Whalehead Club

About this property

The Historic Whalehead Club is a large 21,000-square-foot (2,000 m2) home located on a remote tract facing the Currituck Sound in North Carolina, United States. The structure was designed by owners Edward Collings Jr. and Marie Louise Label Knight and contracted by Daniel Peckham between 1922 and 1925. The home remains a prominent example of Art Nouveau. In 1920, Edward Collings Knight, Jr., heir to a fortune made in sugar, railroads, and steamships, purchased the land with longtime companion and second wife Marie-Louise LaBel Knight. The Knights named their new residence after its location outside the village of Corolla. Built in an isolated area of the Currituck Outer Banks, the house sits along the Currituck Sound connecting to the Atlantic Flyway. Renowned for teeming flocks of waterfowl, there were many other public resources within the neighboring village to Corolla Island. Currituck Beach Life Saving Station offered a vital link to the outside world through telegraph. Alongside, Corolla village provided a postal service, general store, as well as a Baptist church, and local school. The Knights constructed Corolla Island on the Property of the Lighthouse Club, a well-known shooting club purchased by Mr. Knight. Though frequented guests avidly hunted waterfowl, Corolla Island served not as a club but a comfortable retreat for a hospitable couple and their many friends. Construction of the house began in 1922 and was completed in 1925. Norfolk building contractor John Kelbaugh orchestrated the logistics of building 20 rooms, contained within three stories. A six-foot-deep dredged channel was hand dug on the western edge, thus forming of it an Island. Among the many items the Knights brought over, the more luxurious furnishings were the custom-made Tiffany lamping in a water-lily design, as well as Louis Majorelle furniture. Corolla Island housed the Knights for nine seasons. After the couple's death in 1936, the heirs, Mr. Knights two granddaughters, sold the $348,000 estate for $25,000 and married into wealth in France. The home was used for many purposes after the Knights deaths. During the WWII era the home became an active Coast Guard recruitment base. In 1959, '60 and '61, the home and adjoining acreage were used by Corolla Academy as a private boys' summer school, offering credit and remedial courses for Grades 7 through 12. After that—one source says in 1964—the property was bought by the Atlantic Research Corporation and used a testing site for rocket fuel. After over 20 years of abandonment the house was bought by Currituck County in 1992 to be restored back to its original state. Today, the house is fully restored and now acts as a historic home for the public.

Location

Categories

Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

More in Currituck County

Historic places, battles, and census history across Currituck County.

More historic places in North Carolina

Browse all historic places in North Carolina.

Conflict records

Explore 19,000+ military engagements across American history.

North Carolina history

Colonial settlement, territorial period, and statehood narrative.