When the Outer Banks Conservationists purchased an undeveloped lot at 1050 US 64 on Roanoke Island in 2012, people wondered why.

The nonprofit invests in area cultural sites, such as the Currituck Lighthouse and Island Farm. This lot is vacant. Except for one very large, very old tree. And here’s why it matters…

If you’ve ever taken a trip the Elizabethan Gardens, you know of the ancient live oak there that has been meticulously cared for due to its age and connection to the first colonists. In fact, it has been age-tested by experts through a core sample that revealed it was a sapling in 1585, when the Elizabethan colonists first arrived on Roanoke Island. Locals say that the tree in the Gardens was used by colonists to hang carcasses and, later when the road went around it, the limbs were used to hoist the engines out of vehicles to allow repairs. The girth of that tree is 13 feet in circumference.

The tree on the lot the conservationists purchased is 16.02 feet, thus making it older and even more ancient. If the core sample taken of the Gardens’ tree showed that it was close to 500 years old, then the tree that they purchased was at least another 100 years older.

The Outer Banks Conservationists have listed the tree on the lot they purchased with the Live Oak Society. The name chosen for the latest tree at 1050 US 64/264, named for late attorney and Conservationists Board Member Daniel Khoury.

Khoury is the largest known live oak on Roanoke Island.