THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, December 4, 1994 TAG: 9412010230
SECTION: CAROLINA COAST PAGE: 20 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Real Estate
SOURCE: Chris Kidder
LENGTH: Medium: 93 lines
I married into one of those Southern families where parents give their children one name and then call them by another.
For years I thought my husband had three brothers: the two I knew and a mysterious ``David'' whose Scouting awards and other memorabilia hung proudly, but unmentioned, in the dining room.
As it turned out, David was one of the two brothers I knew; the family called him John. The incident showed me how cavalier folks can be when it comes to names.
Place names, too, suffer from mistaken identity. Who among us wasn't taught that the Wright Brothers flew at Kitty Hawk? For me, learning history in Chicago, Kitty Hawk became a mythical place of heavenly winds and magical sand.
Otherwise, I figured, the Ohio boys would have flown in the windy city on the shores of Lake Michigan.
It wasn't until some 20 years later, when I moved to the Outer Banks, that I connected Kitty Hawk and the Wright Brothers with Dare County on the North Carolina coast.
Bad connection. Wilbur and Orville launched their plane four miles south of the village of Kitty Hawk, at a place now part of the town of Kill Devil Hills. And then I learned that the historic flight site and Kitty Hawk Village, both unincorporated areas, were part of Currituck, not Dare, County, in 1903.
The town's genealogy may be muddled but there's no question that the Wright Brothers made the right choice. Folks still come from Ohio - and a lot of other places - to stay at Kitty Hawk and, I think, they'd say it's worth the trip.
Kitty Hawk was incorporated as a bonafide town in 1981 but its history predates municipal government and powered flight by at least 150 years. Maps drawn in the early 1700s called the area Chickehauk. Before the end of that century, several families of farmers and watermen lived at Kitty Hawk.
By 1875, the village included the families of men serving at the beachfront U.S. Lifesaving Service station and the nearby U.S. Weather Bureau station. The Kitty Hawk post office was established in 1878.
In the 1930s, bridges to the mainland and a paved beach road split Kitty Hawk into two distinct communities: ocean resort and historic village. The town has managed to keep both in a graceful, but precarious, balance with nature.
Today, nearly 2,000 people make Kitty Hawk their permanent home; Fifteen thousand fill the town on a peak summer weekend.
Kitty Hawk has less than four miles of ocean frontage, the smallest of all the beach towns but one of the hardest hit by beach erosion in recent years. During Hurricane Gordon, news reporters found their disaster footage in Kitty Hawk, where storm tides crumpled house after house on the oceanfront.
Did the network coverage affect Kitty Hawk real estate? Probably not, say area real estate agents. People like Kitty Hawk.
Beyond the oceanfront, a narrow strip of small, flat, sandy lots lies between the highways. Where public beach access is handy, these properties do real well as vacation rentals, says Kitty Dunes Realty owner Jack Neighbors.
Vacationers like the fact that most of these rental neighborhoods have little or no commercial property. ``Kitty Hawk has been serious about maintaining its residential character,'' says Neighbors. ``That's helped bring people back.''
But locals prefer the other side of Kitty Hawk, the side west of U.S. 158, the town's commercial corridor. The westside has something for everyone.
Newer westside neighborhoods feature traditional beach construction. Houses built on pilings get bird's-eye views of ocean and sound from high, open dunes. Kitty Dunes Heights, a subdivision of 28 lots at the town's southern boundary, went on the market in 1982. Sixteen homes have been built there, says Neighbors. All but one is a year-round residence.
At the north end of town, ocean views rival the famous Kitty Hawk breeze as the main distraction at Sea Scape Golf Course. Sea Scape's 150-plus homes, most lining the fairways and greens, have become hot year-round properties, says Beach Realty agent Nan Merlone.
``It's very quiet, very secure,'' says Merlone. ``More and more people are coming to this end of the beach and really settling in.''
Between Sea Scape and the Albemarle Sound is Kitty Hawk Woods, a maritime forest full of moss-draped cypress and sweet gum trees. In next week's column, we'll take a closer look at the woods.
At the south edge of the woods, the old village of Kitty Hawk, the place where Wilbur Wright stayed on his first trip to the Outer Banks in 1900, is tucked securely out of sight.
In a town of golf course homes, the beach homes, sand dunes and hardwood forest, the village is strictly country. There's no downtown, no uptown, just houses and an occasional business of varying age and description sitting helter-skelter along winding lanes. 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