract.
The club had plenty of other offers. Its 600 soundside acres is the only undeveloped tract suitable for a golf course north of Duck.
Asking if folks who come to these beaches have a serious hankering for a golf course is like asking if the ocean's wet. Probably a dozen developers would have jumped at the chance to do such a project.
But ``there's not another developer who would have done what we've done,'' Hayes says. He's spent the last four years supervising the mapping, evaluating and quantifying of every square inch of the Currituck Club landscape.
For Hayes, who says he's never played a round of golf, the Currituck Club's appeal lies in the land. Trained as a landscape architect, he doesn't see this rippling and wooded acreage as a blank canvas. He intends to make good use of what nature has provided.
Byrd's land plan breaks the project up into small neighborhoods, using pockets of wetlands, freshwater ponds, stands of trees, dunes and miles of marsh-lined soundfront.
For most of the development's 480 single-family home sites, Hayes envisions low, single-story structures that flow with the terrain, rather than vertically oriented beach houses. He's considering architectural motifs used successfully at Kiawah Island, S.C., and other Southern resorts.
An exception to the land-hugging architecture will be a neighborhood of 130 multifamily units off the golf course, based on a pedestal-house design used at Bald Head Island, south of Wilmington, N.C.
Single-family home lots will range from 12,000 to 18,000 square feet.
``No estate lots are contemplated at this time,'' says Hayes, because ``almost all home sites back up to large open-space areas.''
Some golf course lots will have both sound and ocean views.
Phase I prices for lots are expected to run from $65,000 to $225,000 for those who sign up for the priority reservation program. Prices will then increase ``10 to 15 percent,'' Nolan says.
Because plans are still evolving, Hayes says, he doesn't know how many phases the project will have, though he expects six to 12. He doesn't know how many lots will be in each phase or which properties will go on the market first.
He does know the amenities will go in up-front. If Currituck County gives his plans the thumbs-up on schedule, he plans to break ground for the golf course next February; golfers will play by June 1996.
Along with the golf course, there will be an outdoor swimming pool and tennis courts for golf club members. Membership for property owners will be optional. The multifamily neighborhood is slated to have its own pool and tennis courts.
For more information about the Currituck Club or to schedule a tour of the property, call Mike Nolan, director of sales, at (919) 441-7466, or toll-free at (800) 465-3972. MEMO: Chris Kidder covers Outer Banks real estate for The Carolina Coast. Send
comments and questions to her at P.O. Box 10, Nags Head, N.C. 27959.
ILLUSTRATION: Photo by CHRIS KIDDER
The Currituck Shooting Club, built in 1879, will remain private
although about 600 acres of club land will be turned into a golf
community.
by CNB