Historic Corolla Village
Outer Banks
Corolla NC
2011

https://www.visitcurrituck.com/places/historic-corolla-village/

Visit Historic Corolla Village, a popular attraction for visitors to Currituck’s Outer Banks. Stroll down sandy streets lined with wooden signs for restored shops hosted by friendly merchants and visit a simpler time. Tour the historic Whalehead mansion while you’re in town, and snap a photo of the view from the top of the Currituck Beach Lighthouse.
The village is home to many unique businesses, including the Wild Horse Museum. Although most of the isolated villages that existed on this stretch of coast in the past have disappeared, the Historic Corolla Village remains intact, providing insight into times long past.
The focus of the Village has been on the restoration and re-purposing of the existing historic homes into retail shops and office spaces. Visitors can walk the paths and visit the carefully restored homes: The Parker House, Parker Outbuilding, Gray-Lewark House, Gray-Lewark Outbuilding, The Gard House, and A Village Garden.
Twiddy & Company has been instrumental in efforts to restore the many buildings in the Village and is housed in the historic Kill Devil Hills Lifesaving Station, which they have relocated to the Village. They have also restored the Wash Woods US Coast Guard Station #166, which is situated on the four-wheel-drive beaches of Corolla.
With it’s unpaved roads and historic setting, staying in Corolla Village in Corolla, NC provides a unique way to experience the beauty, history, and scenery that the secluded northern Outer Banks beaches have to offer. Located near the Currituck Beach Lighthouse, the Whalehead mansion, Currituck Maritime Museum and Outer Banks Center for Wildlife Education, Corolla Village is home to restored residences that are now home to numerous quaint shops, stores, and museums.
Visitors enjoy strolling through Corolla Village because it’s like taking a trip back in times to when life was much simpler…with it’s unpaved sand roads, live oaks, scrub pines, and relaxing pace. From Corolla Village, it’s only a short walk or bike ride to the ocean and several of the most popular things to do in Corolla, NC. It’s difficult to image that this area was home to only two-hundred people at the turn of the century, and most of the residents were families of those working at the Currituck Beach Lifesaving Station.


Artistic takes on the classic buoy bring to mind how buoys function for the working lobster fisherman.
The lobster buoy marks where a fisherman sets, or puts into the water, his trap or traps. Buoys are attached by rope to the single, pair or triple group of traps on the bottom of the ocean. Each lobsterman’s buoy color and pattern is unique to him in the area that he is fishing, and is written as part of his fishing license. Legally, a fisherman must always display an “indicator” buoy on his boat, letting marine wardens and everyone else know which buoys are his. This insures that he does not haul traps belonging to another fisherman.
“When you pick your color you want something you can see,” said lobsterman Perley Frazier of Stonington. “You try to pick something that’s not like anyone else’s.”
Buoys come in many colors and patterns, and even more than one material. Traditionally, lobster buoys were made of wood and have been used for more than a century. A book written by John Cobb in 1899 about the lobster fishery in Maine described buoys as consisting of “a tapering piece of cedar or spruce, wedge-shaped, or nearly spindle-shaped, and about 18 inches long. They are usually painted in distinctive colors, so that each fisherman may easily recognize his own. Small kegs are also used as buoys.”
Today, buoys aren’t made out of wood. Instead, most are made from less expensive Styrofoam or plastic. Styrofoam buoys need to repainted often, but can last for many years. Plastic buoys do well, except when they get “crunched” or run over, losing their shape.