The last time I was down here in the Outer Banks was spring break of 1985. Some friends from graduate school and I rented an enormous house in Duck. At the time the location was extremely remote-- the closest grocery store was 30 minutes away-- but we didn't care; we had plenty of beer and the beach to ourselves. It was a fun week, and one of the things we did was explore the newly opened road up to Corolla. Before that year, the only way to reach that stretch of shoreline had been to 4x4 on the beach.
We headed the few miles north hoping to see some wild ponies, but instead we found a 100 year old brick lighthouse and a huge abandoned building with an amazing blue copper roof. As decayed as it was, it had clearly been something, the seven gables and five chimneys made that very clear, but in those days before the internet, the place was a complete mystery. Later, one of the locals told us it was a hunting club built in the 20s for rich folks who wanted to shoot waterfowl.
The specter of that ruined mansion has stayed with me all these years, and with a gorgeous first day at the beach stretching before us, I proposed a visit to the lighthouse and hunting club. Turns out a lot has happened in the last 33 years! The site is now a park dedicated to the history of the area, and the mansion is completely restored and open for tours. We learned the backstory of the place as we walked the signed trail that runs the perimeter of the little island, then climbed the lighthouse, and finally headed over for a tour of the house.
The tour was self-guided with audio stations located throughout the mansion, so we were able to explore the house on our own. We discovered that Whalehead was built as a private home in the early 1920s by a wealthy couple from Philadelphia to indulge their passion for waterfowl hunting. After they died in 1936, the house went through several owners and incarnations, until it was abandoned in 1962. When restoration began seven years after I first saw the place, the copper roof had leaked badly, there was extensive water damage, and the basement was infested with... snakes!
Even so, the mansion is beautiful and impressive, even by today's standards. The organization that owns it is dedicated to tracking down as many of the original furnishings as possible, and most of the original Art Nouveau fixtures and woodwork remain. The tour also goes into the servants' quarters and work areas, giving visitors a look into a real upstairs-downstairs situation.
At the end, I crossed the threshold back out into the perfect autumn day, all my questions from long ago answered.
