Wedding DJ at The Inn on Pamlico Sound in Buxton, NC

The Space

Steve Nelson, a former Manhattan corporate executive, came to Hatteras Island in the late 1990s and in early 2003 found a one-acre property on a ridge above the Pamlico Sound in Buxton. He renovated the existing rental house on the lot and opened it in spring 2004 as a five-room bed and breakfast, the modest start to what has grown into a full boutique hotel and event property.

The 2005 season brought the first real expansion, splitting the inn into a West Building and an East Building and giving it the European boutique-hotel character it has kept since. Cafe Pamlico opened in May 2006 to meet guest demand for real dining on site, and by 2007 online reviews of events held there had caught the attention of major publications, which sent demand for weddings and events climbing fast enough that the property expanded again in 2008 and 2009.

Capacity & Layout

That 2009 expansion added the Crystal Pavilion and more than tripled the kitchen’s capacity, building infrastructure specifically for events rather than just for overnight guests. Hurricane Matthew tore through the back of the property in 2016, and the rebuild that followed reshaped the waterfront with a new pool set inside the Crystal Pavilion and a large venue deck, so much of what a couple sees on the water side today postdates that storm.

The property offers two very different wedding scales. The Just We Two package covers 8 people or fewer, with an event manager, a day-of coordinator, a ceremony at Sunset Point or another venue space, and private dining, suited to an intimate elopement-style day. The Wedding Weekend package scales up to 150 guests with full use of the hotel, exclusive grounds access, a rehearsal dinner, ceremony, and reception, a genuinely different kind of event built around taking over the whole property.

Amenities

Twelve guest rooms now split between the two buildings: the East Building’s king rooms come with Italian tile baths, whirlpools, and panoramic sound views, while the West Building offers king rooms with private decks and whirlpool baths alongside queen rooms with private baths. Complimentary gourmet breakfast, fresh baked goods, locally roasted coffee, and in-room snacks are included with a stay, and Cafe Pamlico serves brunch daily from 8 in the morning to 1 in the afternoon and dinner nightly from 5 to 9.

Grounds amenities go well beyond the rooms: docks, kayaks, stand-up paddleboards, bicycles, a 14-seat home theater, and a library fill out the three-acre property, and the kitchen even draws on herbs and vegetables grown on site, in soil the inn has been amending with compost and sea grass since 2010. Staff continuity runs deep too, President and General Manager Natasha Quidley and Director of Food and Beverage Meredith Harris both joined the team in the early 2010s and have been with the property through its more recent growth.

Location & Getting There

The Inn on Pamlico Sound sits on the sound side of Buxton, on Hatteras Island in the Outer Banks, inside the Cape Hatteras National Seashore, a setting that puts open water on one side of every event held there. Guests reach it as part of a genuine Outer Banks trip, arriving over the island’s bridges and stretches of seashore road rather than a quick suburban drive, which is part of the draw for a destination wedding weekend.

Sunset Point, the property’s dedicated outdoor ceremony spot, faces the sound directly, so timing a ceremony there means timing it against the water and the sky rather than a fixed indoor room. For the reception, the Crystal Pavilion and venue deck built after the 2016 hurricane rebuild give a DJ a covered, waterfront space to set up in, open enough on the sound side to carry sound out over the water without the boxed-in acoustics of a fully enclosed ballroom.