{"nrhp_refnum":"80002817","name":"Whalehead Club","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"Currituck Banks","address_restricted":false,"city":"Corolla","county":"Currituck County","state":"NC","lat":36.37444775050005,"lon":-75.83326595291933,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1980-04-16","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture","Social History"],"significance_levels":["state"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A mansion and hunting-club complex on the Currituck Banks about two miles southwest of Corolla Lighthouse in Corolla, North Carolina, built 1922-1925 for Mr. and Mrs. Edward Colling Knight, Jr. The nominated parcel is 35 acres.","why_significant":"The nomination presents it as the grandest and most exotic of the Outer Banks shooting clubs, tied to the use of the northern banks as a hunting ground for wealthy northerners. It also ties the house to Edward C. Knight, Jr., and to a combination of Beaux Arts form with Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau detail that it calls apparently unique in the state's domestic architecture.","narrative":"Whalehead Club is a large hunting-retreat mansion on the Currituck Banks, about two miles southwest of Corolla Lighthouse. Edward Colling Knight, Jr., and his wife supervised its construction from 1922 to 1925 on the site of the former Lighthouse Club. The house has a steep copper-clad roof, flared dormers, a steel frame, a full basement on wooden pilings and a strictly symmetrical Beaux Arts layout. Its carved trim, Tiffany light fixtures and water lily motifs reflect Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau styles. The architect is unknown. The house sat on a man-made island created by dredging a harbor and moat. After the Knights died in 1936, later uses included a private club, a Coast Guard station, a boys' summer school and a rocket engine test site. The nomination describes it as the most visually distinctive of the roughly ten shooting clubs on the banks. When nominated, the surviving 35 acres were for sale and the house was vacant and in need of repairs.","period_of_significance":"1922-1925","architect_builder":"Architect unknown","architectural_style":"Beaux Arts form with Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau detail","criteria":["A","B","C"],"status_note":"At the time of the nomination the house had not been inhabited for six years and needed exterior paint and new plumbing and wiring. The 35-acre property was for sale.","vacant_flag":true,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:58:57.302307-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/62/7198/47719862/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_NC/80002817.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/80002817/dda6206a98-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/80002817/dda6206a98-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY 2.0","author":"Watts","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Whalehead_Club_in_North_Carolina_(53298253464).jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Watts</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY 2.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Whalehead_Club_in_North_Carolina_(53298253464).jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/47719862","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whalehead_Club","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q18217687"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/north-carolina/currituck-county/whalehead-club-80002817/"}