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History is not only about buildings, but also what happens inside them. There’s the kind of history you read about in books, fact-based like the bricks and mortar of the historic beach hotels and motels of the Outer Banks, and there’s the kind we create ourselves over the course of a lifetime, experience-based such as walking across NC12 to get your grandkids, who are frolicking in the motel pool, an ice-cream cone. This is a story of mileposts, measured in the worn plywood of the motels and hotels along the beach road, and the memories of the generations of guests who frequented them.
The hotel history of the Outer Banks
The first hotel in the Outer Banks opened in the 1830s with a capacity of 200 guests and direct access to the resort community known as Nags Head. An 800-foot railway carried guests from the sound-side hotel to and from the beach.(1) According to John Lautzenheiser, manager of the Sea Foam Motel in Nags Head, which opened more than a century later, “For the longest time, there really was no ‘Outer Banks’ – visitors back then just called the whole place Nags Head.”
Following the Civil War and before the Wright Memorial Bridge was completed in 1930, boats remained the principal means of transport to and from the Outer Banks.(2) Over this time, Nags Head developed into a family resort, where it was common for wives and children to spend the summer at the beach and husbands to join the family on the weekends. Many of the regular visitors built summer cottages along the sound shore due to easy access to calm waters for sailing, crabbing, fishing and swimming. But by the turn of the Twentieth Century, newer visitors began building their cottages by the ocean. (3)
With the advent of new roads, bridges and ferries beginning in the early 1920s, the Outer Banks experienced significant growth in the volume of visitors. Hotels of this era were wooden structures built on pilings, and they featured wide porches where guests could enjoy the cool ocean breezes.(4) Indicative of this type of architecture, Leroy’s Seaside Inn in Nags Head was purchased in 1937 by C.P. Midgett and Ernest Jones and renamed the First Colony Inn. The inn – now relocated across the beach road – has been owned by the Lawrence family since 1988 and is managed by Village Reality; it is the Outer Banks’ oldest hotel in continuous operation as a lodging establishment. (5)
According to Laik LePera, senior vice-president and regional business manager at Village Realty, “We take into consideration the history of the property in everything we do, from how we manage the grounds, to maintaining the original windows to still using room keys. The history of the place is embedded in the guest experience.” The inn is currently on the National Register of Historic Places.
By 1950, there were 10 hotels and 14 motels in the Outer Banks, with a combined capacity of 1,000 guests and 930 guests, respectively.(6) Jamie Chisholm, president of the Outer Banks Hotel and Motel Association, says that the full-service hotels that opened in the late 1940s and 1950s were the “hot spots” on the beach where visitors and locals alike danced and listened to live music. “The Carolinian was the place to go and be seen,” she added.
The Carolinian opened in Nags Head in 1947 and offered the novelties of baths and telephones in every room and a dining room that overlooked the ocean. The hotel’s management wanted to encourage more business in the offseason—still a priority of the Outer Banks Visitors Bureau today—by helping create events and festivals.
These events included the Valentine’s Day Fox Hunt in 1949 which gained national attention and lasted until the 1970s, and the Pirates Jamboree in the early 1950s and the weeklong annual spring festival with parades, dances, costume contests and fish fries from Kitty Hawk to Hatteras.(7) Despite its rich history, the Carolinian fell into disrepair and was demolished in April 2001, replaced by beachfront vacation homes.
Motels, known then as tourist courts or motor courts, also proliferated in the 1950s, and a tourist court culture soon emerged, with guests mingling in grassy picnic areas or on pool decks surrounded by guestrooms. One such property, the 51-room Sea Foam Motel, currently on the National Register of Historic Places, opened in 1948 on the beach in Nags Head. According to John Lautzenheiser, who is a retired nuclear engineer in addition to managing the Sea Foam, “Only three families have owned this place since it was built. The last family has owned it since 1989.”
The motel has the oldest extant in-ground swimming pool in the Outer Banks, but the major “Instagrammable” attraction is the iconic Sea Foam sign hovering over the beachfront building.
“Some people just drive in and take photos under the sign,” Lautzenheiser said. “They’re not even guests. It’s one of the most photographed images in the Outer Banks.” The Sea Foam today retains all of its original windows as well as the knotty-pine paneling and original bathroom fixtures in many of the older guest rooms.
By the late 1960s, the Outer Banks had more than 150 lodging establishments that accommodated guests from all 50 states and around the world.(8) Most were independent and locally owned. However, by the mid-1990s, many of these had been replaced by mega- beachfront houses with the capacity for groups of 20 or more, considered by investors to be the highest and best use for beachfront land.
To this, Lautzenheiser comments, “This motel has been a viable business for 75 years. It’s well-established and has always survived the storms. Most importantly, the family that owns it has grown attached to it and it’s become part of their identity. It’s the most meaningful investment they’ve ever made.”
‘Vacations the way they used to be’
Owners, managers, and guests of about 20 hotels and motels in Kitty Hawk, Kill Devil Hills, Nags Head and Hatteras Island provided their time and insights for this article. Without exception, these properties were described as much more than a beachfront location at an affordable price point; they represent decades of experiences and memories for guests and staff alike.
As Lee Nettles, Executive Director of the Outer Banks Visitors Bureau, put it, “These places are the medium for family memories and emotional cues. When you own an inn for 35 years and you get post cards from guests that their kid graduated, that is something very special.”
Raj Lakhani owns and operates nine motels and inns in the Outer Banks, the first, The Hatteras Island Inn, was purchased in 2015 and the latest, the Days Inn-Mariner, was purchased a few months ago. He speaks with pride about buying the Outer Banks Motor Lodge in March 2021, which was established in Kill Devil Hills more than 60 years ago.
According to Lakhani, “The owner had been approached for years to sell this place, but all the buyers wanted to knock it down and build houses. I got it because I valued it for what it is.” He adds, “Guests have been coming here for three and four generations…75% of our guests are repeat guests.”
Linda Sabadic, general manager of the Motor Lodge for the past 12 years, nods her head in agreement and emphasizes, “Guests here want a connection to the past. We have had honeymooners who came back for their 50th anniversary. Guests make friends with the guest next door and come back to see each other every year. Older couples will get ice cream for kids who are not even theirs.”
When Linda walks around the grounds of the motel, she seems to know everyone. She points out a guest named Clay, who visits regularly with his mother and daughter; Clay works at a prison and stays at the motel to decompress at the beach, in a familiar place with his loved ones around him. Linda points out parents who just had a new baby, a daughter who just got a new job. She stops at a patch of ground outside the pool fence. “This is where Susan is putting the memorial stepstone for her parents,” she says.
In the late 1960s, Susan Wray, a teenager at the time was vacationing regularly in Ocean City with her parents and sister. One year, they decided to give the Outer Banks a try and they never looked back. They worked their way down the Beach Road and eventually found the Outer Banks Motor Lodge, where her family booked the same week annually until the late 1970s, when Susan went away to college and eventually got married. In the 1980s, Susan and her parents returned to the Motor Lodge, this time with Susan’s husband and then with her own children. Her sister also started visiting again with her own family.
In 2016, Susan’s husband passed away. Her father died three years later at the age of 90. After her father passed, the sisters continued to take their mom to the Motor Lodge. In March of 2023, Susan’s mother also passed. Susan called Linda Sabadic and asked if she could place a stepstone on the grounds of the Motor Lodge as a memorial to her parents.
The inscription on the stone is “In Loving Memory of our Nana and Papa. Your footsteps will forever remain in the sand at OBML – your happy place.” The stone is now nestled in a small garden outside the swimming pool gazebo.
During their visit, Susan and her sister had crab cakes in their parents’ old room. She says, “Life is not predictable, but this place was a constant for us as we moved around over the years –clean, comfortable, predictable, friendly, nothing pretentious about it. The kids took turns spending the night with nana and papa in their room. It was our home at the beach.”
Torey Ossman is the general manager of the 108-room John Yancey Oceanfront Inn in Kill Devil Hills, which opened in 1962.She concurs that the motels and inns are stand-ins for second homes for many OBX visitors.
“Guests return because of the care factor,” she says. “Multiple generations of guests have made memories here and celebrated special occasions.”She talks about a guest named Barbara, who has come to the John Yancey twice a year since her husband passed away. “She’s part of our family, she brings us donuts, we turn her bath towels into sea turtles and seagulls, and we put her name on the roadside welcome sign.”
Torey says that guests love seeing their names on the roadside marquis; it has become a photo op to mark meaningful milestones, such as the name of a newly adopted teenager being welcomed to her first beach vacation, or of a guest’s old dog who would likely never return.
“We’re a part of the history here,” she observes. “We’re not a property that just popped up suddenly and replaced what was there before.”
Jake Hatch, general manager of the Surf Side Hotel (opened in 1984) and Sandspur Motel and Cottage Court (opened in 1959), which are adjacent to each other on the beachfront in Nags Head, puts it like this: “Guests here get the experience of staying in a hotel or motel but the feeling of being home. Some of them want the same room every time they come. Some even want the same housekeeper.” He is referring to Venus, who has been a housekeeper at Surf Side for decades, adding that “Guests ask to stay on the third floor because it’s the Venus floor.”
As is the case with all of the general managers on the beach, Jake knows many of the guests; he stops to chat with Clay Gordon, a 48-year-old veteran and special-ed teacher from Luray, VA. Clay has been coming to the Sandspur every year for two decades; in June of this year, 22 relatives from Clay’s extended family stayed there.
Clay says, “Of course we could rent one of the massive houses, but Sandspur has efficiencies and not everyone had to be locked into the entire time frame.”He adds, “The OBX has changed alot over the years, but it still feels like a small town.This motel is like a family friend, I never feel like a stranger here.”
Clay fondly recalls his uncle, whose wish was to visit the Outer Banks one more time before passing away.
The t-shirts and mugs at the 75-year-old Sea Foam Motel say, “Vacations the way they way used to be.”
“Life takes people somewhere else, a career, wherever, and then they come back to reconnect with the motel and their childhood,” Lautzenheiser explains. “Maybe 40 years have passed. They find continuity and familiarity here—they can reconnect to the past.”
Author ID: Brian Tress has been a consultant for the hospitality and tourism industry for 25 years, which has taken him to all five continents and over 100 countries. He moved to the Outer Banks several years ago and is a self-identifying “hotel geek.”
(Today’s installment, Part 1, focuses on the rich history of these properties and what they have come to mean to their owners, managers and guests. The coming Part 2 will explore the critical socio-economic role these properties play and what lies ahead for them given the continuing proliferation of residences used as short-term rental.)
Footnotes
1,2 Conway, Martin R. The Outer Banks: An Historical Adventure from Kitty Hawk to Ocracoke.
Shepherdstown, WV: Carabelle Books, 1984. Pages 13-16.
3 Stick, David. The Outer Banks of North Carolina: 1584-1958. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 1958. Pages 56-57.
4,5,6,7,8 Cooper, Elizabeth O. Historic Hotel and Motels of the Outer Banks. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2020. Pages 8, 12, 18-22
