Wishing you and yours a happy and healthy New Year!

Photo by Amanda Mager

]]> http://www.marsheslight.com/blog/index.php/2011/11/manteo-community-comes-together/feed/ 0 http://www.marsheslight.com/blog/index.php/2011/11/outer-banks-forecast-rainbows-and-wind/ http://www.marsheslight.com/blog/index.php/2011/11/outer-banks-forecast-rainbows-and-wind/#comments Fri, 04 Nov 2011 21:31:31 +0000 Lee Whitley http://www.marsheslight.com/blog/?p=1334

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Early morning rainbow, sound-side OBX. 

It was a warm and rather cloudy morning, a little breezy and good conditions for an easy 3 mile run around the neighborhood with my friend Amanda. We headed towards the ocean and saw a patch of blue sky (Carolina Blue, that is) and then followed the road in the opposite direction. There it was, a beautiful crystal clear rainbow.

Lots of people around the Outer Banks also saw it and captured it on film, this photo looks like Colington in Kill Devil Hills.

The weather steadily deteriorated and we’ve been experiencing a coastal storm with spitting rain and northeast winds of about 25 mph.

If you’re thinking of visiting this weekend, here’s what to expect from the weather:

Tonight

Mostly cloudy. Rain likely this evening. A slight chance of rain after midnight. Very windy with lows in the lower 50s. Northeast winds 25 to 35 mph and gusty. Chance of rain 70 percent.

Saturday

Partly cloudy and very windy. Highs around 60. Northeast winds 25 to 35 mph with higher gusts.

Saturday Night

Mostly cloudy and windy. Lows in the lower 50s. Northeast winds 20 to 30 mph.

Sunday

Partly sunny and breezy. Highs in the lower 60s. Northeast winds 15 to 20 mph.

Sunday Night

Mostly cloudy in the evening…then becoming partly cloudy. Lows in the mid 50s. Northeast winds 10 to 15 mph.

Monday

Partly cloudy. Highs in the mid 60s.

Looking forward, especially to the Outer Banks Marathon weekend on November 12-13, the Farmer’s Almanac predicts sunny & cool. The next full moon will be on November 10. I’m thinking of a walk on the beach when the wind calms down – a great time to find shells, beach glass and other treasures, followed by home-made chili or oyster stew! So come on down and discover why so many people love Fall on the Outer Banks!

The volunteer effort was part of an overall project aimed at creating a “living shoreline” to protect a Juncus marsh that is part of the Marshes Light Development in downtown historic Manteo.  The “living shoreline” stabilization will allow the marsh to regenerate along its eroding fringe and return valuable oyster shells to our waters.  These shells will also provide a great home to numerous marine creatures.

Thriving coastal marshes are vital to the overall health of our estuary, effectively filtering nutrients, fine sediments and toxins from overland runoff.  These critical habitats also support fisheries and protected resources by improving water quality and buffering shorelines.

It was an interesting process and hard, dirty work. We used UV resistant netting material (used and recommended in the aquaculture industry) which was stretched over a piece of PVC pipe that was about 36” long and 8” in diameter.  Wearing thick gloves, we placed the shells into the pipe with bag stretched and when full, the pipe was pulled out of the bag and the bag tied.  Each bag was estimated to weigh about 30-35 pounds!

Once the necessary permits are in place, the next step will be to load the bags onto a barge and haul them over to the marsh.  The Town also plans to install native marsh plants along the landward side of the stabilized shoreline next spring.

 This project is an on-going and volunteer collaborative effort between Marshes Light new home community, the Town of Manteo, Quible & Associates, P.C., and our many friends!  Check back in early next spring for information about volunteering for more projects along the Manteo waterfront.

I want to give special thanks to Marshes Light owners, Bob & Joan Ciardi (and friends), Jim Lambie and Jeff & Carol Nease for their hard work!

Photo by Wayne Whitley

Working with Cycle NC event organizers, the Outer Banks Visitors Bureau, College of the Albemarle, Town of Manteo, and the Marshes Light community, we gave them a warm and exciting welcome. Shuttle service provided transportation to area hotels and restaurants. A good number of cyclists camped on COA property and walked over to Manteo on the sound-side boardwalk, a short walk to First Friday with live music, food, wine, and other festivities.

They leave Manteo on Saturday and ride to Corolla, 61 miles, along the Beach Road for the last leg of the trip.

For more information about Cycle North Carolina and future rides, click here.

Directions to downtown

For more information and registration, visit www.marsheslightmarina.com.

Marshes Light Expands Manteo Horizon

Since 1982, when townspeople adopted the motto “Come Sit on Our Front Porch; Let Us Tell You of the Dreams We Keep” as part of an ambitious revitalization for Manteo, this Roanoke Island town has seen its dreams come true.  The view from the porch has been transformed.

A once deserted downtown is now filled with shops and restaurants, with residences located above.  Historic homes have been renovated, and picket fences have returned to nearly every yard.  New public spaces are filled with activity—boat docks, boardwalks, and a waterfront park with benches set beneath live oaks—in place of rotten pilings and dilapidated, abandoned buildings. 

Across the creek, a barren spoil island is now home to Roanoke Island Festival Park and the representative 16^th century ship Elizabeth II, built and berthed in Manteo, but able to sail to coastal ports, as North Carolina’s only moveable historic attraction.  A new state maritime museum at the old boathouse brings families together to build a boat in a day, and youngsters learn to sail, with wet-sponge fights part of the lesson plan.  On summer evenings, dance, music, and drama play out on a pavilion lawn with Roanoke Sound as part of the stage set.

It took a full 20 years to complete the 11 major components that brought $20 million in public and private investments to Manteo.  Between 1980 and 2006, the tax base increased a whopping 5,581 percent, from $11.2 million to $625.2 million.  How does a town manage that kind of growth while preserving a sense of place?  How can it make 5,000 visitors a day feel welcome while still making its 1,000 residents feel at home?

Professional planners claim that an involved citizenry is why Manteo’s plan has succeeded, where so many others fail.  This renaissance of a once dying town is the result of a public/private planning initiative that drew on the expertise of NC State University School of Design, Professor Randolph T. Hester, and planner James Rouse’s American City Corporation.  But more importantly, it drew on the dreams and imagination of town residents, who attended design charettes, were interviewed by students on their front porches, or who completed surveys asking what they would like their town to become.

Twenty years later, deserted streets were no longer the problem.  In 2002, residents complained they couldn’t find a place to park, traffic on the main highway was backed up to the bridge on busy summer days, and gated communities elsewhere on the island seemed to fly in the face of townspeople’s motto, envisioning porch-lined streets and a public waterfront that functions as the town’s giant front porch.

As it had done in the past, town commissioners reached out to the School of Design for help.  Once more, residents and business owners filled out surveys, attended meetings, and worked with students and professors to create a plan for the next 20 years.  As they dreamed of the future, citizens recognized it was time to preserve important elements of the past.

Townspeople were especially concerned about plans to sell a large tract of land bordering Shallowbag Bay that had been in the same family since the 1860s. Would there be wall-to-wall condos?  Would a gated community sit condescendingly across the street from some of the oldest houses in the town?  Would the new development, nearly the same size as the historic downtown, overshadow a townscape that had changed little in 100 years?

The entire town breathed a collective sigh of relief when a group of local residents bought the property, and did the unthinkable.  They asked townspeople to help plan the new development.

The site became a School of Design project, but planning didn’t stop there.  How would the development relate to the historic downtown?  To the proposed new campus of College of the Albemarle?  To the everyday town center on the main highway?  Were there opportunities for street connectivity to address traffic concerns?  A new master plan for the entire town, with a major development designed within the heart of town, was adopted in 2005 as another example of public/private partnerships and citizen input.

Once plans were in place, the owners sold their interest to Kitty Hawk Land Company, with more than 50 years’ experience developing properties on the Outer Banks and beyond.   In the summer of 2006, construction began on what is being marketed as Marshes Light, named for the screwpile lighthouse that lies just off the point.  With a mixture of single- and multi-family homes, shops, and a waterfront inn, the new neighborhood is designed to be seamless with the historic waterfront. 

Residents and guests at Marshes Light will be able to walk along the new boardwalk bordered by boat slips and a public park, then continue along the existing boardwalk.  There, the Maritime Museum’s collection of traditional workboats forms the core of its “floating museum.”  Residents can look out their windows and see which weather flag is flying atop the historic US Weather Bureau storm-warning tower.  Standing watch over the sound is the reconstruction of the Roanoke Marshes Lighthouse, part of the museum complex, and the Elizabeth II rides at anchor across the creek.  Shops, restaurants, galleries, and marina slips will flank the boardwalk in both the old and new parts of town. 

While you could walk from Marshes Light to Roanoke Island Festival Park in just five minutes, a slower pace is more inviting.  On the way to a summer performance at the park’s outdoor pavilion, you can stop for various necessities, from a picnic basket to a bottle of wine to a take-out dinner.  You can even buy a vintage tablecloth on which to spread your feast as you watch the evening’s performance of music, dance, or drama, with Roanoke Sound as the backdrop.

Across the street from Marshes Light is the new campus of the College of the Albemarle’s School of Professional Crafts.  Just beyond is the everyday town center, where banks, grocery stores, dry cleaners, and other services are conveniently located. 

A 10-minute drive takes you to the North Carolina Aquarium, Elizabethan Gardens, Fort Raleigh National Historic Site, and Waterside Theatre, where Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Paul Green’s outdoor drama The Lost Colony has been performed for the past 70 years.

It’s easy to understand why Manteo was chosen as a 2007 recipient of the Preserve America Presidential Award, recognizing the town’s “preservation of cultural and natural heritage assets, and the integration of these assets into contemporary community life, using innovative approaches to showcasing its historic resources,” according to the award criteria.

Marshes Light exemplifies the spirit of that effort.  Not only does Marshes Light look across to some of the oldest houses in the town, one of its most historic homes is incorporated into the new neighborhood.  Undergoing a meticulous restoration is the home of William T. Brinkley, who operated a herring and shad fishery beginning in the 1860s, and whose descendants later turned to dairy farming, delivering bottled milk up and down the Outer Banks.  Parts of the house date to the 1820s, while the house as it stands today dates to the 1880s or 90s, according to architectural historian Peter Sandbeck.  It was Brinkley who encouraged his sister and brother-in-law, Rosa and John Evans, to come to Manteo in 1873 to help build up a town around the new county seat established three years earlier.

            Mirroring the old part of town, the new neighborhood will include shops and restaurants, with residences above.  Along Fernando Street, the dividing line between past and present, new single-family homes are a reflection of the vernacular style found just across the street.  The master plan calls for higher density residences to be sited around the marina basin, providing a gradual increase in scale.  The condominiums, townhouses, and flats provide expansive views across Roanoke Sound to Outer Banks beaches, just 10 minutes away.

Perhaps the most beautiful location within the 14-acre site is the point that overlooks the Roanoke Marshes Lighthouse and the Elizabeth II.  There, the Inn at Marshes Light will bring overnight guests to patronize the town’s shops and restaurants.

Today, the town’s motto is “Preserve.  Prosper.”  Even as brand-new homes stand up against the skyline, the simple, fine lines of the old Brinkley house are being slowly revealed.  The Elizabeth II recalls the audacious determination of those who crossed an ocean in search of a new life on Roanoke Island nearly 425 years ago.  The beam of the lighthouse reassures, even as the storm-tower lights warn of a change in the weather.  Children jump off the docks, as they always have.  There are no gates to divide townspeople from one another—only a few more porches, overlooking a few new streets, where people can sit, and tell of the dreams they keep.

Marshes Light Marina & Community

The Town of Manteo is known for its exceptional downtown waterfront, Victorian-inspired architecture and the large selection of bed and breakfasts in the Outer Banks. Situated on the eastern side of Roanoke Island, Manteo lies between the North Carolina mainland and the barrier islands of the Outer Banks along the Shallowbag Bay.

The town’s theme is decidedly nautical, with the daily weather reports coming in the form of flags flying from the Manteo Weather Tower. Beacons of light from the Roanoke Marshes Lighthouse still guide boats in safely, and charming shops and cafes line the city’s waterfront.

While the residents of Manteo embrace the modern charms of the seaside village, they are also keenly aware of the island’s historical importance. Over 420 years ago, a group of 117 men, women and children, with the blessing of Queen Elizabeth I, settled on the island. An ideal location for an English settlement because of its lush vegetation and mild climate, they established a colony only to subsequently disappear. “The Lost Colony,” as it has come to be known, today remains one of history’s biggest mysteries.

Three hundred years later, Union forces took control of the waters of northeastern North Carolina, and the groundwork of modern Manteo was laid when freed slaves lived and worked on the island. Nearly 4,000 freed slaves had become part of this ‘Freedman’s Colony’ until its official closing in 1867.

Today, the town’s tree-lined streets, shops, restaurants, fishing charters and bed and breakfasts reflect its history while keeping one foot firmly planted in the present as well.

Marshes Light

Close to history and close to the water, Marshes Light is a one-of-a-kind waterfront community located within walking distance of the shops and restaurants of historic downtown Manteo. The last opportunity for new construction within the historic district, Marshes Light includes homesites, single-family homes and marina villa homes in addition to a host of amenities including a 60-slip marina, all while reflecting Manteo’s unique character and charm.

Mayo Boddie, chairman of developer Boddie-Noell, pointed out, “I have always loved Manteo, and it’s why we decided to develop Marshes Light there. I own a condo there, I dock my boat there, and I love to spend time there, which is why I’ve been so passionate about Marshes Light and about connecting the community to historic downtown Manteo.”

(This article originally appeared in Ideal Living Magazine.)