One of the first things you’ll notice about Corolla is that it’s new. Less than twenty years ago, Corolla was one of the last beach frontiers on the East Coast, with miles of empty land and only a few vacation homes dotting the dunes. Until 1984, the area was blocked off to everyone but a few landowners, but when the gates opened, a flood of development followed. With expansive Atlantic beaches, luxurious seaside accommodations, polished landscaping and upscale shopping and dining complexes, Corolla is an increasingly popular East Coast vacation destination. If Corolla was human, we’d call it a yuppie, for it is young, affluent, of-the-moment and a tad materialistic. It is a world of contemporary luxuries, where vacationing is easy and life is civilized.

Corolla sprung up so fast and its architecture is so new-fashioned that few people realize Corolla actually has deep roots dating back to the 1800s. Few people realize that Corolla was originally the name for a small village that sits beneath the Currituck Beach Lighthouse. It has only been in recent years that people starting using the term Corolla to refer to the whole stretch of northern Outer Banks from the Dare County line to the end of the paved road.

This new Corolla is really the Currituck Outer Banks. In this stretch of Currituck County there are no incorporated towns; rather, there are numerous named subdivisions or planned developments – Pine Island, the Currituck Club, Ocean Sands, Whalehead, Buck Island, Monteray Shores, Corolla Light, Villages at Ocean Hill and others. Corolla is just a descriptive moniker, the name of the post office, not an official town designation. Since there are so many different subdivision names and everyone gets their mail through the Corolla Post Office, it is easiest to call everything on the Currituck Outer Banks “Corolla.”

Surrounded by the Currituck Sound and Atlantic Ocean, the Currituck Outer Banks seems like a barrier island, but it is actually a barrier spit, or peninsula. The long, narrow spit of land is attached to the state of Virginia on the northern end and continues all the way down through Duck, Kitty Hawk, Kill Devil Hills and Nags Head to Oregon Inlet, where the ocean rushes through to meet the sound.

By the way, on the Outer Banks we pronounce Corolla as “Cor-AH-lah.” Those who say “Cor-OLL-lah,” as in the car made by Toyota, are immediately pegged as tourists.

The newness of Corolla can be refreshing and uplifting. Nothing is rundown. Everything is clean. All of the buildings are air-conditioned. There are no potholes in the roads. The developments are well planned, not haphazard. But the lack of apparent roots can be unsettling. You might find yourself craving the sight of a few old houses. You might find yourself digging your toes deep into the sand, searching for the lineage of the land. Don’t worry. Corolla does have heritage. You just have to look a little harder to find the history that’s overshadowed in this vacation boomtown.

This history of the area is in what’s left of old Corolla Village, the hunt club culture and in the memories of the few true natives that still live here. The quiet village roads, the turn-of-the-(last)-century houses, the Currituck Beach Lighthouse and the Whalehead Club speak volumes of stories about the long-gone days of the true Corolla old Corolla Village.

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