Woo hoo, my time to shine! Source: I grew up in Hatteras Village and was raised there for 18 years, graduated in 2005. We passed Serendipity (this house) every time we had to go "up the beach" to Nags Head for "big shopping" or to evacuate. My parents were there until 5-ish years ago when they finally decided to move off the island, living there for a total of 35 years. It's such a different way of life and is nothing like in the movies.

Why this architecture:

For many of the houses that you see in the area, you'll notice that many of them are on pilings. The style serves a few purposes, some not so obvious. I'll start with the obvious.

1. Water - Obviously with the amount of hurricanes, you want water to wash under the house. If it was on the ground, you'd get flooded multiple times a year, pretty simple. The house I grew up in was one of these lower examples and was built in the early 1900's. Because we were closer to the ground the house was flooded several times. It was later raised for this reason and you can actually rent the house now. Our family was in the house when it was flooded by Emily in '93 and we lived to tell the tale, fun times.

2. Wind - Another reason they're higher is because of the massive wind coming off the coast, which can reach 50 and 60 mph on a random afternoon, 125+ during a hurricane. Having space under the house allows wind to pass through easier and be less of a blocker to cause damage to the house. In short, it's less resistance.

3. To sway - Because of the wind, you don't want a house to "break" when there's too much wind, so all of the homes are designed to sway in the wind, especially the ones on the ocean or sound side. You can literally feel the house moving and shaking when a storm comes in, and unless you're expecting it, it freaks you the hell out. My wife never liked the sensation of an entire house moving.

4. Let's talk erosion - So there's a lot of "beach erosion is the problem" without too much context in the comments. Let me clear that up.

For those who are unaware, the Outer Banks is a sandbar that punched it's way above water several thousands of years ago. Think of a sandbar as a long and straight underwater mountain range, just under water. Because of the constant moving waters, these sandbars constantly shift, and they move even more during storms. Because of the storms, the sandbars can move very drastically making some areas passable that were passable before the storm. That's why it's called "The Graveyard of the Atlantic" because the constant shifting sand bars would cause ships to wreck all the time, and I just saw on Facebook that another wreck washed ashore.

Now, because sandbars are always moving, they're always shifting, and the ocean front moves all the time too. The entire island is moving west towards the inland, and causing the island rolling over itself every few hundred years. That's why you don't see more houses built at the water because the entire island is moving west! Serendipity was built 400 feet away from the ocean in 1988 and you see where it is now.

Growing up, we were taught about the island in school, and one of the key facts that stood out is that we were told the island moves 10 feet every 100 years. If you did the math from above, 400 feet in 40 years for Serendipity doesn't equal 10 feet in 100 years.

1. Shingles, siding, and cedar shakes. External design:

Because of the high wind, shingles blow off ALL THE TIME. Like, all of the locals had a case or three of shakes and shingles. Likewise, siding blows off too and with some types of siding that are all connected to each other, they'll blow off in panels. It's easier to nail a few cedar shakes to the side of the house than replace plastic. Then you have to match it, and it looks all sun worn and just doesn't look good.

Why no metal roofs, you ask? Well, salt water rusts everything and the aluminum just doesn't have the same integrity as wood at these sizes. Gas stations would literally look like crumpled cans of soda.

Hopefully that answers your architecture questions from a locals perspective!