Second in a collection
In January 1972, Earl Slick bought the Pine Island Hunt Club for $2.75 million.
It was in some methods a steal. The almost 3,000-acre tract ran from the Atlantic Ocean to the Currituck Sound and included miles of oceanfront, pristine marsh, wooded uplands and inside ponds. A two-story white clapboard lodge straddled a sprawling grass discipline and freshwater pond constructed for migrating waterfowl. On blue sky days it was attainable to see three miles throughout the shallow sound to the distant mainland cities of Coinjock and Moyock. Look to the east and the even darker blue ocean limned the sand dunes.
Slick was uncertain what to do with the historic property now that he owned it – or if he even wished to maintain it. He wavered between creating it and preserving it. Between building a small arcadia of cottages and leaving the remaining alone, a sanctuary.
In 1973, he requested William E. Hollan Jr., who had lately begun working for him, to see if the National Audubon Society, The Nature Conservancy or the federal authorities is perhaps fascinated about shopping for the tract. “He thought at the time he could flip it to a conservation entity,” Hollan recalled. “I spent about a year trying to find some type of nonprofit or government entity to acquire Pine Island at cost. … At that time there was no money or no interest.”
Slick didn’t need the Currituck Banks to be swamped by improvement the way in which Kill Devil Hills and Nags Head had been within the postwar building increase that remodeled the Lower Banks right into a trip resort. Currituck County commissioners shared his concern and requested for Slick’s assist as they scrambled to formulate a plan to handle the anticipated progress. In a controversial transfer, Slick agreed to limit site visitors by means of his property except builders agreed to cluster-style resorts with centralized utilities. But slowing the wave of improvement was by no means going to be simple. Developers and speculators had already acquired 6,000 heaps on the Currituck Banks, and one other 5,000 had been listed on the market. It appeared inevitable {that a} street would ultimately be constructed.
And it was.
Unable to promote the property, Slick tried to develop it. For assist, he turned to his first cousins, Joe and Rex Frates, actual property builders from Oklahoma, and their affiliate Devane Clarke from Dallas, Texas. The out-of-state trio entered right into a partnership with Slick to design and market a modest resort. “They sent out a man and he did a lot of work,” Hollan mentioned. “The idea was to build 50 to 100 cottages around the Pine Island Club House. They would leave the rest of the property open. It would have a low-density appearance.”
But the timing couldn’t have been worse. In 1973, the nation slipped right into a prolonged recession after OPEC carried out an oil embargo. Real property tasks dried up all over the place and the Frates brothers and Devane Clark discovered themselves squeezed for money. The plan for Pine Island stalled as properly. The cousins met with Slick and it was determined to finish the partnership. “I think they looked at the plan and said this is just not marketable. We’re not going to get our investment back. We would like to gracefully back out,” Hollan recalled.
Slick turned his consideration to the southern portion of his Pine Island holdings, generally known as the South Mile, close to the border of Dare County. He had bought a small tract to the Venture Management Group, which included John C. Whitaker Jr., the son of Slick’s Winston-Salem buddy, John Whitaker Sr., the CEO of Reynolds Tobacco. The young builders modeled their Sanderling resort – named for the small, puffy sandpipers that skitter alongside the seashores – after the restrained, Nags Head model cottages of old, promoting Sanderling as “Life the way it was” on the Outer Banks. There had been no swimming pools or tennis courts however a number of trails and quiet, pure areas.
The group developed two sections of Sanderling however then stopped. Once extra, Slick confronted a dilemma: discover somebody to proceed building or promote and recoup a few of his unique funding. Hollan mentioned Slick leaned towards promoting however that he satisfied his boss to permit him to take over the venture. They completed six further sections and in 1986 added an inn with 29 condominium-style rooms. Over time, extra condominiums had been added, a spa and tennis facility, and two eating places, one mainly a espresso store, the opposite for nice eating. A replica of Audubon’s “Birds of America” was placed within the foyer of the inn.
“Mr. Slick wanted it to resemble a hunting lodge,” Hollan mentioned.
~
Earl Slick didn’t run Pine Island like different searching golf equipment. There had been no memberships, which means you couldn’t purchase your means in. You needed to be invited. Slick stored a detailed group of associates from his Yale days and business dealings. Many had been from the Winston-Salem space. But there have been additionally associates from Nova Scotia and a “flying preacher” who probably landed his aircraft on an airstrip Slick constructed close to the marsh. There was a males’s solely journey, journeys with wives, a dove-hunting journey in September, journeys to fish, and naturally opening day of duck searching season in December – perhaps a dozen journeys a yr, mentioned Hollan.
The company may hunt for an hour or two, have lunch at Pine Island or The Narrows, play playing cards (Slick beloved to guess and to win), and revel in a drink earlier than supper. The bar was absolutely stocked and there was often a bottle of Aquavit within the freezer. Slick caught with vodka, gin or gentle rum, relying on the season and his temper. The upstairs bedrooms had been small and spare however comfy sufficient. Later, Slick constructed a number of cabin-style homes for his spouse and household within the upland woods overlooking the fields and marsh. His daughter Phyllis and Paul Mickey Sr., the Steptoe & Johnson lawyer, additionally constructed cabins close by.
One of Slick’s favourite company was Donal O’Brien, a distinguished New York City lawyer for the Rockefellers and a board member of the Audubon Society. He got here yearly along with his spouse Kate. O’Brien was a legendary fundraiser and sure met Slick that means. Slick donated to Audubon and was the recipient of varied conservation awards. The duo bought alongside famously. O’Brien was a pure storyteller, discreet, humble, and he might shoot. He shortly noticed the worth of the Pine Island marshes as a refuge for birds and in March 1977 wrote an impassioned memo to his board following a solitary morning hike.
“There must have been 2,000 birds, mostly Pintails and Canada Geese, but there were others as well – Blacks, Ducks, Mallards and Green-Winged Teal. I was stunned by this spectacle. I know I had never seen so many waterfowl in one place at one time … and in those magical moments of that March sunrise, I knew that this was a property that had to be saved for the ages.”
A yr later, in August 1978, Earl Slick agreed to donate half of Pine Island to Audubon and assist to endow a fund for the deliberate sanctuary. As a part of the settlement, Slick continued to handle the property for a decade, whereas additionally incomes a beneficiant tax break, unfold over a number of years. Initially. Audubon agreed to pay Currituck County property taxes on the tract however then reversed itself, fearing the nonprofit was setting a precedent that might have an effect on its different land holdings.
~
A decade later, in 1989, Donal O’Brien approached Slick with a brand new concept. According to Hollan, O’Brien proposed to Slick that Audubon give again many of the oceanfront it had acquired as a part of the unique donation. In return, Slick would give Audubon the remaining marsh he owned. Audubon officers described the deal as a win-win. The marsh held extra worth for migrating birds; it was a protected place for the birds to relaxation and feed. Slick, however, would add prized oceanfront. This at a time ocean property was doubling and tripling in worth.
Slick noticed the worth of the swap. But Hollan mentioned he was involved how the commerce would look. “He didn’t want to be thought of as a slick (no pun intended) real estate developer.” There needed to be a web acquire to Audubon, so Slick determined to additionally give the nonprofit the 1,000 acres of mainland marsh he owned as a part of The Narrows Hunting Club. After the commerce, Audubon managed about 3,000-acres of marsh, whereas Slick owned many of the oceanfront from Sanderling to Pine Island.
Slick, now almost 70, wished to maneuver shortly. The marketplace for oceanfront actual property had begun to veer towards bigger, extra luxurious homes from the extra restrained cottages that John Whitaker Jr. constructed as a part of the unique Sanderling. Instead of passing second houses throughout generations, buyers noticed the larger houses as money machines — a technique to generate each sizable tax breaks and earnings by renting them to vacationers for as much as $10,000 per week. An investor might repay his or her mortgage in lower than a decade and use the earnings to purchase one other home, after which perhaps one other. Currituck, as soon as a lonely outpost, was quick turning into a supply of huge wealth for builders, buyers, and county officers.
Slick owned the land. But Hollan turned to a well-liked native builder, Bob DeGabrielle, to develop and market Pine Island. In a bio, DeGabrielle writes that he developed and bought over $1 Billion price of actual property on the Outer Banks. After he retired within the 2000’s, he turned one of many early entrepreneurs within the rising hashish business, founding the most important outside hashish farm in North America. In 2001, he bought the farm for $67 million.
“Bob is a force of nature, very enthusiastic, the most efficient person I’ve ever met in my life,” Hollan mentioned. “He started at 5 in the morning … and he carried two Dictaphones with him.”
DeGabrielle constructed to the brand new luxurious market – homes with six to 10 bedrooms, HGTV-style kitchens, entertainments facilities, and pocket swimming pools fronting the sand dunes. On weekends, it wasn’t unusual to see a dozen vehicles parked in driveways. But the place the oceanfront narrowed alongside the South Mile, the lengthy rows of homes appeared crowded collectively. Not everybody was comfortable. Stories and letters to the editor appeared in native newspapers. The writers complained that Pine Island modified the aesthetics and economics of the Banks. They weren’t flawed. But it was too late to pine for the old days. The Outer Banks had been now pushed by wealth and that wasn’t about to alter.
Hollan advised me that Slick, who handed away in 2007, on the age of 86, was happy with the homes. “I think the Audubon thing worked out well,” he mentioned. “I believe it was what he wished to see occur and I helped to convey it to fruition.
“Yeah, those are bigger lots than typical lots, but those are bigger houses,” he continued. “They are what they are. It’s not Sanderling. It is a nice community.”
In June 2022, I organized to go to the Pine Island sanctuary, only a stone’s toss from the oceanfront mega homes. Robbie Fearn, the supervisor of the sanctuary the final decade, took me on a tour of the century-old lodge earlier than we picked our means by means of the close by woods to a pocket seaside the place brackish water has crept ever greater and created a ghost forest.
In the space, a automotive rushing previous the mansions left a contrail of noise however then was gone. At one level, Fearn, medium-built and considerate, raised his fingers as if addressing the sky. “Isn’t it amazing,” he mentioned, which means the street, the vehicles, the mansions, and this startling refuge for hundreds of migrating birds. “In the summer all of these cars fly by and I don’t think any of them even know we are here. It’s as if we don’t exist.”
