The Beach House: In North Carolina, a beach house means more than a home by the ocean. Whether a coastal cottage where we stay, a soundside spot where we shop, or a water-view restaurant where we dine, it’s always a place made for dreaming. Click here to view related articles.

Glossy tiles, cedar cabinet samples, and paint swatches often littered the kitchen table of Nicole Peters’s childhood home in Corolla. Her bare feet would dangle from a chair as she watched her father, Barry Nelms, dream up beach houses with his clients — one swatch, one sample at a time.

Memories like these shaped Peters’s lifelong love of design. Nelms was a builder in the Outer Banks, and he constructed their family home in 1976, the fifth house in Corolla’s Whalehead Beach development. He paneled the walls with cedar — a signature raw material on the Outer Banks — and crafted a wood-burning fireplace using cobblestones he salvaged from Freemason Street in his native Norfolk, Virginia. “He used our house to show potential clients what he could do for them,” Peters says. “I stayed on that path from there.”

Nicole Peters photograph by Chris Hannant

Today, she’s the next generation bringing beach houses to life with personalized interior design services and Drift Home, a carefully curated home goods shop in Duck.

She moved away for college — first Greenville, then California. But like many people from the Outer Banks, the sandbar’s tide eventually pulled her back.

Peters started working as an assistant for an interior designer while waiting tables in Kill Devil Hills. When that designer moved away, past clients came to Peters. “I followed where my heart took me,” she says of the leap she made to start her own business in 2016.

Shop for home décor, fixtures, and gifts inspired by the Outer Banks’s coastal environment. photograph by Chris Hannant

Despite it being a new venture, Peters felt completely at home. “The beach is so small. All the subcontractors I work with I either grew up with or have known for a really long time,” she says. Peters grew her following, mostly by word of mouth. Today, her designs influence beach homes and businesses across the Outer Banks and beyond.

Her coastal setting drives her approach — light, airy, natural. “We want to play off the view out your window, whether that’s the ocean, sound, or sand dunes,” she says. Peters mixes beachy colors like sea greens and sandy neutrals with organic textures and warm wood tones. And there’s always a touch of vintage, another love she inherited from her dad and grandmother. Peters travels across the country in search of art and vintage treasures — from hand-thrown ceramic dishes to antique French doors. But her finds often make their way back to her white-walled shop in Duck’s Scarborough Faire Shopping Village.

Peters also partners with local furniture makers — like Christaan Van Vliet with CV2 Designs — to craft the pieces she carries in her shop. photograph by Chris Hannant

It’s cozy yet uncluttered, and arranged to inspire: linen throw blankets hang from hooks, and speckled dishware, glass cloches, and candles seem to levitate on broad white shelves. There’s even a bowl of linens that Peters collects when she finds ones that remind her of her grandmother.

For many of her clients, the shop serves as their first introduction to Peters’s aesthetic. Its neutral colors, textured decor, and raw wood features feel like stepping into one of her designs. Among the counters, armchairs, and display cases, the cedar tones are unmissable. They’re one more nod to her dad, their beach home, and the barrier island that raised her.

Drift Home
1177 Duck Road
Duck, NC 27949
(252) 256-1748
drifthomeandco.com