This century-old inn on the Outer Banks is getting another chance. Take a look
John and Pam Buchholz have traveled the world, welcoming new experiences and embarking on adventures.
But Pam Buchholz, who grew up on the coast of Scotland, says she fell in love with Hatteras Island the first time she visited that stretch of North Carolina’s Outer Banks.
So when she stumbled across an online listing for the century-old Atlantic Inn last year, she knew she wanted to buy the suffering hotel and breathe new life into it.
There was a problem, though: Coronavirus-related restrictions prevented her husband from visiting the building. So he agreed to buy it without ever seeing it in person.
“We decided that this was just something that we should do — that life is too short,” Pam Buchholz said.
Like so much of the Outer Banks, the inn has a storied past. It opened in 1928 as the Atlantic View Hotel, catering to “fishing tourists, duck hunters and seekers of a peaceful getaway,” according to its website.
When Hurricane Isabel tore through the barrier islands in 2003, the building took a big hit. It reopened three years later as The Seaside Inn but closed again last year.
Treasure inside
The Buchholzes have never done this before.
John, 62, and Pam, 53, both spent much of their careers working in clinical research. Pam’s most recent job in the field was with the Duke Clinical Research Institute in Durham.
When they bought the inn, the couple sold their horse farm near Hillsborough to live on the island full time.
Once they got to work inside the old hotel, they found plenty of treasure, including yellowing sheet music and books with copyright dates from the early 1900s.
“The books found in the Inn will be a welcome addition to the library of books we’ve accumulated over the years, for guests to enjoy,” Pam Buchholz wrote in a recent blog post.
There was a more puzzling discovery, too.
A photo posted to the blog shows a “rather odd contraption” built in the shape of a chair that appears to have a connection to a boardwalk.
“We’d love to know the history of this particular piece,” she wrote.
Another discovery was that residents on the island at one point had repurposed materials from shipwrecks, according to the National Park Service.
“Because it was so isolated, they would use whatever they could find,” Pam Buchholz said in an interview. “So there’s probably pieces of old shipwrecks embedded in the building.”
She continued: “It’s got so many stories in it. It was sad because it was so run down and kind of dilapidated.”
‘A family effort’
Over the years, the couple has ventured across the globe, helping them determine which features make for a comfortable overnight stay.
“Both of us have traveled so much,” Pam Buchholz said. “We always used to stay at places and say, ‘Gosh, if we had our own place, I would do this. Or I wouldn’t do that.’”
Starting the inn has been a “family effort,” with the couple’s adult children pitching in. But they hit a snag with COVID-19, which delayed the renovation project.
For Pam Buchholz, it’s also about being near the ocean again.
“It was kind of an odd leap, some people may think,” she said of the family’s project. “But it actually wasn’t. I saw us living next to the beach.”
The inn, which boasts of a historical setting with “no corporate hotel vibes,” is set to open in April or May. It’s already taking reservations — and getting noticed online. After posting about the renovation project on social media, Buchholz said her website got hits from users in 42 states, Canada and Europe.
“So many people are just so happy that we kind of were saving an old building,” she said. “We’ve tried to maintain as much of the original integrity of the building that we can.”
This story was originally published February 2, 2021 at 7:42 AM with the headline "This century-old inn on the Outer Banks is getting another chance. Take a look."
