Text and photos by Connie Leinbach
After 27 years of owning and managing the Anchorage Inn & Marina, Bill Gilbert turned his dozens of keys over to islander Bill Rich on Aug. 28.
The Ocracoke landmark will become condos in a deal that closed on Aug. 27.
“Nothing’s changing with the footprint,” Rich said in an interview about the change in ownership, but there will be some improvements.
The big change is that all of the motel rooms are for sale as condos and each condo comes with a boat slip.
Condo owners will have the option to be in the “transient” program, in which they can rent either or both their condos and boat slips.
Of the 38 rooms (two of which are top-floor suites), Rich said 21 are under contract and after the sale is finalized all of these will be rented out as motel rooms.
Condos that will be in the rental program must stay pretty much the way they are to be rented, Rich said, although some aspects of the rooms will be upgraded, such as bathroom vanities, TVs and mattresses.
The Crown Hotel and Tourist Development Group in Wilmington will manage and market all of the condo and boat slip rentals and the owners’ association. Rich is handling the sales.
Boat slips are available for anyone to rent by calling the marina or Crown.
Marina and hotel staffers are staying on board, Rich said, and all of the charter fishermen and other renters are remaining.
He just renewed a three-year lease with SmacNally’s, and Island Golf Carts has a one-year lease.
“I own the real estate, not the businesses,” Rich said.
As for the marina, Rich has gotten approval to enlarge the fueling dock about 20 feet into Silver Lake to be even with the pier behind Island Golf Carts so that large boats can pull in.
The Coastal Area Management Act, under the Coastal Resources Commission, approved the change, he said, and now the project is in the 75-day review process by 10 other agencies.
He also will add 13 new slips.
Rich said his Anchorage Partners LLC owns the property and includes himself as the managing partner and majority owner of 30%. The seven others, all from North Carolina, some of whom are family members, own 10%.
He said the property sold for $6.3 million and his investors chipped in $1.4 million with financing obtained for the $4.9 million.
Rich had been trying to sell the Anchorage and marina for a few years; some wanted just the hotel and not the marina.
Finally, after hearing about other motels going condo with boat slips, he decided to just buy it himself, got it under contract and put his little group together.
“Six of them said yes immediately,” he said. “They get a condo and a boat slip, and they get 10% of the profit.”
Boat slips are the key, he said: Everyone wants one, but neither the rooms nor the boat slips will be sold separately.
However, condo owners will be free to rent out their boat slips however they want to.
Prices for the rooms/boat slips range from $225,00 to $325,000. The penthouses are $625,000.
Architect Ben Cahoon, the mayor of Nags Head, did all the condo engineering and drawings and islander J.H. Miller did all the survey work.
Local men will improve the existing dock for the added boat slips.
Except for the two penthouses that have living rooms and kitchens, all the regular rooms are typical hotel rooms with mini fridges, microwaves and coffee makers.
These will not be able to be renovated with full kitchens.
Purchasers may purchase two rooms and knock out part of the dividing wall to link the rooms, Rich said. Three people bought doubles and someday may convert them with living rooms and kitchens.
“Every wall is solid brick and every floor is concrete,” he said.
Every condo owner also gets an assigned parking space, he said. He will add to the 50+ spaces already there for about 70 total spaces.
The docks are in good shape, Rich said, and don’t need any work.
“Bill kept them up,” Rich said. “I’ve been in this business for 52 years and I’ve never had anybody I dealt with any better than Bill Gilbert. Every aspect of this deal was just beautiful because he and I just worked so well together.”
The name will stay the same.
“It’s what’s so special about this thing,” he said. “People who have been renting rooms at the Anchorage have been doing so since the 80s.”
When Scott Cottrell in 1982 built the imposing four-story structure overlooking the tiny harbor, “his act of bravado hit the island like an ocean squall,” notes David Shears in his 1989 book “Ocracoke: Its History and People.”
“The storm over his Anchorage Inn goaded the islanders into adopting rules designed to stop such building in (the) future.”
Shortly after that, the Ocracoke Development Ordinance was adopted setting a 35-foot height limit and forbade construction of large buildings on small lots, Shears writes.
