The island is also home to a couple small stores, fresh seafood store, post office, restaurants, clothing store, fishing pier, tour boat/fishing boat charter, and video store. Holden Beach is also close

Holden Beach is just one half mile wide at its widest point, so most of its homes have spectacular ocean views from most sides. Oceanfront properties almost always include marsh and / or canal views from the front decks and windows.

Holden Beach Facts:

The island is about eight miles long and has about 900 permanent residents. The tourist season, which produces much of the town's income, has grown longer over the years and now lasts from about May to August, increasing the town's population to approx. 15,000.

A fishing pier, two fish houses and several charter boats operate in the town. Holden Beach has a handful of businesses, including a pizza restaurant, two general stores, an apparel store and real estate agencies, but the unincorporated mainland area leading to the island's bridge continues to grow with restaurants, novelty and T-shirt shops, ice cream and cappuccino stands, and convenience stores.

Oceanfront property owners and the town paid for a $1.2 million dune-replacement project finished in 1998. The 8-foot-high dune stretches from the beach's east end to the 800 block of Ocean Boulevard West - about 4.5 miles. But erosion continues, and town leaders are trying to come up with ways to fund future dune repair and beach renourishment.

Holden Beach also has laid an eight-mile sidewalk along its main road.

The town has one of the county's regional beach access points, a 90-space parking lot with handicapped-equipped restrooms and showers. A ramp to the beach, paid for by a state grant, provides handicapped accessibility to the shore.

Last year, three Brunswick County couples donated 29 acres in Holden Beach to N.C. State University for the Drew Griffin Environmental Research Facility.