THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 7, 1994 TAG: 9408040253
SECTION: CAROLINA COAST PAGE: 48 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Chris Kidder
LENGTH: Medium: 81 lines
The hot spot for real estate on Hatteras Island these days is Kinnakeet Shores at Avon. In the first six months of this year, more than a quarter of the island's new housing starts were here.
It's about time. After an oceanfront building frenzy in the 1980s, the west-side acreage of this mammoth development seemed destined to be the island's white elephant. The Cape Hatteras Water Association put the lid on new water hookups, and a failing economy, compounded by a succession of devastating storms, halted most new construction on the island.
Kinnakeet Shores General Partnership, the subdivision's developer since buying out the project in 1986, persevered. The developer put in roads and a central sewerage system, and built a swimming pool and tennis courts. It worked up a compromise with the county that allows property owners to dig temporary wells for water. It landscaped its highway frontage.
Last year, the partnership began building spec houses. The landscape - and the sales chart - changed considerably.
Kinnakeet Shores has been an ambitious development from its start in 1978. The original developers included the island's first shopping center, anchored by Food Lion, at the heart of their plans.
Kinnakeet Shores is a large development, 500-plus acres with plans currently drawn for more than 650 homes. It vies with the old Hatteras Colony for the distinction of being the island's largest subdivision.
Spanning the island from ocean to sound, Kinnakeet Shores is flat - and flat means views. Houses here, many built to the county's 52-foot maximum height, provide postcard views of the ocean and Pamlico Sound; the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse blinking across the empty acres of the national seashore to the south; sunrises, sunsets and more.
A single ridge of dunes along the oceanfront hides a wide beach of fine, white sand. Two blocks from the ocean, N.C. Route 12 splits the development. On the west side, small lakes provide waterfront acreage. Closer to the sound, live oak thickets mat land that changes from solid ground to marsh to water. Wetlands limit soundfront building.
While most Kinnakeet Shores homes are within easy walking distance of the beach, a few will be more than a half-mile from the ocean.
Kinnakeet Shores has been drawn in 22 phases. Thirteen are already sold out or on the market. Neighborhood layouts are as varied as the topography: lots (from 9,000 square feet up) gridded along the oceanfront; multi-acre lots with long stretches of wetlands and a bit of sound frontage; lakeside cluster homes; and interior homesites laid out along winding cul-de-sacs.
Houses have been built on 129 of the community's 188 oceanside lots; all except 18 of the oceanfront lots are built. More than five dozen are built or under construction on the west side.
Lot prices range from $23,500 to $175,000. Resales on oceanfront homes begin at $299,000; west side homes currently on the market begin at $134,500. For those who bought Kinnakeet Shores property in the early days, the development has grown beyond their expectations.
Bill and Mary Brady make their home at Whispering Pines, near Pinehurst, N.C. They bought an oceanfront lot at Kinnakeet Shores eight years ago and built their second home within a year.
``Like every place, it's grown,'' Bill Brady says. ``But the Outer Banks is better because of the National Park Service. There's always a limited amount of development that can take place.''
The Bradys, like most Kinnakeet Shores owners, come to Hatteras Island for the sun, the beach, the water, the fish and the lazy pace of a place tied tenuously to real time by a single bridge and a ferry boat.
Marge and Vogen Everhart lived at High Rock Lake, 11 miles from Lexington, N.C., until they moved to the west side of Kinnakeet Shores in January 1993. ``We wore ourselves out on the yard,'' Marge Everhart says of their piedmont home.
She says she likes Kinnakeet Shores because there are no tall trees to shed their leaves, no manicured lawns to trim, just wide open blue sky anchored by ocean and sound. Mowing, weeding, taking care of the garden and raking leaves have been replaced by surf fishing, bicycling and walking the beach.
``I can't say how much I love it here,'' she says.
For more information about Kinnakeet Shores, contact Sun Realty, P.O. Box 370, Avon, N.C. 27915, (919) 995-5821. 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. by CNB