Next untitled project.
Three miles off the coast of North Carolina lay an uncharted island—one hundred and fifty miles long, fifteen miles across, and shaped by forces older than memory. No surveyor had ever mapped it, no cartographer had ever claimed it. For centuries, only the ocean had touched it, sculpting its edges with the relentless patience of tide and time. Without human interference, the land bent into the unmistakable arc of a crescent moon, as if the sea itself had carved a signature into the Atlantic.
The ocean never faltered here. Between the two distant tips of the crescent, the coastline delivered a rhythm so precise it bordered on supernatural: a predictable break, glass‑smooth faces, and a consistency that defied storms, seasons, and logic. Sailors who drifted too close spoke of the waves in reverent tones, as though describing a living thing. Surfers who heard the rumors treated them like myth—stories too perfect to be real, too persistent to ignore.
For those who understood the language of water and wind, nothing rivaled the perfection of these waves. A sharp peak rising with mathematical precision. A clean peel unfurling like silk. A riding face powerful enough to lift a body and hold it suspended between fear and euphoria. And sometimes, when the swell aligned just right, a flawless, hollow barrel—smooth, echoing, and impossibly long.
A place like this shouldn’t have existed. Yet it did. A surfer’s paradise, waiting to be found.
Discovered in the early 1900s, the island drew surfers who were willing to risk everything for the perfect wave. Reaching the uncharted shore from the mainland was perilous, yet they came anyway—adventurers chasing a dream. They built makeshift huts and lived there through the summer months. Over time, those rough shelters grew more refined. Rope‑and‑stick food stands evolved into full food huts, forming the earliest traces of a community.
By 1920, a renowned surfer named Riley Makai recognized the direction this 2250‑square‑mile island was heading. He and a small group of devoted surfers spent a year executing a bold scheme few could have imagined: adverse possession. After a grueling five‑year legal battle, the court ruled in their favor, granting ownership of the island to Makai and his crew.
They named it West Crest.
Before the summer of 1940, a bridge was completed, linking the Carolina coast to the island. In just 274 days, this once-isolated surfer haven became a registered summer city. Though the island stretched 150 miles in length, it was only fifteen miles wide. Over time, its thirty-mile ribbon of pristine beach transformed into one of North Carolina’s most elite destination spots. Far from the vision Riley Makai had imagined for West Crest.
Surfers were still welcome, but now they arrived to stay in premium-priced Airbnb rentals scattered along the shoreline.
In the summer months, crested waves pounded the shore with unwavering rhythm. From nearly anywhere on the island, the view was spectacular: a procession of waves rolling toward land, each one rising to the same precise height before dissolving into diamond-bright foam.
The sand carried an unusual pearly‑gray hue, soft as powdered silk beneath bare feet. Locals claimed the color came from ancient volcanic glass, smoothed over millennia by the caress of the tide. When the morning sun struck the beach at just the right angle, the entire shoreline shimmered with an otherworldly luminescence.
What made Wave Crest truly extraordinary, however, was its temporal quirk. Visitors often reported that hours slipped by like minutes, while others swore a brief afternoon nap stretched into the most restorative sleep of their lives. Islanders believed the phenomenon came from the hypnotic rhythm of the waves. Each crest pulled away stress and worry as it retreated into the sea.
Driftwood sculptures, carved naturally by salt and time, dotted the upper beach like abstract art installations. Seabirds with iridescent feathers nested in the dunes, their calls blending with the eternal percussion of waves against the shore.
As evening approached, Wave Crest transformed into a living canvas. The sunset spilled across the horizon in rolling ribbons of gold and crimson, each wave catching and reflecting the colors as if the ocean itself were aflame.
Yet beneath this harmony, a darker truth lingered. A shroud of cliquishness and quiet arrogance settled over the island’s social fabric. Children raised on trust funds walked as though cushioned by feathers, their personalities shaped by privilege and the insularity of their surroundings. It wasn’t uncommon for a teenager to have unrestricted access to the family yacht or any form of rapid transportation. Perfect for impressing a date or whisking someone away for a day of shopping.
This generation grew up uncontested and unbridled. The human equity bestowed upon the island was never the Founding Four’s original intent. On West Crest, anyone from a founding family could get away with almost anything. And as history would prove, a trust fund does not guarantee intelligence.