SiP magazine
SULLIVAN’S ISLAND ISLE OF PALMS
Volume 3 | 2017
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INSIDE SiP FEATURES
60 | SULLIVAN’S ISLAND’S ARTISTIC SISTERHOOD A collective of colorful women inspire each other and others By Sarah Kirk 66 | STEP BACK IN TIME ON BULLS ISLAND This unspoiled spot has specific ways to get to, but few ways to get out of your heart By Stratton Lawrence 72 | CAREERS OF ADVENTURE, COMMUNITY FOR LIFE Servicewomen who represented our country now make the islands home By Delores Schweitzer 76 | FRANKLY MY DEAR, I WANT TO COME HOME Dorothea Benton Frank writes about home even though one love keeps her in the Northeast By Jennifer Tuohy 82 | THE CHARLESTON LIGHT: A STORY OF PAST AND PRESENT The lighthouse on Sullivan’s Island represents the lore of navigation and the upkeep of an icon By Amy S. Mercer 86 | MAKING A HOME ON DEWEES One family shares their tale of falling in love with Dewees and building a life on the island By Amy S. Mercer
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92 | ENJOY A FEAST OF LOCAL FLAVOR Locally sourced goods for a menu that makes dining in a special occasion By Stratton Lawrence 98 | ISLAND ‘FARMERS’ It’s a bountiful day in the neighborhood for these backyard farmers who often share the goods By Holly A. Fisher 102 | 10 STEPS TO BEACH BABY BLISS Beach trips need a bit of adjustment with a little one in tow, but we’ve got your game plan By Stratton Lawrence 8 | SiP
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FIELD GUIDE | 24
16 | THE OSPREY AMONG US Raptors in flight catch islanders’ eyes and fish in the sea By Jennifer Tuohy 20 | YOU’RE JUST IN TIME FOR A TOTAL ECLIPSE This summer’s Great American Eclipse gives its last kiss to our coast By Susan Hill Smith 24 | WORK YOUR BODY TO FEED YOUR SOUL What’s SUP? SUP Yoga can help you find balance on a board and peace while paddling By Jaime Muehl
ISLAND LIFE
Explore what makes life on our islands such spectacular places to visit and such special places to live 26 | THE REBIRTH OF BATTERY GADSDEN A part of Charleston’s history becomes an impetus for cultural modernity By Amy S. Mercer
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44 | MEET MADELEINE AND HER ‘LITTLE’ Big Brothers Big Sisters found a perfect match with Madeleine McGee and Lizzy By Jennifer Tuohy 50 | CRAFTING SILHOUETTES FOR THE AGES Isle of Palms-based artist Clay Rice takes his shadows to storied pages By Susan Hill Smith 56 | NEW READS FROM ISLAND AUTHORS Four books by island-based writers hit shelves this summer
SIP SCENE
After you’ve soaked up the sun, explore the other activities islanders enjoy in their downtime 106 | SECRETS FROM THE CHEFS Eating off-menu doesn’t require a secret handshake, just ask the chef By Margaret Pilarski 112 | RISING STAR: ISLAND BIRD TAKES FLIGHT An Isle of Palms songbird has hits on the radio and aims for the stars By Anne Harris
32 | A 72-HOUR STAYCATION WITH FRIENDS When pals come to stay, show them how to get out and about around town By Carol Antman
114 | FROM SUNRISE TO SUNSET: WHAT TO DO ON IOP Spend a day on Isle of Palms – from sun-up to sundown we’ve got all the must-dos By Margaret Pilarski
36 | ATLANTICVILLE HISTORIC DISTRICT A walking tour of one of the local historic districts uncovers legacies, secrets and solitude By Kimbermarie Faircloth
10 | SiP
Dive into the local personalities that make our islands so unique
30 | A FRESH IDEA FOR SULLIVAN’S Farmers and families return for this summer’s second farmers market series By Kimbermarie Faircloth
HISTORY SNAPSHOT
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SIP SALUTES
40 | BRINGING A HISTORICAL FOOTNOTE TO LIFE A little-known patriot victory results in a locally loved spot By Sarah Kirk
120 | VIBES & VOCALS The who, what, and where of live music venues – we’ve got the scoop on your evening plans By Marci Shore 122 | PEOPLE & PLACES Re-live the sights and scenes of the last 12 months with SiP’s pictoral round-up of community events 124 | SIP CALENDAR Your essential guide to events on the islands 126 | LAST LOOK
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EDITOR’S LETTER
W
elcome to the third issue of SiP, a magazine dedicated to celebrating the beauty, stories and personalities of Sullivan’s Island, Isle of Palms and Dewees Island. Within these pages we explore the people, places and icons that make these small slivers of land — cut off from the rest of civilization by oceans and marshes — such special places to live and truly wonderful places to visit. Meet the artistic sisterhood that has sprung up on Sullivan’s Island, hear the stories of U.S. servicewomen who have chosen to make these islands their home following a career of service to their country, learn about the men who keep the iconic Charleston Light glowing, and discover the perils and pleasures of building a home on the private island of Dewees. Also in this issue, bestselling author and island native Dorothea Benton Frank welcomes us into her beautiful home and reveals her plan to lure her husband to an idyllic retirement on the tip of Sullivan’s Island. Captain Chris Crolley invites you to visit a rare jewel of the Lowcountry, Bulls Island, part of the longest stretch of protected wilderness on the East Coast. Here you’ll meet alligators and oystercatchers, and see what the Isle of Palms would have looked like if it had remained untouched by human hands. Not to be forgotten, there’s a lot of fun to be had on our barrier islands in the form of great food, good music and limitless outdoor opportunities. Share in local chefs’ secret off-menu dishes, learn how to “SUP Yoga,” pick up some tips for an idyllic day on IOP, and plan the perfect Sullivan’s Island staycation for when your friends inevitably invite themselves to visit. After all, you live in paradise, don’t be surprised to fi nd yourself sharing it!
Jennifer Tuohy Editor in Chief
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Lynn Pierotti Publisher Jennifer Tuohy Editor-in-Chief Margaret Pilarski Deputy Editor Amy S. Mercer Assistant Editor Alejandro Ferreyros Art Director Steve Rosamilia Photographer Carla Foxworth, Lori McGee, Marci Shore Advertising Executives Kimbermarie Faircloth Intern Contributors Carol Antman Holly A. Fisher Minette Hand Stratton Lawrence Jaime Muehl Hunter McRae Sarah Kirk Delores Schweitzer Marci Shore Mic Smith Susan Hill Smith Rob Byko Catherine Moye Anne Hassold Harris www.sipmagazinesc.com About SiP SiP magazine is published annually by Lucky Dog Publishing, LLC., 2205 Middle St., Sullivan’s Island, SC. SiP is mailed to all property owners on Sullivan’s Island, Isle of Palms and Dewees Island, and distributed free at select locations. Contact SiP tel. 843.886.6397 mailing address: po box 837, Sullivan’s Island, SC 29482 for editorial inquiries jennifer@luckydognews.com for advertising inquiries lynn@luckydognews.com www.luckydognews.com
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Cover photo by Steve Rosamilia Copyright 2017
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CONTRIBUTORS
Carol Antman’s wanderlust, intellectual curiosity and passionate interest in cultures have led to her biggest adventures. She met her husband while living on a kibbutz in Israel. They spent a year hitchhiking the Pan American highway and several months vagabonding in Europe and Central America. They camped in every seaside and mountain state to discover their home on Sullivan’s Island. Antman is inspired by the idea that everyone has a story and by the many colorful ways that people live.
Amy Mercer is a freelance writer and managing editor of Lucky Dog Publishing and lives in Charleston with her husband and three sons. She studied Art History at the University of Colorado and received her MFA in Creative Writing from Queens University in NC. Amy writes book reviews for The Post and Courier and dreams of one day owning her own book store.
Stratton Lawrence is a writer and explorer based on Folly 14 | SiP
Beach, SC. He’s the author of a history book about Folly, but a frequent visitor to the Isle of Palms and Sullivan’s Island, thanks to his wife, Hunter, an IOP native. When he’s not writing or editing for regional mags and national corporate clients, Lawrence can be found catching waves on his SUP or skiing in the Rocky Mountains. He’s also a new father, looking forward to summiting mountains and dropping into waves with his son, McRae.
Holly A. Fisher is the owner of Fisher Creative, a communications company in Mount Pleasant. She writes for a number of Charleston area publications as well as working with nonprofits and small businesses on public relations and marketing projects. Holly spent a number of years as a newspaper reporter and editor before starting her own business in 2011. She and her husband have one daughter and three dogs. She enjoys CrossFit, coffee and driving her Dodge Challenger.
Sarah Kirk was born and raised in Maryland, and educated at NYU and Georgetown University. After working at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, she spent five years in London furthering her career in the art world. She moved to
Sullivan's Island with her British husband in June 2015 and has since been enjoying island life and raising their 1-year old son, Lucas. She loves to write about arts and cultural events in the Lowcountry.
Margaret Pilarski moved to Charleston for college after a childhood of living throughout the Midwest and West. She’s finally acquiesced to calling the Southeast home, despite its 10-monthlong season of humidity. By day Margaret works for a strategic communications consulting firm with clients around the country; by night she does freelance editorial work that highlights local entrepreneurs and artists as well as education and recreation in the Lowcountry.
Delores Schweitzer was lucky enough to grow up on Sullivan’s Island and wise enough to return in her mid-30s, where she currently manages the Edgar Allan Poe Branch Library. She is delighted by locals and visitors who appreciate quiet beauty and are attentive to the many natural and communal gifts of these islands. Her faith rests in big pictures, small details, and the power of travel to broaden her horizons and sustain her love of home.
Susan Hill Smith will always adore the Lowcountry and especially Isle of Palms, her home for the past 22 years. Susan previously worked for The Post and Courier, and over the past year, pitched in as a writer and editor for Island Eye News, allowing her to learn even more about our unique communities. Susan also works in health care communications and helps her husband, Mic, with his photography business.
Marci Shore lives on Sullivan’s Island and is a real estate agent for Sand Dollar Real Estate. She’s writing a fiction novel and also writes songs and performs, playing fiddle, guitar and singing with a variety of musicians in the area. She wrote a song about Captain Florence O’Sullivan, the subject of one of her SiP feature stories. Marci is originally from the foothills of North Carolina near WinstonSalem and she graduated from Wake Forest University.
Rob Byko is a published photographer, artist, and a Realtor with BHHS/Carolina Sun. Originally
from NJ, Rob headed south to study journalism at the University of Georgia in 1981 during the halcyon days of Hershel Walker, R.E.M. and the original “40-Watt Club.” After residing 30 plus years in Atlanta, Rob and his wife Karen, a recovering corporate executive with Turner Broadcasting, relocated to Sullivan’s Island in 2012 with their beloved boxers, Enzo and Aliya.
eled to Mexico, Canada, Costa Rica, Panama, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Argentina, Chile and Italy, and across the United States. See her work at minettehand.com
Palms native. A Charleston-based photojournalist and frequent New York Times contributor, when she’s not capturing images of diverse cultures, inspiring locals and delicious food, she manages a wedding and portrait photography business. Most importantly, she’s a new mother. Her Beach Baby photo shoot with her son, McRae, is among her favorite assignments.
Minette Hand is a freelance photographer based in Charleston. She has been an instructor at the Redux Contemporary Art Center. Minette is a also a returning photographer for TedX Charleston and Charleston Wine and Food Festival. She has trav-
Steve Rosamilia enjoys long walks around Sullivan’s Island with his Springer Spaniel puppy, Bingo. When not taking photos, he is often found tending to his recently constructed vegetable garden or enjoying a fresh cocktail with his wife, Diane, while their son, Dean, entertains guests by playing jazz standards on the piano.
Photo by Amelia Hale
Mic Smith has enjoyed palling around with silhouette artist Clay Rice since their sons buddied up in kindergarten. With this edition of SiP, Mic got to photograph his friend at work. A top photojournalist, Mic contributes regularly to the Associated Press and South Carolina Living.
Hunter McRae is an Isle of
Catherine Moye grew up in Charleston. She spends most of her time seeking adventure and loves traveling, homesteading, making music, and being in the great outdoors. A photographer for 10 years, for the past three she has been living on Goat Island fixing up an abandoned home and documenting every step. See her work at goatcatphotographs.com
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FIELD GUIDE
THE OSPREY AMONG US:
HOW THIS FEARLESS FISHERMAN THRIVES ON OUR ISLANDS You see them diving into the Intracoastal Waterway, hear their calls along the beach as they hunt, and watch their babies grow from the bridges. Osprey have made themselves at home here, take some time to get to know this unique bird of prey. By Jennifer Tuohy. Photos by Rob Byko.
16 | SiP
A
s you walk along the beach, before the heat of the day descends, listen for a distinctive, high-pitched whistling. The loud “chirrrp, chirrrp, chirrrp” means you are about to see one of nature’s most spectacular fishermen in action. Look up and spot a flying body larger than a seagull and far more focused, hovering high above the breaking waves. A white underside, speckled with dark brown, piercing yellow eyes, a giant wing span and a distinctive raptor beak reveal this bird to be no mere gull, but a sea hawk; a lean, mean, fish killing machine — the osprey. Watch for a minute more and you may see a terrifying dive, an abrupt underwater struggle and the osprey rising triumphantly from the sea with a fish between his claws. The Pandion haliaetu sometimes achieves success rates as high as 70 percent on its fishing trips. Several studies have shown the osprey catch fish at least one in every four dives. Compare that to your cast rate... jealous yet? While the osprey may be a better fisherman than any of us, he does have to contend with something we don’t worry about while trawling or fishing off a dock — eagles. Smart creatures that they are, eagles have figured out osprey are better at catching fish; so they rob them. Aerial battles between a dogged osprey and a determined eagle are some of the most epic in the avian world, and the ultimate treat for ornithologists and wildlife photographers alike. It’s called kleptoparasitism, and eagles are pretty good at it. Th is penchant for thievery is actually one of the reasons Benjamin Franklin didn’t want the eagle to be our nation’s symbol. “He is a bird of bad moral character; he does not get his living honestly,” argued the founding father. “You may have seen him perched in some dead tree where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the labor of the fishing hawk and, when that diligent bird has at length taken a fish and is bearing it to his nest for his young ones, the bald eagle pursues him and takes the fish. With all this injustice, he is never in good case.” BUILT TO FISH “Osprey could not be engineered more perfectly,” Jim Elliott, founder of The Center for the Birds of Prey in Awendaw, says. Unlike the more cumbersome eagle, the osprey has several adaptations that make it reign supreme at the fishing game, including reversible outer toes, sharp spicules on the underside of the toes that feel like sandpaper and help grip slippery fish, closable nostrils to keep water out during dives, and dense oily plumage to prevent its feathers from getting waterlogged when submerged. The osprey doesn’t swim however, instead it flaps the tips of its wings to raise itsefl elegantly and impressively out of the water, wriggling fish in tow. “They’re really unique birds, their diet is almost exclusively fish,” Elliott says. “These birds are very much specialists, they’ve been evolving to do what they do for a very long time. Some estimates put the species at three million years old.” So unique among raptors is the osprey that it has its own category — Pandionidae — of which it is the only member. ISLAND LOVERS The Lowcountry is one of the few spots in North America that boasts a year-round population of osprey (see map). A highly migratory species, the northern dwellers come to our shores in the winter, taking the place of our nesting pairs who go further south. Come February 14 however, the “locals” begin to return to reclaim their nests and meet up with their
“
Osprey could not be engineered more perfectly. - JIM ELLIOTT
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OSPREY FACTS Size 21” to 23” long with a wingspan of 60” to 70”, osprey are smaller than an eagle but larger than a red-tailed hawk, males are generally smaller than females Habitat Near fresh or saltwater, nest near saltmarshes, rivers, ponds, reservoirs, and near the ocean shoreline Diet Almost exclusively live fish Behavior Hunt by circling high in the sky over water and diving feet first to catch their prey Nests Conspicuous, large stick nests in the open, high up on poles, channel markers or dead trees, often with “wet feet” to deter predators Offspring Osprey mate for life, laying one to four eggs per season Lifespan Seven to 10 years, can be 20 to 25 years Migration Resident to longdistance migrant, North American osprey migrate to Central and South America for the winter, with a few overwintering in South Carolina and other southernmost states Range Second most widely distributed raptor species after the peregrine falcon, they are found on all continents except Antarctica Predators Great horned owls and eagles are the only major predators of ospreys, capable of taking both nestlings and adults Numbers Global breeding population estimated at 500,000 Source: The Cornell Lab of Ornithology, allaboutbirds.org 18 | SiP
Breeding Migration Nonbreeding Year-round
HOW TO HELP AN INJURED OSPREY The Center For Birds of Prey in Awendaw, SC has a hospital that treats injured birds. Jim Elliott, Executive Director of the Center, says of the 600 birds they see a year, about eight to 10 will be osprey. The most common causes of admission are juveniles who are malnourished or lost, and fishing line injuries. “They get caught in line that’s been left, negligently or not, and they get fishing lures caught on them. I had to trap a bird on Lake Marion who had a fishing lure embedded in her chest. Every time she flew into her nest to feed the chicks this thing was dangling in their faces. We were able to catch her and remove it.” Often line ends up in the nest and can entangle the chicks. If you find an injured osprey, or any raptor or shorebird, call the Center at 843.971.7474, the line is open from 8:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. daily. If the bird is contained, do not offer it food or water. Map courtesy of The Birds of North America, birdsna.org, maintained by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
partner (ospreys mate for life) to begin the process of producing the next generation. Occasionally, upon their return, they may fi nd an orange cone placed rudely on top of their nest, or a stray great horned owl chick in residence. (The owls, like the eagles, often take advantage of the osprey’s hard work. Mary Pringle, an Isle of Palms resident and volunteer at The Center for Birds of Prey, once found an owl chick that had been bumped out of the nest by an osprey). Despite these setbacks, osprey are thriving in South Carolina and across their entire range, which is one of the largest of any bird of prey. Since rebounding from the DDT/pesticide catastrophe that decimated raptor populations, the bird has become very comfortable living with humans, often taking to manmade structures such as electricity poles, stadium lighting, chimneys and navigation aids on the Intracoastal Waterway to build their nests. Unfortunately, the nest doesn’t always mesh with the structure’s intended purpose, and in some cases can be lethal to the bird and its offspring, so deterrents, such as orange cones, are placed in them by electrical companies or homeowners before the birds return. “Nest site fidelity — returning to the same site year after year — is as strong in ospreys as anything I’ve ever seen,” Elliott says. “They’re very determined. Once they choose one, that is their spot, no matter what humans might do to discourage them.” To combat this stubbornness, erecting a special osprey platform can encourage a move. The islands boast at least four of these; at the end of Ben Sawyer Bridge, off Station 19, at the Sullivan’s Island Fire Department boat landing, and one off the IOP Connector. Ospreys like platform nests for anatomical reasons. They hover and drop onto a perch, coming in from above, rather than swooping in from the side. Which is why in an entirely natural setting they choose dead trees to nest in, less foliage to get in the way. Basically, utility poles are just asking for osprey to nest on them. A RELUCTANT STAR Th is affection for man-made objects has thrust the osprey into the limelight, unintentionally making them one of the more obvious raptors in a populated area. The Lowcountry had about 300 nesting pairs back in 1986, today there are over 1,000, according to Elliott. “They’ve done well,” he says. “DDT really knocked them back, and they are still listed as threatened in some states, but I’d say we’re near capacity in the Lowcountry. They are tolerant of us and of one another — which is unusual. Osprey will nest close enough that they are almost a colony. They’re not particularly social, but neither are they competitive.” Unlike the eagle. Next time you see an osprey on our islands, whether studiously building his enormous stick nest, or soaring above the water in search of a tasty redfish, take a moment to appreciate this ancient creature. He is truly an example of how strategic evolution and a hard-wired single-mindedness has made the osprey one of the most successful raptors living among us. SiP
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FIELD GUIDE
YOU’RE JUST IN TIME FOR A
TOTAL ECLIPSE Thanks to a grand but narrow path across the United States that begins in Western Oregon and completes at the edge of the Southeastern coastline, our islands, most notably Isle of Palms, will be among the last to experience this summer’s remarkable total solar eclipse. By Susan Smith.
The total eclipse will travel diagonally across South Carolina. The closer you are to the red line shown at the path's center, the longer you will experience "totality."
E
xpect a lot of jostling for position as people consider viewing spots for August 21st’s “Great American Eclipse,” and don’t be surprised if the event draws some extra celestial attention to Isle of Palms, the final U.S. city the moon’s shadow will touch before heading into the waves of the Atlantic. “We know it’s going to be a big deal,” Norma Jean Page, Isle of Palms Recreation Director, says. Her team is planning a last-chance viewing celebration along IOP’s Front Beach. The last time the Southeastern coast of the United States had such prime viewing for a total solar eclipse was in 1970, making this a first-time event for many, and one to remember for the ages. 20 | SiP
Map courtesy NASA
Weather permitting, a partial eclipse will be visible to the entire North American continent that Monday. However, the “path of totality,” within which people will have a rare chance to experience the complete absence of sunlight during daytime hours, will be up to 168 miles wide and affect portions of 12 states. The umbra — the moon’s complete shadow — will speed across the country, starting in Oregon and ending in South Carolina, where it will run diagonally from the Upstate’s northwest corner to our eastern shores, impacting 13 counties, including most of Charleston County. Even within the path of totality, the length of time viewers can experience the eclipse will vary based on location. In general, the closer you
Eclipse Terms Explained Baily’s Beads The effect seen just before and just after totality when only a few points of sunlight are visible through valleys around the edge of the moon. Chromosphere The lower atmosphere of the sun just above the photosphere that appears as a thin crimson ring around the edge of the sun during a total solar eclipse. Corona The upper atmosphere of the sun. It appears as a halo around the sun during a total solar eclipse. diamond ring The effect seen in the few seconds just before and after totality of a total solar eclipse when there is a single point of sunlight brilliantly shining through a valley on the limb of the moon. path of totality The 168-mile wide path that the moon’s shadow traces on Earth during a total solar eclipse. photosphere The bright, visible surface of the sun. penumBra The part of a shadow – as of the moon or Earth – within which the source of light, such as the sun, is only partially blocked. shadow Bands Faint ripples of light sometimes seen on flat, lightcolored surfaces just before and just after totality. totality During a solar eclipse, this is the period when the sun’s photosphere is completely covered by the moon. umBra A complete shadow – such as that of the moon or Earth – within which the source of light, such as the sun, is totally hidden from view. Source: NASA
Photo by Romeo Durscher, NASA WWW.SiPMAGAZINESC.COM | 21
Planning for the Spectacle Areas in the total eclipse’s path will have partial eclipse periods before and after, so the entire eclipse-viewing period will last nearly three hours. Experts recommend proper eyewear to look directly at the sun and the moon during the partial eclipse period. Without it, you risk serious eye damage from the sun. Sunglasses won’t protect your eyes, and you could suffer more optical damage if you view the partial eclipse with sunglasses than with the naked eye. Look for eclipse glasses with a filter that meets the ISO 12312-2 international standard for products made for direct observation of the sun. While Isle of Palms will be giving them away at its party, you may want to order them early online. eclipse.aas. org/resources/solar-filters The total eclipse will give us a quick chance to stargaze. This map by College of Charleston Professor Terry Richardson indicates the position of stars and planets that should be visible to South Carolina viewers in the darkness when looking southwest from the centerline of the eclipse. It shows stars brighter than magnitude 1.6 unless they are so close to the horizon they can’t be seen. The size roughly indicates the star’s brightness. Regulus is just over one degree from the eclipsed sun and the sun’s corona may wash it out.
Capturing an eclipse clearly and safely with photos or videos also requires special equipment. However, simpler cameras may be able to show unusual shadows created by the eclipse on the ground. Traffic could get snarly in South Carolina and the Charleston area. Once you are in a good viewing spot, it’s probably best to stay put and avoid driving for a while.
eClipse times
on the
islands
loCation
partial eClipse times
total eClipse times
Begin
end
Begin
end
sulliVan’s island (SW END)
1:17:12 P.M.
4:10:10 P.M.
2:46:34 P.M.
2:48:13 P.M.
BreaCh inlet
1:17:15 P.M.
4:10:11 P.M.
2:46:30 P.M.
2:48:20 P.M.
isle
1:17:25 P.M.
4:10:14 P.M.
2:46:28 P.M.
2:48:36 P.M.
1:17:26 P.M.
4:10:13 P.M.
2:46:26 P.M.
2:48:38 P.M.
of
palms (NE TIP)
dewees island
are to the center of the path, the longer you will be in darkness, with the maximum amount of possible total eclipse time in any spot being about 2 minutes and 41 seconds, according to NASA. At SiP’s request, Terry Richardson, a College of Charleston professor of physics and astronomy, made some calculations that showed the local range and impact. Richardson determined that the total eclipse will last 1 minute, 30.6 seconds at White Point Garden on peninsular Charleston; 1 minute, 50.5 seconds at Breach Inlet; 2 minutes, 8.2 seconds at Isle of Palms’ northeastern tip; and 2 minutes, 12.4 seconds on Dewees Island’s front beach. To get the max amount of total eclipse time in the Lowcountry, you would need to go farther north along the coast, closer to the village of McClellanville — where it will last 2 minutes, 32.9 seconds, according to Richardson’s calculations. McClellanville is also the last town or city touched by the total eclipse, with the centrality of the moon’s shadow completing its path across the country just eight seconds short of 2:49 p.m. 22 | SiP
However, the Isle of Palms will be the last U.S. municipality in the partial shadow of the moon if you consider the time the shadow leaves the northeastern tip of the island, at 4:10 p.m and 14 seconds. “Wild Dunes gets the last view of the moon taking a bite out of the sun before the moon’s shadow moves off shore,” Richardson says. For those in the path of totality, it promises to be a sensory treat, with something akin to a 360-degree sunset, a noticeable temperature drop and a possible quieting of animals tricked into thinking it’s night. “It’s really an emotional experience that you experience not just with your eyes, but your whole body,” he says. Because of the eclipse’s rare viewing opportunity, Richardson has tentative plans to take a collection of astronomy experts, including some from Europe, near McClellanville, but the excitement of the event has come with challenges, too. The professor cautions others that traffic could be tricky and encourages folks with an easy beachfront view on Isle of Palms to take advantage of their unique position. After all, South Carolina won’t be treated to another total eclipse until 2052. SiP
Heavenly Playlist The stinging 1970s hit You’re So Vain by Carly Simon, includes this memorable line: “You flew your Lear jet, up to Nova Scotia, to see a total eclipse of the sun.” Expect to hear that song a lot on August 21 and otherwise consider these songs for your eclipse-themed playlist. Cosmic Thing by the B-52s Drops of Jupiter by Train Man On The Moon by R.E.M. Moonshadow by Cat Stevens Eclipse by Pink Floyd Total Eclipse of the Heart by Bonnie Tyler Starlight by Muse Black Out Day by Phantogram Walking On The Moon by The Police (or the reggae version by Cas Haley) Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me by Elton John and George Michael Bad Moon Rising by Creedence Clearwater Revival
6 passenger and 8 passenger sizes available in most locations. 8pax shown in picture above!
Ain’t No Sunshine by Bill Withers (or the rap version by DMX) Dancing in the Dark by Bruce Springsteen A Sky Full of Stars by Coldplay We Are All Made of Stars by Moby Walking On Sunshine by Katrina & The Waves I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing by Aeromisth
Lightning Bugz carts are: Street Legal DAY OR NIGHT! Approved for rental inside Wild Dunes, Kiawah and Seabrook! Go 25mph and have seatbelts!
Online Resources Isle of Palms city website has a Great American Eclipse page, iop.net/great-american-eclipse. NASA offers an abundance of maps and resources, including ideas for activities, education and party planning at eclipse2017.nasa.gov. GreatAmericanEclipse.com includes maps and a listing of events planned across America, and sells eclipse glasses. American Astronomical Society has eye safety tips at eclipse.aas.org/eye-safety/safe-viewing. WWW.SiPMAGAZINESC.COM | 23
FIELD GUIDE
WORK YOUR BODY TO
FEED YOUR SOUL
Jaime Muehl leads a SUP Yoga class at the IOP Marina.
Stand Up Paddleboard Yoga is a popular trend in the fitness world, and you can do it right here on IOP. By Jaime Muehl. Photos by Steve Rosamilia.
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S
tand Up Paddleboard Yoga is a fast-emerging trend in the fitness world — and for good reason. It combines the full-body strength and cardiovascular training of paddling with the mind-body benefits of yoga, all while balancing on an unstable surface. Add to that sunshine, water, fresh air, and breathtaking Lowcountry scenery and you have a recipe for success. “It’s so meditative to be on the water,” Isle of Palms resident Jen Owens says, “You can just really be quiet, but you’re also getting an amazing workout. It’s nice to just be in nature. Misty Lister, an instructor, always says it’s the best workout room in the world.” On a gorgeous day at the Isle of Palms Marina, I take a group out on the water for an invigorating SUP Yoga class. As we paddle away from the docks and head toward the shallow marsh where we’ll anchor for class, I offer them paddle tips and encourage them to focus on their breath and the sounds of nature. The 15 to 20 minute paddle is designed to warm up the body and cultivate mindfulness as they tune in to the rhythmic swishing of the blade as it slices through the water. Once we reach the anchor site, we drop the weights into the sandy bottom and secure our paddles under the bungee cords at the front of our boards.
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It’s nice to just be in nature… it’s the best workout room in the world. - JEN OWENS
Class is a half-hour-long all-levels flow, designed to mimic a studio yoga session but with modifications for practicing on a board. The beauty of SUP Yoga is that it offers something to everyone: a relaxed and playful setting to try yoga for the first time or a new challenge for experienced yogis as the board constantly shifts beneath them. Floating on the water under an endless blue sky, as egrets fly overhead and fish jump nearby, I lead them from pose to pose, reminding them to breathe and to laugh. “There is no better place to exercise than out here,” Melanie Cappelmann, another IOP local, says. “It’s absolutely gorgeous, no matter when you go.” Every class offers playtime, where I encourage students to try a headstand or crow pose and face their fear of falling in. Getting wet is part of the fun. Class ends with a long savasana, or guided relaxation, often with fingertips dangling in the water, waves gently rocking the boards. Here, students reap all the benefits of their practice, finding their breath and truly experiencing communion with nature. When they come out of savasana, they feel invigorated and renewed — which is fortunate because we still have to paddle back to the marina. As they pull up their anchors and take paddles back in hand, spirits are high. Everyone is chatting and laughing, reveling in the shared experience. “I love paddling because it’s so social,” Kellie White, who lives on IOP, says. “You’re using all of your body, but you’re having fun. And you’re in nature and it’s beautiful.” The tide is against us on the way back to the dock, but no one seems to mind. Our muscles are stretched, our souls are full, and we’re just enjoying being on the water on a sunny day. SiP WWW.SiPMAGAZINESC.COM | 25
ISLAND LIFE
THE REBIRTH OF BATTERY GADSDEN
The Battery Gadsden Board: Carlsen Huey, Brandon Clark, Susan Middaugh, Mike Walsh, Adele Deas, program chair Rose-Marie Williams and Hal Coste.
A group of Sullivan’s Islanders are determined to preserve the island's history while celebrating the arts and culture here today. By Amy S. Mercer. Photos by Steve Rosamilia. 26 | SiP
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t fi rst glance Battery Gadsden looks like something out of The Hobbit. A sevenfoot-tall sloped, grass-covered roof and thick cement walls embrace a rusted A-frame ladder, four doors and four small, square windows. The doors on the “landside” lead to an officer’s room, battery storage rooms and a guard room. The seaward-facing wall is completely covered by grass and dirt. Inside, two large rooms, where shells and powder were stored, dominate. It’s a structure that was built to blend in, not stand out. Step inside and the “real world” disappears; the walls are lined with old black and white photos of women in long dresses posing on the beach that stands a few feet away. Maps of Sullivan’s Island depict the landscape before the Intracoastal Waterway was built and photographs of the trolley bridge that used to connect Sullivan’s to Mount Pleasant reflect the island’s past, preserved for its future.
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I think it’s really important for people to remember and preserve what this island was about. - DR. MIKE WALSH
SAVING THE PAST Battery Gadsden, an Endicott fort system, was built in 1903 to protect Charleston Harbor and was part of a movement to fortify the coasts of the United States. The work was done under the direction of the Board of Fortifications headed by the Secretary of War, William Crowninshield Endicott. According to Sullivan’s Island resident Hal Coste, the fort was outdated by the time construction was fi nished in 1907. “Th is was 50 years after the Civil War and technology was rapidly being developed,” Coste says. “Th is was the turn of the century and long-range guns and airplanes had just come into play so Endicott fort systems were obsolete.” All guns and machinery were removed in 1917 and Battery Gadsden was decommissioned. Restoration of the building began in the early nineties when long-time resident Mayme Aiken “Make” Macmurphy and colleague Jeri England founded the Gadsden Cultural Center as an offshoot of the island’s garden club. During their tenure, the old fort provided a space for exhibits, performances and celebrations. It hosted Frogmore Stew fundraisers, Piccolo Spoleto events and guest speakers. Macmurphy died in 2007, and the Battery Gadsden stagnated, eventually falling into disrepair.
Battery Gadsden Cultural Center has hosted numerous island luminaries over the past year. These include, from top, former Charleston Mayor Joe Reilly, pictured with Sullivan’s Island Mayor O’Neil; Bestselling author and Sullivan’s native Dorothea Benton Frank, talking to the crowd; Bestselling author and IOP resident Mary Alice Monroe.
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Brendan James, an American, piano-based singer/songwriter from Derry, New Hampshire, gives a concert at Battery Gadsden.
SUMMER EVENTS AT BATTERY GADSDEN May Diana Rouse explores the basics of honey bees; the super-organism as a whole, anatomy, inside the hive and all of the challenges facing all pollinators today. She will educate guests on how the loss of the honey bee would impact our lives, and what we can do to help. June Mary Pringle, the “Turtle Lady,” will present information about the Island Turtle Team on Sullivan’s and the Isle of Palms. She’ll highlight the team’s work under SCDNR to protect sea turtle nests with photos of what happens during the nesting season, including how the loggerheads lay their eggs, how nests hatch, and how hatchlings make it to the ocean. July A boat building camp will take over the Center for the summer. The Lowcountry Maritime Society will introduce the next generation to Battery Gadsden through the camp, which will help fulfill its mission of “connecting the local community with our marine environment and maritime culture.” For further information on Battery Gadsden please visit batterygadsden.com or email batterygadsden@gmail.com. 28 | SiP
Seven years later, a group of islanders decided to breathe new life into the old fort and resurrect the Cultural Center. The current board includes Hal Coste, Adele Deas Tobin, Treasurer Carlson Huey and Secretary Dr. Mike Walsh. In the short time they’ve been together, the board has reinstated the 501(c)3, signed a five-year lease with the Town of Sullivan’s Island and clarified their mission “To preserve the history and culture of Sullivan’s Island.” One hundred years after the decommission, visitors are returning to Battery Gadsden to participate in workshops, attend classes and listen to authors and historians such as former Mayor Joseph P. Riley, Jr., and Roy Williams. When “more comfortable accommodations” are in order, the Center partners with organizations like the National Park Service and the Sunrise Presbyterian Church that donate the use of larger facilities in order to support the board’s mission of education. In December 2016, more than 100 guests gathered to hear bestselling author and Isle of Palms resident Mary Alice Monroe read from her book, A Lowcountry Christmas. “Th is event was planned as an outdoor event, in the middle of December, after dark; yet, over 100 enthusiasts turned out,” says Susan Middaugh, city councilmember and Battery Gadsden board member. “We all bundled up and enjoyed her talk, the log fi res in portable fi re pits, holiday lights, and afterwards, hot holiday punch based on the recipe in her book. It was just perfect.” At events like these, a percentage of sales on the day is donated to the Center, and this is a primary source of fundraising, as all events are free to the public. “We take pride in the fact that we are totally self-funded,” Coste says. PLANS FOR THE FUTURE The expansion of the oral history project that began under Macmurphy’s leadership is one of the Center’s top priorities. In 1997 local historian Suzannah Smith Miles took footage of interviews with local residents that Macmurphy and England had compiled and produced the celebrated documentary Th is Island Remembered: An Oral History. “These residents are aging and we don’t want to lose their stories,” says board secretary Walsh. He is working with College of Charleston’s Addlestone Library and Lowcountry Digital Library to make sure the interviews meet with best practices as stated by the Oral History Association. Walsh is actively seeking participants, and anyone who has a long-time association with Sullivan’s Island and would like their memories recorded for posterity is encouraged to reach out to the Center. “The building could be turned into a real museum space,” Walsh says. “I think it’s really important for people to remember and preserve what this island was about. We need to recognize, appreciate and honor all those years of defending our coast. I would like to see Battery Gadsden be a part of that historic preservation.” SiP WWW.SiPMAGAZINESC.COM | 29
ISLAND LIFE
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A FRESH IDEA FOR
SULLIVAN’S With one good idea and 150 signatures, Sullivan’s Island grew its own farmers market. Thanks to resident support and a central location, vendors are back for a second year. By Kimbermarie Faircloth. Photos by Steve Rosamilia.
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he Sullivan’s Island Farmers Market kicked off its second season this April. The sophomore year sees new and returning vendors offering vegetables, cheese, baked goods, craft s, art and live music. The market, which takes place every Thursday from 2:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. through June 29, is centrally located in front of Battery Gadsden, at 1921 I’on Avenue making it walkable for many residents. “Th is year we will have even more vendors, including additional on-site consumable food and kid activities,” Sarah Church, town councilmember and driving force behind the market, says. “Sullivan's Island is a perfect place for a farmers’ market because of its strong sense of community. It’s nice to have a gathering place for residents to come together and support our local vendors. Several of our vendors are actually island residents,” Church says.
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LARGEST SELECTION OF LADIES SWIMWEAR, S-34W, A-G CUP
Sullivan's Island is a perfect place for a farmers market because of its strong sense of community. - SARAH CHURCH
The market was the brainchild of island residents Mike and Joan Noll. While selling plants through their Plant The Earth nursery at other local farmers markets, they wondered why Sullivan’s Island didn’t have a market of their own. Noll collected over 150 signatures and presented his idea to the Sullivan’s Island Town Council. “The market was a smashing success for a fi rst-year market and I was happy to be a part of it,” Noll says. “Several fi rst-year markets in the tri-county area have fizzled out due to lack of interest from the managers, vendors, or visitors and residents. Our managers were quick studies and worked diligently to plan and participate, while vendors were committed and professional. Best of all the residents and visitors displayed a huge show of support with their repeat visits throughout the market season from April through June.” The market is a community-centric event and “designed intentionally to be small and for the islands,” Lisa Darrow, market manager, says. “We felt comfortable that the market was something we could support,” she says. “Th is is a benefit for the community and I enjoy watching residents connect together... the way people live nowadays, there is not as much of an opportunity to meet up.” Returning vendors attest to the prime location of the market: shady trees, open space and centrally located so islanders don’t have to go far for fresh produce. Gruber Family CSA Farm of St. George, South Carolina is happy to be back for a second year. “I think the local people like the market and we get them some fresh, homegrown produce,” Stanley Gruber, owner and farmer, says. Blue Pearl Farms, another repeat vendor, from just up the road in McClellanville sells its fresh blueberries and blueberry compote at the market. Farmer Robert captures the Sullivan’s Island Farmers Market in a nutshell: “It’s not easy to open a farmers market anywhere. It was fantastic.” SiP WWW.SiPMAGAZINESC.COM | 31
ISLAND LIFE
A 72-HOUR SULLIVAN’S STAYCATION WITH FRIENDS
We all know we live in paradise, so when your friends come to town, show off our little slice of heaven with SiP’s guide to the best way to fritter away a long weekend with friends. By Carol Antman. Photos by Steve Rosamilia. 32 | SiP
Day 1
Day 1 Beach Rides, Retail & Rum Recalibrate visitors to island time with a beach bike ride. Those “mountain” bikes just pretend they’re tough — typical models prefer cruising the hard sand at low tide. In need of a spare beach bike with fatter tires for softer sand? There are rentals available from Sealand Adventure Sports on Middle Street. While you’re out, swing by The Co-op for a gourmet picnic. The California Turkey or Caprese sandwiches will fit right into your basket and make for a fine bite on the beach with your pals. After you rinse off the sand, rouse yourself for a little retail therapy. Ashley Martin’s tiny Goldbug Shop has handmade artisan jewelry inspired by surf culture and travels to Kenya, Indonesia, Samoa and Hawaii. Next door at the Sandpiper Gallery, the island’s artist colony is well represented by Jim Darlington’s striking portraits and Leslie PrattThomas’s beach scenes. Guest not dressed for the weather? Spruce up casual wardrobes and crumpled suitcase living at the surprisingly affordable Almost Pink. Enough activity. It’s time to slow down. Prepare your friends for the first stop on your staycation’s recurring golf cart pub crawl: At Home Team BBQ they mix up gallons of their popular signature frozen cocktail with two kinds of rum along with pineapple and orange juices, cream of coconut and nutmeg. It’s called a Game Changer. If you don’t already know, you’ll see why. Warning — this is the day your friends begin planning their next trip to see you again.
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Day 2
Day 3
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Day 2 Paddle, eat & Get S’more Beach time An island vacation isn’t complete until you get out on the water. A paddle in a kayak from Coastal Expeditions will give guests a whole new perspective. Climb aboard at Shem Creek, the Isle of Palms Marina, or ask the company to deliver one right to your home. Once on the water, drift into the spartina grass, hunt for shark’s teeth on uninhabited islands, or spot dolphins and manatees. Hungry now? Replenish at Poe’s Tavern. Treat out-of-towners to one of the poetic variations of South Carolina’s best burger, according to Business Insider. The Annabel Lee, topped with a crab cake, might have clinched it. Dessert calls for a special treat at Beardcat’s, which reviewers call “the definition of a gem.” It’s hard to choose just one or two of the constantly changing flavors of superb homemade ice cream and gelato. As the afternoon wanes, load up your wagon with firewood and head to the beach for a uniquely Sullivan’s Island experience. This is one of the few places on the coast that you can build a bonfire. Plan ahead by getting a permit from Town Hall and enjoy your s’mores as the moon rises over the ocean.
Day 3 Greet the Sun, Walk cheerS!
in
hiStory,
No doubt your friends will want some photos of sunrise on the ocean to show landlocked buds at home. Join the dog lovers and joggers for a morning frolic in the waves, or kick back and enjoy the scenery in pajamas: just park at Breach Inlet for spectacular sunrise viewing. Next stop is the historic Edgar Allan Poe Library for a book of poetry by its namesake and a former island soldier. Take it to Fort Moultrie to elevate a staycation with a little history and poetry. The fort’s spooky labyrinthine passages were Poe’s muse. His spirit might give you goosebumps as your pals traipse along, muttering “Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary… .” From up high near the signal flags, you’ll be able to see couples strolling hand in hand on the beach. It’s a perfect place to unleash your inner bard and recite, “It was many and many a year ago, In a kingdom by the sea… .” Love and history have likely made your friends fall for the island, so it’s time for another stop on the golf cart pub crawl to seal the deal. True islanders know that a golf cart’s personality is essential, so make friends feel like family and encourage them to put a flag, sign or tinseled decoration on your cart and join the slow parade (or actual decorated golf cart parade on the 4th of July). Channel some Jimmy Buffet and meander down to Mex 1 for one of their creative margaritas or their awardwinning Tequila Mockingbird. Ahh island life. You’re all feeling it now. SiP
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HISTORY SNAPSHOTS
ATLANTICVILLE HISTORIC DISTRICT
Miller House, 2262 Jasper Blvd., built 1890.
Join SiP on a walking tour of Atlanticville, one of Sullivan's Island’s five registered historic districts. By Kimbermarie Faircloth. Photos by Steve Rosamilia.
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s you wind around neighborhood streets and walk among sandy stations, it’s easy to forget that every inch of Sullivan’s island is teeming with history. While some of it is obvious — Fort Moultrie has clearly weathered many a battle — other Sullivan’s Island stories are not so well known, nor so visible. The are four official historic districts on the island: “Atlanticville,” “Fort Moultrie Quartermaster,” “Moultrieville” and “Sullivan’s Island.” Each has been designated as historically or architecturally significant by the U.S.
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Department of Interior and placed on the National Register of Historic Places. The very first historic district in America was established in Charleston in 1931. In this issue of SiP we take a tour of the Atlanticville Historic District, which encompases more than fifty historic buildings between stations 22 1/2 and 26 on Middle Street, Jasper Boulevard, I’on, Atlantic and Myrtle avenues. This area is significant as it contains a large selection of quintessential “Island Houses” from a period between 1880 and 1950, as well as original church buildings and a school.
Sullivan’s Island Graded School, 2302 Middle St.
Imagine a handful of children playing on the sunny lawn of this building, which has been standing since 1925, although its use as a school ended in the mid-1950s. The four white columns hold up the facade of a seafoam-colored building, which was built as the population of the island proliferated. Before the arrival of the Graded School, schools on the island were moved from house to house until the town committee agreed on a final location for the school.
Minot-Blanchard House, 2424 Middle St.
Pyramidal brick steps lead into the screened porch of what was known as the Minot-Blanchard House, built in 1915. The Lovell family, who now reside there, has inhabited the Minot-Blanchard House for over a decade. It came to them called “The Vagabond Villa,” and they renamed it to “The Lovell Shack,” following a treasured island tradition of nicknaming your home. A fun fact about 2424 Middle Street, New York Times bestselling author Dorothea Benton Frank grew up here, her mother was a Blanchard. It was the sale of the house after her mother’s death that prompted her to become a writer.
Water Tower, 2450 Quarter St.
Rising 120 feet above the island is a bright blue water tower that stands where islanders used to gather well water. Constructed in 1945, at the close of World War II, the tower is around the corner from the Bischoff House. Sullivan’s Island was home to soldiers and operated as a firing range during WWII; the sounds of their practicing were supposedly so loud and constant that glasses would shatter across the island during practice.
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African-American Cemetery, 400 Block, Station 22.5
As you arrive on Sullivan’s from Mount Pleasant, a historic marker on your left signals the location of the African-American Cemetery. Likely founded in the 1870s, it’s the final resting place of parishioners from Mt. Zion AME Church and Stella Maris Catholic Church. Island resident Elmore Browne, from a prominent African American family on the island who ran an oyster business, spearheaded the effort to preserve the cemetery. “This is a part of trying to preserve a bit of the history of Sullivan’s Island, especially as far as African-Americans are concerned,” Browne said in an interview in 2008. “They helped build the fortress that was here during the Revolutionary War, through the years they’ve had a presence here and it’s very well that we try to preserve and to document that history.” According to Browne, most of those interred in the cemetery were carpenters, cooks, oystermen, laundresses, nursemaids, housekeepers, midwives, soldiers and seamen. Some were his friends and relatives. Few grave markers remain, and the last funeral took place in 1948, just before the Ben Sawyer Bridge was built.
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Allen-Jones House, 419-425 Station 23
In 1902, Allen Perry Jones, known as A.P. Jones, began the construction of this house with a single room. Jones, who would become the father of ten children, had moved to Sullivan’s from downtown to work at Fort Moultrie. During his first stay he was hosted by his future wife, Margaret Pezant Jones. The Allen-Jones House is exemplary of island homes on Sullivan’s, as most of them were built and owned by families still living here. Many would use their homes on Sullivan’s Island seasonally, but now, thanks to the advent of air conditioning, families live here year-round.
Bischoff House, 2430 Middle St.
The 117-year-old Bischoff House sits solemnly on Middle Street, half-hidden by a myriad of green foliage. Although unlived in for many years, it is a good example of a simple island cottage, the type commonly constructed in the early 1900s. A one-story, three by one bay frame core with a side gable V-crimped metal roof (a common roofing material on the island), this home also has a half story with dormers, making it more substantial in appearance, yet still rather simple in character.
2508 Atlantic Ave.
Built in 1895, this home stands just a few blocks over from the Church of the Holy Cross, an Episcopal church with three locations spread amongst the islands. Sullivan’s, however, is the original location and the church was used seasonally at the beginning of its life. 2508 Atlantic Ave. was built just thirteen years before the church, which is also listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Over time, the church kept its location and during World War II also served as a medical station. SiP
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HISTORY SNAPSHOTS
BRINGING A HISTORICAL
FOOTNOTE TO LIFE
Thomson Park at Breach Inlet commemorates one of the least known yet most pivotal battles in America’s War of Independence. By Sarah Kirk. Photos by Steve Rosamilia.
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t was during a talk by Dr. Walter Edgar, a noted historian and author, that Charleston resident and ninthgeneration South Carolinian Doug MacIntyre learned of a little-known but pivotal patriot victory during the 1776 Battle of Sullivan’s Island. “Dr. Edgar was frustrated by the limited knowledge people had about what happened on the two opposite ends of the island.” MacIntyre said. Most residents and visitors are aware of the action at Fort Moultrie and that end of the island — but few are aware that it was a combined land and sea attack by the British Navy on the fort, and across Breach Inlet by the British Army. “It was just one of those important events that was lost in history,” MacIntyre said. “I was sitting there in the audience and thought, ‘Well somebody should do something about that.’” Quickly he realized that somebody was him. On June 28, 1776, Lieutenant Colonel William “Danger” Thomson led 780 men at Breach Inlet to thwart the 3,000-strong British Army’s land attack. “It was a battle that changed the course of the American Revolution, after that debacle the British changed their strategy,” MacIntyre said. “Since they were not able to take Charleston, they concentrated their efforts on the northeast, a move which kept the ports open in Charleston for another four years.” That ability to bring in trade caused an economic boom in Charleston, and allowed the state of South Carolina to support the patriots’ war in the North. “The cumulative effect of that land and sea battle gave some of the patriots the courage to sign the Declaration of Independence, because a lot of them were on the fence,” Isle of Palms resident Jim Thompson, who helped fi nance the project, said. “It’s American history’s front door.” MacIntyre decided Thomson and his battle deserved recognition, and so the idea for Thomson Park was born. His initial idea soon become a well-planned community project on a small slice of land off Middle Street, just before the H. L. Hunley bridge that connects Sullivan’s to Isle of Palms. It is erected on the dunes where Thomson’s advance guard dug in to turn back the British troops advancing from Long Island (today’s Isle of Palms). MacIntyre cites a list of 150 people who were supporters one way or another. “A lot of people really chipped in,” he said. “It became one of those projects that people wanted to be part of.” After negotiating with the joint owners of the land (the Town of Sullivan’s Island and the Department of Transportation), conducting a peer review from other historians in the community, and securing funding, MacIntyre convinced local landscape architect Clyde Timmons to lend his talents to the project. Inspired by the site’s history and natural beauty, Timmons selected many plants native to the island and looked to the lore of the Palmetto tree (that so “skillfully” defeated the British Navy at the other end of the island) when creating the site’s footprint. “Since we don’t know what the location looked like in 1776, I thought the use of Palmetto logs helped convey the idea of a Revolutionary War-era fortification that echoed Fort Moultrie,” Timmons said.
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It was a battle that changed the course of the American Revolution, after that debacle the British changed their strategy. - DOUG MACINTYRE
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The park opened to an enthusiastic crowd in June 2011 and has been welcoming visitors ever since. Residents, tourists, beachgoers, school and church groups are just a few of the visitors who enjoy the park’s panoramic views of Breach Inlet and engage with the wayside exhibits detailing the historical events that happened there. “It just became a labor of love for a number of people who wanted to set history straight, and it’s such a great location,” MacIntyre said. The park, which sits just above a beach access, fits seamlessly into the natural environment while simultaneously marking the spot where patriots served during the American Revolution. Keeping History Alive Today the park relies on maintenance by the Town of Sullivan’s Island, to which it was gifted, and occasional volunteer groups that dedicate time to care for it. However, MacIntyre credits “unofficial groundskeeper” Wayne Stelljes with being his ever-present man on the ground. “He’s been such a blessing,” MacIntyre said. “Wayne is out there several times a week. It’s Wayne who more often than anyone will fly the flag on holidays. He tells people the stories, sends them to the website when they want more information. He’s our man on-site.” Stelljes lives just two blocks from Thomson Park and happily helps out with keeping the site tidy. “Five generations of my family have lived on Sullivan’s Island during some portion of their lives, starting when my mother and her family moved here in the 1930s,” Stelljes said. His tremendous sense of community and civic pride is evident when he speaks about the park. But to this faithful volunteer, it is clearly more than just community service that motivates him. “While Thomson Park memorializes all those who fought and perished during those military events, the feelings of hope have never left that location,” he said. “Today, the hopes are as diverse as those who visit. Some are simple and some are far-reaching.” From the hope to catch some fish or see the bottlenose dolphins, or just to enjoy a relaxing day on the beach, Stelljes feels that the once-somber location is now characterized by serene beauty and has an almost spiritual quality where many come to enjoy quiet and reflective moments. Today, Thomson Park attracts historians with an interest in the Revolutionary War, sheds a light on an overlooked battle that put Sullivan’s Island on the map, and helps connect visitors with the history of South Carolina. It is also a place where they may encounter a friendly, helpful face, and experience a bit of warm Southern charm. “It has accomplished its objective in telling the untold history,” MacIntyre said. It has accomplished its objective — and so much more. For more information on Thomson Park visit thomsonpark.wordpress.com. SiP
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SiP SALUTES
Meet Madeleine and Her ‘Little’
Madeleine McGee — fierce conservationist, former city councilwoman and long time mentor to her Little Sister — wants you to know about the program that has brought so much joy into her life and transformed anothers. By Jennifer Tuohy. Photos by Steve Rosamilia.
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McGee, Lizzy and her mother Terri Naguib.
Becoming a Big Big Brothers Big Sisters is always looking for volunteers for the program. “We just ask that they are committed, well-adjusted individuals with good good social skills,” Christina Hoffecker, Program Director, says. Mentors can be single or a couple, and can have children of their own. The program welcomes men and women mentors, but has a particular need for male role models. “Overwhelmingly, we’re serving African American boys and we try not to do too many cross-gender matches. So, we are always in need of male mentors,” Hoffecker says. “Seventy percent of our waitlist is boys, and male mentors are often matched very quickly.” There are currently 130 active matches in the Charleston area. Children in the program are aged between six and 18, the commitment required is a minimum of a year, meeting three or four times a month at first until the relationship is established. After that, assuming the match is progressing smoothly, BBBS lets matches set their own schedule and support staff check in quarterly. There is no financial commitment, and matches are encouraged to do activities that cost little or no money. If interested, Hoffecker recommends calling BBBS and a staff person will be happy to discuss the program with them. For more information visit becomeabig.org
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n April 2, 2008, Madeline McGee received a rather unusual birthday present; a six-year-old little sister. McGee was then single, living alone and taking time off, having stepped down from running the Coastal Community Foundation for the past decade. A longtime proponent and champion of nonprofit organizations across South Carolina, McGee turned to one to help fi ll a void. “I decided I wanted to have children in my life,” McGee, a lifelong Sullivan’s Island resident, says. “A good friend told me about the Big Brothers Big Sisters program, and they worked their magic and matched me with Lizzy.” Big Brothers Big Sisters is a national one-on-one mentoring program with more than a hundred years of history. The Charleston chapter is based at the Carolina Youth Development Center in North Charleston and has been active in the area for 38 years. BBBS brings together “at risk” children with well-adjusted adults who are looking to help their community.
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There’s no better place to mentor a child than Sullivan’s Island. - MADELEINE MCGEE
“Children that need a mentor come from situations where they’re considered “at risk” — a big term, but basically it means anybody that feels like their child could use an additional role model is a family we would consider,” Christina Hoffecker, Program Director, says. “It could just be that they’re the only girl in the family, or being raised by Grandma, or they’re one of five children and they need a little support.” In Lizzy Naguib’s case, she had recently lost her father and had moved to Charleston from Colorado with her mother, who had little support. “I’d been able to maintain a sense of being able to parent her throughout her father’s illness, but now I just needed some support,” Terri, Lizzy’s mother, explains. “I needed someone to come in just to have some fun with her — to do the things I no longer was up for doing, the things that used to bring joy were becoming overwhelming suddenly. I wanted to limit the impact of his death on a six-year-old. I wanted her to have fun.”
Finding the Fun
For those who know Madeleine McGee, fun is an adjective that immediately comes to mind. Dynamic and attractive, 56-year-old McGee’s energy and intelligence is obvious the moment you meet her, as is her well-bred Southern charm, tempered by a delightfully relaxed attitude. Married to F.C. “Bunky” Wichmann Jr. since 2013, McGee lives in her childhood beach home on I’on Avenue, a stone’s throw from Sullivan’s Island’s bustling business district.
Madeleine McGee and Lizzy Naguib met through the Big Brother Big Sisters program. This picture of the two of them was taken in 2009, when McGee ran for Sullivan’s Island Town Council. Photo provided by Madeleine McGee WWW.SiPMAGAZINESC.COM | 47
As I arrive at the house on New Year’s Eve to talk with McGee and Naguib, now 15, young people are flowing in and out — each greeted enthusiastically by Beau, an 11-year-old Boykin Spaniel. We sit down in the historic beach house’s family room surrounded by the slightly wilting evidence that a very full, warm family Christmas just took place. McGee and her husband love to entertain, throwing parties for “a few people” on a regular basis. Since retiring from the Coastal Community Foundation, McGee has channelled her expertise and energies into assisting the entire state’s nonprofit community, as president of South Carolina Association of Nonprofit Organizations (recently rebranded Together SC). She has also helped shepherd the island through the process of building its new elementary school as a member of town council. Before Lizzy entered her life, McGee had preparation for her role courtesy of being the favorite aunt to her actual little sister’s three children. “Evie married and had children when I did not,” McGee says. When Evie and her husband would come to stay, McGee often helped her niece and nephews “sneak out” of the house. “We’d ride bikes from our house to Sea Biscuit early in the morning. I did it so that my sister and her husband could sleep late, but I’d tell the kids we were sneaking out — we’d even climb out the window.” Off they’d run to devour plates of fluffy pancakes and maple syrup at the Isle of Palms restaurant. McGee’s family has welcomed Lizzy with open arms. “My whole family has been wonderful about inviting Lizzy and Terri to be part of the family,” she says. As if proving her point, a Christmas gift for Lizzy from McGee’s brother-in-law, comedian Stephen Colbert, sits waiting on the coffee table. It’s a copy of America’s First Daughter, Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie’s story of Thomas Jefferson’s eldest daughter.
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Apparently Lizzy’s bookshelves are full of tomes written by guests on Colbert’s nightly CBS television show, The Late Show. “Sometimes he even gets them inscribed,” McGee says. The novel reflects Lizzy’s passion for politics, both old and new. The hit Broadway show about another Founding Father, Hamilton: An American Musical, is a favorite of hers. “I know all the songs by heart,” she says. A few weeks after our interview, Lizzie and Terri attend the Women’s March in Washington D.C.. “History and politics, marginalized groups, learning about oppression and how that’s shaped the U.S., that’s all really interesting to me,” Lizzy says. “I am the child of an Egyptian immigrant, and so I recognize that some people have to go through unequal treatment. It really upsets me and I want to do my part in changing it.”
Facilitating Passions
How to run a country — or a small barrier island — is one of many interests McGee helped spark in Lizzy. When she ran for Town Council in 2009, Lizzy was her number one supporter, helping her campaign around the island. McGee also introduced her to kayaking (“Kayaking is completely Madeleine, I don’t think I ever would have done that on my own,” Lizzy says). Other interests McGee nurtured include cooking and knitting. “I was interested in it for a little longer than a split second,” Lizzy says. So McGee, who knew nothing about knitting, arranged to have friend and former island resident, Niki Ross, come teach them. Today, Lizzy gets her required school volunteer hours by crocheting blankets for MUSC. “Madeleine was willing to do things for Lizzy that I wasn’t always able
to,” Terri says. But, per BBBS guidelines, never of a monetary nature. “She would listen to Lizzy’s interest and then provide an avenue to go out and explore them.” McGee also took full advantage of her childhood playground to entertain her little sister. “There’s no better place to mentor a child than Sullivan’s Island,” McGee says. “It’s safe, it’s easy to get around, you can bike and explore.” For McGee being a mentor helped her get out and do things she wouldn’t necessarily do anymore. “We did a lot of kayaking, swimming off the back of the Balls’ dock [Nat and Jane]. We had her birthday parties on the beach, and lots of cookouts.” “We used to bike to Sea Biscuit for breakfast,” Lizzy recalls. “We went to the park a lot. You tried to teach me tennis,” she says to McGee with a chuckle. “Until you realized I have absolutely no coordination!” She spent so much time on Sullivan’s as a child that her mother says she asked if her fi rst car could be a golf cart.
From Little to Bestie
As Lizzy grew up, the dynamic of the relationship shifted; McGee also welcomed three more children into her life courtesy of her husband. “We’ve been through some of the classic things you do growing up... namely adolescence! At fi rst she leaned on me like an aunt, but now it’s more like a friend,” McGee says. “She’s so intellectually curious, when I’m with her it is more like hanging out with an adult than a child.” Today their relationship is less about ice cream and face painting in the park or kayaking off the back of Sullivan’s Island, and more about helping her face and deal with the challenges of young adulthood, but there’s still room for fun. They recently took a trip to Manhattan, where
Lizzy got to rock climb and see a Broadway show, and the friends still make sure to see each other as often as they can, especially for holidays and birthdays. Terri hopes McGee will continue to play a big role in Lizzy’s future. For McGee an unexpected, but welcome part of being Lizzy’s Big was gaining Terri as a friend. “The big part of this program is the mother. Terri is a phenomenal mother and she wants me in her life as much, if not more, than Lizzy does,” McGee says. “Terri and I have become such good friends, so we often do things as the three of us.” “Lizzy would not be who she is today without Madeleine. The Big Brothers Big Sisters program was a lifeline for us,” Terri says. “She’s the husband I didn’t have — we partnered in raising Lizzy. I really believe it takes a village to raise a child and Madeleine was our village. She exposed Lizzy to a whole new world and opportunities she would never have had otherwise.” Being a mentor gave McGee the opportunity to revisit her childhood on Sullivan’s, sledding the mound, twirling in the bandstand, eating s’mores on the beach, and it gave her the opportunity to positively impact a child’s life, something she would heartily recommend to anyone. For Lizzy, McGee provided a strong, stable role model, one that she can always turn to and who has provided her with “opportunity and perspective on the world.” “They are a perfect example of how the program works when all parties are invested,” Hoffecker says. “Th is is how we hope all of our matches go. Madeleine is such a fierce and strong role model, she is someone that people aspire to — she’s incredible and I think Lizzy knows she’s lucky — they both know they’re lucky.” SiP
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Crafting for the ages Isle of Palms’ Clay Rice brilliantly applies his scissors and his lyrical talents to children’s books. By Susan Hill Smith. Photos by Mic Smith.
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A page from Clay Rice’s children’s book, The Stick. WWW.SiPMAGAZINESC.COM | 51
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Family legacy Clay Rice received the first lessons in his artistic craft as a child watching his grandfather cut silhouettes of Lowcountry scenes. Carew Rice started his career in the Depression, became a Southern treasure and wound up traveling the world. Poet Carl Sandburg called him “America’s Greatest Silhouettist,” something his grandson appreciated more as he sought to follow in his footsteps. “He was relentless with his pursuit of perfection in silhouettes, and you can see it. His work has a quality about it as if you were looking into a dream,” Rice says of his grandfather, who died in 1971. “His understanding of depth and negative space, and what he did with black paper and scissors was just incredible.” Works by both Carew and Clay Rice are on display at the South Carolina State Museum, while the museum also loans out a traveling exhibit of Clay Rice’s children’s book illustrations to others across the country. In February, the Greenville County Museum of Art opened an extensive exhibit of Carew Rice’s works that will run through September 10, 2017. Learn more about the artists and see their artwork at ricegalleries.com. You can also follow “Silhouettes by Clay Rice” on Facebook to keep up with his appearances.
ithin 60 seconds, Clay Rice’s scissors can transform a square of black paper into a child’s silhouette, capturing the curves of the chin and the nose, the eyelashes and curls, with such wisdom it becomes a family treasure. “Look at you, sweetheart,” the 58-year-old artist says as he holds up a freshly cut silhouette for a 3-year-old girl, who until this point has been sitting on her dad’s lap, transfixed by a light-up toy. Her dad, who’s 35, made the appointment for the sitting. He was about the same age as his little girl when Rice cut his silhouette back in the early 1980s at the beginning of the artist’s career. His parents also have silhouettes of themselves as children that were cut by the artist’s grandfather, legendary Carew Rice. While the scene plays out at a baby boutique in Mount Pleasant, not far from Clay Rice’s Isle of Palms home, he also makes connections like these when traveling across the country. Not long ago, he visited a shop in “little ol’ Cordele, Georgia” and the first five moms who brought their children in for portraits had been past subjects of his as well. “I feel like I’ve got this big family out there,” he says with a grin. Children’s silhouettes have been the bread and butter of his multifaceted career, much as they were for his grandfather. By his own earnest estimate, Rice has cut over a million. Yet he hopes his recent work creating children’s books will have an even more enduring impact. From the release of his first title in 2010, The Lonely Shadow, which earned two major book awards, this new pursuit has led places even he didn’t expect. “It has opened up so much more for me,” he told me when we sat down for an interview, “things I never saw coming.”
‘The Dr. Seuss of the Lowcountry’
For a review of Rice’s children’s books, turn to page 58. 52 | SiP
In the world of children’s picture books, where writers and artists often have distinct roles, Rice is the whole package, marrying his lyrical talents as a songwriter with masterpiece illustrations. In fact, all of his books either contain a song, or are songs themselves that Rice also performs with his guitar. Guaranteed for giggles when he does school appearances, his latest title, Ants ‘n’ Uncles, even has a conga-line ant dance that children love. Before I go any further, I should disclose that
Rice is a favorite friend of mine, and our families are close. I also adore children’s books to such a degree that I consider myself an unofficial expert. So I was thoroughly looking forward to an in-depth talk with Rice about his life and his literature as I wove around the bends of Forest Trail to the Isle of Palms home he shares with his wife, Caroline, and their two sons, Charlie, 11, and Connor, 14. A 6-foot-3 teddy bear of a man, Rice welcomed me into the family room with a hug. After we sank into opposite couches, we soon found a shared love for Shel Silverstein, whose quirky anthologies of poetry and artwork, including Where the Sidewalk Ends, and thought-provoking titles, such as The Giving Tree, have spoken to generations. What I didn’t realize was that that Silverstein was also a prolific singer-songwriter who produced hits for Johnny Cash, Dr. Hook and Loretta Lynn. “I guess that’s why he’s such a big influence,” Rice said.
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You have to trust yourself first. - CLAY RICE
While his silhouette artwork has overshadowed his own musical efforts, long-time locals may remember the 1990s when Rice had a spot at the Charleston market called Lowcountry Legends Music Hall. Here he would perform original songs with local flavor like Boiled P-Nuts, Hurricane Jam and South of Broad on his guitar. His ties to coastal South Carolina run deep and wide and are not only reflected in his songs, but also in his original pieces of artwork. His parents divorced when he was a preschooler. He grew up living with his mom in Myrtle Beach and his father in downtown Charleston, while also spending time off in the country at his grandfather’s aging plantation home on the Chehaw River in Colleton County. He actually started writing songs as a young teenager in Myrtle Beach with lifelong friend Mark Stephen Jones. Both eventually tried their luck in Nashville. Rice ultimately returned home to South Carolina and silhouettes, while Jones secured a spot with Harlan Howard Songs, one of the town’s premier indie publishers, and recently received a Grammy nomination. Even now, when the two visit, they typically work on a song or two for fun. “Of all my friends, he has the greatest laugh,” Jones told me when I reached him later by phone. Rice has a talent for turning something simple into something brilliant, said Jones, who is proud of his friend’s crossover into children’s literature. “He’s the Dr. Seuss of the Lowcountry—and you can quote me on that.” WWW.SiPMAGAZINESC.COM | 53
Making the most of every word Rice’s work in the children’s book industry started with a commission to do a silhouette cover for another author. He soon talked his way into creating his own books and found it easy to come up with the words for his fi rst narrative. “I was flying down to Costa Rica to go fishing and the idea popped into my head: The Lonely Shadow, about a shadow who is looking for a child to belong to,” he explained. “By the time we touched down in Costa Rica, it was done, and they only changed seven words in the whole thing.” The creative differences he ran into actually involved the illustrations. The fi rst publishing company he dealt with wanted to stick with silhouettes in traditional black and white while Rice wanted to pursue color, and they parted ways as a result. Within a week, he had a new publisher, and ultimately The Lonely Shadow would be recognized with a Moonbeam Children’s Book Award Gold Medal for Best First Book and an Independent Publisher Book Award (IPPY) Gold Medal. “You have to trust yourself fi rst,” he told me, pronouncing the same kind of truth you might fi nd in the pages of his books. Collectively, Rice’s books have been translated into four other languages. He’s not sure how many books have been sold around the world through different publishing arrangements, but he has personally signed and sold over 50,000 when making appearances at stores, schools and museums. Each of his four titles published so far has its own characters, style, and personality. He starts with the words, and the illustrations follow, typically taking much more time to construct as he works on them in
the artist’s studio in the backyard of his house on Isle of Palms. For his second book, Mama, Let’s Make a Moon, he drew on the spirit of his mom, a schoolteacher who made the best of limited resources, as well as his wife and the many moms he meets through his work. He spent a full year on the illustrations, and while the book received less critical acclaim than his fi rst effort, it resonated with families. “I get more requests for it than any of the other books.” His third book, The Stick, a Benjamin Franklin Book Award winner, hones in even more on the theme of imagination with a deceptively simple stick that has transformative powers. In a surprising turn for Rice, The Stick inspired the Tacoma Metropolitan Ballet to create its own adaptation of the story. In terms of process, The Stick shows how important it is to make the most of every word. Rice recalls going back and forth for six weeks with his editor over the instructions written on the stick. “He just kept sending me back an email saying I think you can do this a little better,” and in this case, Rice knew his editor was right. Finally, Rice came up with the following passage: IMAGINATION lives in you, It’s the FIRE in all you do. Use it well, and you can be ANYTHING you want to be. That’s more than a powerful message for a children’s book. That’s the story of Clay Rice. SiP
Sullivans Island Lighthouse at Dusk, ©Donnie Whitaker Photography
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NEW READS FROM ISLAND AUTHORS Our small islands are overflowing with literary talent. This summer sees new work from local authors Dorothea Benton Frank, Mary Alice Monroe and Leonard Goldberg, as well as a growing children's book collection from Clay Rice. Here, SiP writers review the new releases. William Morrow Published May 16, 2017 $27.99 Same Beach, Next Year Dorothea Benton Frank, Sullivan’s Island Do you remember your first love? The thrill, the passion, the devastation when it ended? Do you wish, looking back through the decades, that you could go back to those days and recapture that feeling, revisit your first love? Be careful what you wish for. That’s the premise of New York Times bestselling author Dorothea Benton Frank’s latest page-turning, beach-perfect novel, her eighteenth. Frank, who has made a career out of writing about her home town of Sullivan’s Island and the surrounding Lowcountry, once again returns to this magical land with a story of marriage, love, family and, above all, friendship. Peppered with her trademark humor and infused with a generous dose of heart, Same Beach, Next Year will not disappoint her legions of fans and will win her a few new admirers. Adam Stanley and Eve Landers bump into each other in a pool at Wild Dunes on Isle of Palms, 20 years after they last laid eyes on each other. Both are married with children. The two couples begin a friendship that spans the next two decades, but not everyone knows the full extent of Adam and Eve’s past. Year after year, the couples — Adam and his wife Eliza, Eve and her husband Carl — return to vacation together at Wild Dunes, both 56 | SiP
eventually buying condos next door to each other. The story follows their parallel lives and explores their strengthening relationships, until a devastating revelation threatens to destroy everything they’ve worked their whole lives for. While ostensibly a love story, Same Beach, Next Year is really an ode to the power of friendship and how, by making the ultimate sacrifice for your friends, any wound can be healed. Frank’s heroine, Eliza, spends a portion of the book in her mother’s homeland of Greece, giving the author an excuse to indulge in a literary orgy of food, scenery and ancient Catholic saints. If you can read this book and not plan a trip to Europe you are a stronger person than I. Food is almost a character in the novel, and even plays a role in the love quadrangle (although a decision to choose one woman over the other because she can cook and the other can’t raised my eyebrows a fraction). Like all good beach reads, there are some fun, far-fetched plot twists, but this doesn’t take away from the basic truth Frank is serving up: Never take for granted the happiness you have, even if it’s not what you thought you wanted — there is a plan for us all, just try your best not to screw it up. By Jennifer Tuohy
Beach House For Rent Mary Alice Monroe, Isle of Palms Mary Alice Monroe is a New York Times bestselling author of 20 novels and a resident of the Isle of Palms. Her most recent book, Beach House for Rent, comes out this June. The book is a stand-alone novel, but is also the fourth in the Beach House series. Set on Isle of Palms and rich with family drama, Monroe transports readers to an island that acts as a sanctuary for its characters. Monroe’s books highlight conservation issues for endangered species such as turtles, dolphins, butterflies and migrating shorebirds. She has said that the species come first when she is starting a new book and this time she chose shorebirds because of her work rescuing pelicans for the The Center for Birds of Prey in nearby Awendaw. The more she learned about the declining shorebird population (which has shrunk by an estimated 70 percent across North America since 1973), the more alarmed she became, and Monroe’s weapon of choice is her pen. The story is told in alternating perspectives of two women; Cara, an almost 50-year-old woman who has recently returned to the Lowcountry after being cut-off from her family years before, and Heather, a 26-year-old woman whose crippling anxiety has kept her homebound until the summer she rents Cara’s beach house. Monroe’s husband is a psychiatrist and her characters often struggle with emotional issues like PTSD, autism and depression. Like the endangered species, her characters struggle and triumph in unexpected and inspiring ways. An underlying theme in the book is the importance of our connection to the outdoors and to understand what is wild. Monroe says she used Heather’s anxiety disorder as a tool to keep her trapped indoors and disconnected from nature. “She longs to go outside to feel the sun on her face the breeze against her skin,” Monroe writes. Heather is a textbook artist and arrives at the beach house with her three canaries in tow. She loves birds, and the shorebirds and her commission lure her outdoors. In time, she forms a connection to the shorebirds, the sea, the beach and the work together to help Heather heal. On the other side of town, Cara is approaching her fiftieth birthday when she is faced with an unexpected tragedy. For the first time in her life she is unmoored, and struggles to move forward. Feeling helpless, she sees the beach house as her only salvation. Monroe’s passion for the voiceless, the endangered and the injured has engaged readers for decades and will continue to do so with Beach House for Rent. Her stories of the challenges and triumphs between humans and wildlife make readers wonder who is rescuing who. Her lyrical descriptions of the Lowcountry landscape draws readers in, and her compelling cast of characters keeps them there to the very end. By Amy S. Mercer
Gallery Books Published June 20, 2017 $26 WWW.SiPMAGAZINESC.COM | 57
A Thomas Dunne Book for Minotaur Books Published June, 2017 $24
Blalock nine months later. Holmes’ closest confidant, Watson, had adoption papers sealed in order to stop the trail of evidence. Joanna Blalock, a striking and astute nurse, seemingly unwittingly carries the genes of Sherlock Holmes. Her unflappable and analytical mind made her highly sought after in her field, and in this novel she joins Watson and his charming grown son to solve a suicide mystery. The Daughter of Sherlock Holmes is the tenth book in Goldberg’s series featuring medical professional Joanna Blalock as the heroine. Goldberg spent many years as a consulting physician at UCLA, is board certified in internal medicine, hematology and rheumatology, and has been a highly sought after expert witness in medical malpractice trials. Goldberg relocated to Sullivan’s Island, where he used to spend summers as a child. Goldberg’s fast moving style is riddled with expert medical terminology, and his portrayal of Joanna Blalock paints a portrait of a female Holmes. The resurrection of Sherlock Holmes in the form of a previously unknown relative is certain to please the legions of Holmes aficionados throughout the world. With Holmes being one of the most portrayed characters in movie history, the possibility of Joanna Blalock coming to life on the big screen seems entirely plausible. By Marci Shore
The Daughter of Sherlock Holmes Leonard Goldberg, Sullivan’s Island After the death of Sherlock Holmes, who could be called upon to help solve the most confounding of cases plaguing the streets of London? Well, it’s elementary, and dear Watson would agree. This calls for the assistance of the daughter of Sherlock Holmes. Internationally known bestselling author Leonard Goldberg put a plot twist on the legend of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s fictional sleuth, Sherlock Holmes, with the release of his new novel, The Daughter of Sherlock Holmes. Born with a deductive mind of steel, and seemingly impervious to the lure of the opposite sex, Sherlock Holmes appears to have been outwitted at least once by the female persuasion, namely Irene Adler, who shows up only once in the saga of Sherlock Holmes. In Doyle’s A Scandal in Bohemia Adler was an opera singer who was having an affair with the King of Bohemia. Holmes was hired by the King to steal an incriminating photograph of the two together. Pivot to Goldberg’s imagined new narrative and while working the case, Holmes felt compassion for her situation, and recognized her as the victim of the powerful leader. There was apparently a bit more than compassion in the relationship, resulting in the birth of Joanna 58 | SiP
Familius Published September, 2016 $16.95
Rice’s Children’s Books Clay Rice, Isle of Palms Clay Rice entered the world of children’s books seven years ago, winning two national awards with his fi rst effort. While he was a newcomer, it was clear he could tell a story in a unique way, tying together thoughtful passages with intricate silhouette illustrations. So far the Isle of Palms author and artist has treated us to four titles. Just like children, each book its own personality. But they are all undeniably Rice’s creations, and taken together, they share a common thread, one that celebrates our inner resilience, no matter our age. Ants ‘n’ Uncles, 2016: In his latest title, Rice pays homage to the sillier side of children’s literary great Shel Silverstein with a whimsical tale of an uncle who couldn’t dance until he wound up with ants in his pants. The affl iction takes him on an “un-ant-ticipated” world tour with illustrations of international locations that have a fun, postcard feel. The narrator’s uncle may be a bit of a bumpkin, but Rice is working at a sophisticated level with his craft. The Stick, 2014: A Benjamin Franklin Book Award winner, The Stick has strong, focused imagery and a clear message that celebrates the possibilities of imagination: “Use it well, and you can be anything you want to be.” Island kids Keenan Cummings and Luke Smith served as models for the children who are the focus of the story. When reading, watch how the stick transforms as it is handed from one generation to the next. Mama, Let’s Make a Moon, 2013: A tribute to the love and ingenuity of moms, this colorful rhyme offers a recipe for a moon that “won’t cost too much.” Rice sets the story in majestic mountains like those where his wife, Caroline, grew up in the upstate. He used Caroline as a model along with their younger son, Charlie, and family friend Claire Nelson. Th is book is a joy to read aloud with kids. Look for many hidden pictures in the detailed illustrations, which Rice spent a year craft ing. The Lonely Shadow, 2010: Given his life’s work in silhouettes, Rice couldn’t have picked a better character for his fi rst book than a shadow searching for friendship. The journey showcases Lowcountry creatures and landscapes, while the shadow bears the likeness of his older son, Connor. Th is title won the Moonbeam Children’s Book Award Gold Medal for Best First Book and the even more prestigious Independent Publisher Book Award (IPPY) Gold Medal for Best Children’s Book. By Susan Smith SiP WWW.SiPMAGAZINESC.COM | 59
Sullivan’s Island’s Janie Ball, Anne Darby Parker, Susie Callahan, Lynne Hamontree, Cindy DeAntonio and Emily Brown. 60 | SiP
artistic sisterhood The Charleston Artist Collective has helped nurture and encourage the talents of a group of Sullivan’s Island painters: Janie Ball, Anne Darby Parker, Lynne Hamontree, Emily Brown, Cindy DeAntonio and Susie Callahan. By Sarah Kirk. Photos by Steve Rosamilia. WWW.SiPMAGAZINESC.COM | 61
The palmetto tree in front of Janie Ball’s house is wrapped in strands of colorful Christmas lights. She comes to the front door, curls framing her face, wearing a beige v-neck sweater and wiping paint off her hands.
“When you live on an island or removed from the synergy of a city, it really is most important to have that network of like-minded people in your community.” - Anne Darby Parker
Her top floor home studio is drenched in natural light from three sides. Mason jars bearing her surname are lined up on the windowsills, holding paintbrushes. On her desk sits a stylish acrylic box of crayons, alluding to her youthful outlook. Everywhere you look are her paintings, which she explains are all at varying degrees of completion. She waves over a collection of naturalistic landscapes and seascapes and laughs, “Lots of different stages of things — where things are almost done, not quite done… starting!” The inspiration for her compositions is at once obvious, “I’m always drawn to the water,” she admits. Ball is bound tightly to Sullivan’s Island by generations of her family who have lived here. “My grandmother built on Station 18, my great-grandparents at 10.” Although she was raised in downtown Charleston, she says she grew up “a summer person” on Sullivan’s Island. “I’ve been on the island ever since I was born, but have lived and owned a home here for 15 years. It’s been such a big part of my life. This has become my adult playground.” It was on Sullivan’s Island she would meet and befriend other women artists like Anne Darby Parker, Lynne Hamontree and Susie Callahan through what she calls “adult painting playgroups.” The ladies quickly established a club that grew in membership. “We would meet up and paint different places.” Anne Darby Parker is one of the pioneering members of the group. “Twenty years ago we started a Sullivan’s Island Plein Air Artist’s group, and there were maybe seven of us. We met every Wednesday, and we still do meet.” Through weekly workshops, taking classes together, and supporting and critiquing one another, she says, “We grew up as artists together.” Eventually many of the women in the group took their craft to a professional level, becoming members of the Charleston Artist Collective, an online gallery headed by Allison Williamson. The Collective has become a popular virtual destination for art collectors to discover affordable art by local artists. Today there is a brick-and-mortar gallery and studio space in Mount Pleasant. Although the ladies are professionally represented, they still find tremendous value in the group meetings and workshops, which they organize themselves. Susie Callahan explains the diverse artistic styles within the group. “When we all get together and paint, we might be painting the same subject — like a landscape or the ocean or a group of palm trees. And they will all be different. Very, very different.”
Susie Callahan
Callahan is a clinical counselor by day with a Middle Street office on Sullivan’s, but she has been painting since she was 12 years old. Some of her pastoral paintings hang on her office walls alongside more dynamic abstract works. “I used to only paint outside,” she says. “I was a plein air painter for over fifteen years and then my kids moved out.” Callahan used the opportunity to transform a room into a 62 | SiP
studio and, without any distractions, she now fi nds painting there meditative. Callahan was raised in North Charleston and after living in Chicago and then New Jersey for several years, she returned to the area. “Sullivan’s Island is just a place I’ve always felt a strong connection with,” she muses. When it comes to the island scenery, she says, “I’m infatuated with the marsh. I take a bike ride several times a week early in the morning and if I could paint only that marsh, I would be satisfied.” Spending time outdoors is one of the ways Callahan picks her subjects, but she admits there is also some intuition involved. “It’s a feeling. I get moved by something. It could be a really subtle landscape and I’ll be moved by the subtle colors in it or by the way the light hits a tree, and that image will stick with me.” Once inspiration strikes, she fi nds it hard to resist transmitting her visions onto canvas. “If I see something I really want to paint, I can’t stop thinking about it. And then when I go to paint it, those paintings almost paint themselves. It’s funny how your brain just works it all out.” With parallels to her career in counseling, art is akin to therapy for Callahan and she especially enjoys experimenting with abstract compositions. “To me it’s all about feeling. That’s the bedrock of the work I do. It’s all about getting to the feelings. How you are processing and receiving that feeling. It’s such a similar process for me. You have to explore.”
Anne Darby Parker Oyster Reflections, 17 x 17, oil on linen board
Anne Darby Parker
Anne Darby Parker is similar in her pursuit of artistic exploration. After growing up on Isle of Palms, she became a professional photographer, and her career spans twenty years. Along the way, she describes feeling a strong pull toward fi ne art. “As I was working, I was always sort of painting and drawing and looking at art books on the side. I realized I needed to make the move.” She attests that learning a new skill later in life requires curiosity. “When you start taking on something new as an adult you approach it differently.” Whereas learning and practicing a skill early in life tends to be immersive, an adult learner is often balancing other aspects of life, such as career and family. “I think I’m in perpetual student mode,” she chuckles, which is rather apt because she is now studying for her Master of Fine Arts degree at The Academy of the Arts University. Parker cites Daniel Coyle’s book The Talent Code and says she believes rather than being born with talent, “You grow at it through deliberate, deep practice.” It also requires a certain degree of resilience. “It’s not the repetition of doing something over and over. It’s being at a frustration point, having to make little tweaks and changing things. And having to repeat that process again and again.” She feels that women artists today have a distinct historical advantage. “We’re in a new place, especially with the Internet, where we can connect to the best teachers in the world, we’re not limited to just where we live.” It’s what makes artistic enclaves, such as the one created by the women of Sullivan’s Island, possible. “I think when you live on an island or removed from the synergy of a city, it really is most important to have that network of like-minded people in your community.” She adds, “When we get together, as females we are like-minded, and we do take our work seriously. It’s the magic piece.” What she’s describing is extremely liberating for female artists, since women often balance so many roles and responsibilities throughout their lifetimes.
Cindy DeAntonio Breach Inlet 20.5 x 20.5 mixed medium on canvas
Emily Brown Be Still My Heart 24x24 acrylic and oil pastel
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Cindy DeAntonio
Susie Callahan, Anne Darby Parker and Lynne Hamontree.
Cindy DeAntonio is one of the younger artists the Collective represents. When I arrive at her recently renovated home, she is unfurling a new rug in her sitting room. We sit on her screened-in porch and chat while her 19-month-old son naps down the hall. She talks of growing up in Columbia, then attending the University of South Carolina. After college, she followed her older sister to the Charleston area, which was the start of a true Sullivan’s Island love story. While waiting tables at Poe’s, she met her husband, Matt, himself then a Sullivan’s Island resident of nine years. “This whole area is where we met, fell in love, had a child,” she recalls. Being an artist with a young child can be difficult. “It’s tough. I’m painting during naps pretty much.” she says. “And a lot of nighttime painting... It’s tough but it’s something I’ve always wanted to do so I just make it work.” With a background in graphic design, DeAntonio describes her artistic style as “graphic abstract,” very linear and structured. “I like balance. Graphic design has changed a lot, but with my paintings I feel like I need to have that balance and symmetry when laying things out.” She uses bright colors and incorporates them with more organic shades inspired by the Lowcountry. “I get a lot of color inspiration from the surrounding landscape. I drive over the Isle of Palms Connector all the time and you know how the marsh grass has died out and turned that brown autumn color?” It’s a shade she’s been working into some of her recent pieces. She shows me around her studio, and it does seem she possesses a sensitive understanding of color. “One painting will work really well, but I’ll look back and think I wish I had used more greys or blues.” Of the group, DeAntonio says the support of the other women has been invaluable. “We all have the same strug-
“We are always encouraging each other.” - Lynne Hamontree gles,” she says. The group also encourages her to experiment more, though she attributes some of her artistic development to other life changes. She says before she had her son, she painted strictly abstracts, but has now gotten into landscapes and still-lifes. “I’m definitely exploring more,” she declares with a smile.
Lynne Hamontree
Emily Brown, Janie Ball and Cindy DeAntonio.
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Lynne Hamontree is in the middle of a major home renovation project on Sullivan’s Island. I meet her at the house she is renting with her husband while they wait to move in. The process has been a lot of work, but she’s handling the challenge with artistic aplomb. “With a renovation you’re forced to carve something out because there’s something already there,” she says. “Instead of just having a blank canvas, you have to carve something out of it. And it takes thought and imagination to do that.” Speaking of carving out, she has managed to create a lovely space to practice despite being in temporary accommodation. The nook adjacent to the kitchen where she paints is dappled with moodboard collages of Madeline Weinrib textile patterns, cutouts from the Laguna Art Museum, and miniature clippings of Cy Twombly and Henri Matisse works. On the wall is a tiny placard which reads, “Do it with passion or not at all” in an elegant font. Stacks of sleek and sumptuous art books anchor the boundaries of this makeshift studio at its imaginary borders. “I’ve never deviated from what I love. I collect art history books and I’m constantly reading. I read them every morning. They’re like novels to me. Some people read fictional novels, I read art history books.”
During this busy time in her life, she has also found comfort and support from the artistic community on the island. Of the other women, she says, “We are always encouraging each other. In one group, we draw the human figure every Thursday. We kind of experiment and do things we normally wouldn’t do because we’re not trying to sell it. We’re just trying to improve our craft.” And the meetings are a bit of welcome relief from all of life’s pressures. “It’s so fun to be with them, because we are all on the same plane.” Hamontree grew up in Greenville, South Carolina, then lived for a while in Los Angeles with her Californian husband. Eventually, life brought them back to Sullivan’s Island twelve years ago. She talks about the importance as an artist of having a supportive partner. “He defi nitely helps me and critiques me, and most importantly gives me time, which is not easy.”
Emily Brown
Time is a luxury for most women who are balancing an artistic passion with other major commitments — such as careers, home renovations, pursuing advanced education, those embarking on motherhood for the fi rst time, or those downsizing after their children are grown. Emily Brown has three daughters and space in their bright, contemporary home is at a premium. Her studio is packed up and she is moving to an art studio inside the new Collective. In her open, light-fi lled living room with orchids on the coffee table, she gracefully falls back into a velvet chair. “I’m excited!” she eff uses about the move. “I’ve always had my studio at home. I think it will be fun, and I think it will hold me accountable to paint more.” Originally from Mississippi, Brown lived in Memphis for ten years. She’s now been on Sullivan’s Island with her husband and their three daughters for just over a year. “We love it. It’s so relaxing.” It’s since arriving in the Lowcountry that Brown has really taken up painting. “I’ve always painted off and on. I have an art degree, I was a graphic designer for a while, I’ve dabbled in stationery and illustration and things like that,” but after settling here with all three girls in school she fi nally found she had the time to focus on painting. Several of her abstract works hang in the foyer and staircase. “That piece for instance,” she gestures to a monumental piece halfway up the stairs, “is a piece that I painted, and then painted again and again — until I fi nally ended up with what I like, with little pieces peeking through.” She named the work What Remains,, “because it’s what’s left over.” Brown says she visualizes her compositions before she even begins painting. She outlines each piece by sketching directly onto the canvas, then she beings applying paint in layers. She says she always works on more than one painting at a time, “Defi nitely. And that, to me, is how I achieve depth in a painting.” “My art has defi nitely changed since I’ve started painting. I’m not as scared of the colors and I’m not afraid to throw the color on there and let it be.” Her household is ruled by art and her other passion, cooking. “We’re either painting or drawing or cooking. We cook and make art.” Looking at the children’s drawings tacked up on the walls and doors, and the glitter stuck in the woodgrain of the farmhouse style kitchen table, it’s evident Brown’s creativity has fostered an artistic inclination in her daughters, aged 10, 9 and 5. “I’ve created monsters of my kids because they draw and paint and color — that’s just what we do. I must buy new markers every week!” Perhaps she is raising the next generation of female artists? “I hope so,” she says with a wink. Clearly she has chosen a perfect place to further her daughters’ love of art in Sullivan’s Island, alongside an evergrowing tribe of female artists. SiP
Janie Ball Sailing The Swells, oil on canvas 24 x 24
Lynne Hamontree, 30 x 30, oil on canvas
Susie Callahan, Boating Day, 10x10 oil on linen
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STEP BACK IN TIME ON
BULLS ISLAND Visit this untamed Island, a true jewel of the Lowcountry. By Stratton Lawrence. Photos by Cat Moye.
Captain Chris Crolley and author Stratton Lawrence look out from the observation deck toward the ocean, over Jack’s Creek pond. 66 | SiP
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From the beach at the north end of Bulls Island, Wild Dunes Resort is a speck on the horizon, eight miles south.
What keeps a place pristine is that it’s hard to get there. What keeps it even more pristine is if it’s hard to be there. CHRIS CROLLEY
But where Isle of Palms attracts visitors to its condos, swimming pools and paved bike trails, its neighbor to the north beckons thousands of avian travelers to its freshwater impoundments, undisturbed shoreline and intact maritime forest. “This is a story of visitation,” says Captain Chris Crolley, my guide on this unseasonably warm February day. “We are visitors, coming to see the visitors.” Bulls Island is part of the Cape Romain National Wildlife Refuge. At 66,287 acres, it’s the longest stretch of protected wilderness on the east coast of the U.S., and Bulls is its beating heart. The island is managed for animals, not for humans. The surrounding marsh and neighboring islands’ classification as a Class 1 wilderness indicates the area’s pristine air and water, putting it in a category only shared on the East Coast by Wolf Island in Georgia and parts of Acadia National Park in Maine. Its isolation and preserved state make Bulls Island a critical stopover and nesting ground for numerous species of birds. Visit in the early winter and you’ll share the island’s interior ponds with thousands of ducks. When they head south, neotropical songbirds fill the forest, before shorebirds descend on the beaches for the summer. Throughout the year, 293 different species of birds can be spotted on the island. That’s all in addition to the loggerhead turtles that rely on Bulls Island’s seven miles of beachfront to lay their eggs (nearly a quarter of the entire northern subspecies of loggerheads nest in the Cape Romain refuge), and the hundreds of alligators, deer, bobcats and non-migratory birds that occupy the island year-round. Crolley has been exploring Bulls Island for over 20 years, and his company, Coastal Expeditions, offers eco-tours and a public ferry to the island. Even after all that time, his visceral excitement for the place is still evident when he speaks. When we emerge from the woods onto a pond just as a peregrine falcon dives from a tree onto a flock of ducks, he’s in visible awe. “This is my Mavericks,” exclaims Crolley, comparing the island to the once-well-hidden surf break in California. “Now I’m excited to be sharing it with you.”
The Journey to Pristine
A trip to Bulls Island begins at Garris Landing in Awendaw, where the last few miles of rural road help prepare the mind to leave the traffic and concrete of the city behind. Once on the water, we follow a literal maze of tidal creeks across a wide expanse of salt marsh. Groups of American Oystercatchers — the endangered bird species that serves as an unofficial mascot for Cape Romain — wander the oyster beds exposed at low tide, waiting for their prey to open its shell so they can snatch out a salty, fleshy meal. “The oystercatcher is a bioindicator,” Crolley explains. “You have to have healthy water to have plentiful oysters. Around Cape Romain, we see more oystercatchers than anywhere else in the world.” The landscape as we cross Sewee Bay looks much as it did in March 1670, when Charleston’s first settlers, aboard the Frigate Carolina, made landfall on Bulls Island after crossing the Atlantic Ocean. Natives welcomed them to the island (then called Oneiscau) with their customary greeting of vigorously stroking their shoulders. The island was soon renamed by the English for Stephen Bull, an early settler and Colonel of the provincial militia. Even as Charleston grew into the metropolis it is today, 4,900-acre Bulls Island was mostly left to wilderness, likely due to its distance from the mainland. “What keeps a place pristine is that it’s hard to get there,” says Crolley. “What keeps it even more pristine is if it’s hard to be there.” 68 | SiP
Visiting Bulls Island Getting There Coastal Expeditions runs a Bulls Island ferry twice daily between March and November, and on Saturdays during winter. Round trip passage per adult is $40. In addition, there are eight two-night trips on offer annually, including meals and lodging at the Domenick House. Private tours are also available, and private boats are allowed to access the island via the public dock. Camping, dogs and fires are never allowed. See bullislandferry.com for ferry times and further details.
What to Bring Hiking shoes There are 16 miles of trails and seven miles of beach, so come prepared to walk. Plenty of drinking water Sunscreen and bug spray “You’re more likely to be sunburned, dehydrated or to step into a fire ant bed then you are to be bitten by an alligator or shark,” warns Coastal Expeditions owner and guide Chris Crolley. A bicycle If you’re an experienced rider a stubbywheeled mountain bike opens up more of Bulls Island to day trippers, but be aware that its perilous riding on sandy roads. Bring an extra tube and a pump, lest a cactus or sandspur leave you stranded. “Bulls Island is not recommended for novice bikers,” says Crolley. Lunch A long day in the wilderness will work up an appetite.
Help Preserve Cape Romain National Wildlife Refuge The most rewarding way to visit Cape Romain is to volunteer to help preserve it. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is seeking volunteers to help with the maintenance of facilities and grounds, assist with construction projects, relocate sea turtle nests and teach interpretive programs. Work opportunities are available on Bulls Island, at the Sewee Center, at Garris Landing and at the refuge’s other islands. To learn more about how you can get involved, call 843.928.3264 or email patricia_midgett@fws.gov.
Stratton Lawrence and Chris Crolley biking along the Beach Road.
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The boneyard beach at Bulls Island is constantly changing and growing, as new sections of forest are overtaken by the tide, and waves gradually smooth and wear away the branches of trees that now stand in the ocean. 70 | SiP
During the warmer months of the year, when mosquitoes hatch in prolific numbers from the freshwater ponds on the island, that’s certainly the case. Yet bugs didn’t stop New York banker Gayer Domenick from purchasing the island in 1925 and establishing it as a prime duck hunting retreat. He built the only house that stands today on the island, where a lucky handful of birders, photographers and nature enthusiasts get to stay on Coastal Expeditions’ weekend overnight trips to the island. Only a decade into Domenick’s ownership, the Great Depression helped prompt the island’s sale to the federal government, who recognized that a haven for migratory waterfowl, if maintained properly, would support those species’ populations up and down the coast.
Primordial Paradise
The ecosystem at Bulls Island extends into the sky and far below the surface of the creeks and ocean that surround it. Just before arriving at the island’s sole dock, our boat passes over a rare 70-foot-deep hole in a creek, evidenced by the hundreds of cormorants diving down to fish in the area. “When you get thermal layers of water stacked up like this, it’s like a singles bar and a buffet wrapped into one,” says Crolley, highlighting the biodiversity evident in a single area of salt water. The eclectic ecology continues on land. Once docked, we walk a trail that straddles the line between forest and marsh. To our right, plants like the wax myrtle and sable palmetto trees thrive next to juncus grass and sea oxeye daisy flowers in the marsh’s transitional hyper-salient zone. On our left is a young upland forest of loblolly pines and live oaks, still slowly recovering from the devastating effects of 1989’s Hurricane Hugo. “These are two completely different ecosystems, operating side by side,” says Crolley. “Look out one way and you see wading birds like herons and egrets. Turn around and there are warblers singing in the trees.” We meander down a grassy trail heavily adorned with the state flower, yellow jessamine, before eventually emerging on a beach naturally littered with decomposing pine, cedar and oak trees. Had people never built homes on Isle of Palms and Sullivan’s Island, those islands’ northern ends would likely resemble this boneyard beach, where the ocean slowly reclaims the forest, eroding its sand and soil and re-depositing it further south. “If you look at the size, shape and geographical orientation of Bulls Island and Isle of Palms, they are really sister islands,” says Crolley, pointing out that the awe-inducing boneyard beach we’re walking through is really no different geologically than the ever-eroding 18th green at Wild Dunes’ oceanfront golf course. After two decades of visits, however, Crolley claims he’s seen a noticeable increase in the rate of erosion in recent years. What was “two steps forward, three steps back” in the 1990s is now just steps back, with the rate of accretion falling far behind the rate of erosion. “I can come out here now after a week and not recognize the beach,” says Crolley. “A high tide with waves and a northeast wind is all it takes to change the landscape overnight.” The encroaching ocean is also visible at the 600-acre Jack Creek Pond on the island’s north tip, where a small embankment is only a year or two away from breaking and infiltrating the pond with salt water. A new causeway is almost complete across the middle of the pond, designed to sacrifice half of it to the sea and preserve the rest as a freshwater haven for birds, fish and animals. In the island’s interior, life is more stable. A grass causeway dubbed “Alligator Alley” lives up to its name, with over a dozen toothy reptiles sunning themselves as they have on this island for millennia. Coots, rails and morehens swim among stands of cattail, underscoring this rare abundance of freshwater on a barrier island. “This is the real undiscovered Charleston,” Crolley exudes. “People think of carriage tours and fine dining when they visit here, but let’s get out of the bars and restaurants for a day, get up early and really do something. That’s my dharma — to facilitate a high-integrity, safe experience with nature.” The Isle of Palms and Sullivan’s Island are already surrounded by the natural world; one only needs to walk onto the beach or gaze across the marsh to experience the spectacle of nature. But a visit to Bulls Island takes our appreciation of the place we live to another level, serving as a reminder of how each of our barrier islands — including those that humans inhabitat — would look and feel like if we had never developed them. That’s an awe and an awareness we can bring back to the islands where we live, and a worthwhile reason to visit Bulls Island. SiP
Had people never built homes on Isle of Palms and Sullivan’s Island, those islands’ northern ends would likely resemble this boneyard beach, where the ocean slowly reclaims the forest, eroding its sand and soil and re-depositing it further south.
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Sue Widhalm (left) and Arlene Southerland (far right) in a parade for the dedication of the Women’s Vietnam Memorial in Washington, DC, on November 11, 1993. 72 | SiP
CAREERS OF ADVENTURE, COMMUNITY FOR LIFE
Four servicewomen sailed abroad to save lives, and brought leadership, friendship and fellowship to our islands. By Delores Schweitzer.
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Whether singing in choirs, crewing a sailboat across the Pacific, dragon boat racing, ringing tower bells, or showing up every day as part of the Turtle Team, there’s a set of local women who know how to be team players. Among them they’ve started the Wild Dunes Yacht Club, organized Friends of the Library book sales, conducted Girl Scout adventures to barrier islands, and continued to work well beyond a comfortable retirement package. But hear them when they get together at Morgan Creek Grill, a favorite hangout, and references to Desert Storm, Vietnam, Guam, the Philippines, London, Okinawa, Marianas Islands come out in casual conversation. Suddenly you realize these are women who have led extraordinary lives beyond the Lowcountry. Joining the military represented opportunity for Navy Captains Linda Daehn, Arlene Southerland and Sue Widhalm, and Commander Alice Bova. While women always provided critical nursing support in times of war on ship and shore, it was not until 1908 that Congress established a permanent U.S. Navy Nurse Corps, allowing women to formally serve in the Navy. From that first group known as the “Sacred Twenty” onward, career possibilities grew as women served in positions of increasing responsibility during wartime, and humanitarian efforts in times of peace. These four women are just some of the exceptional service members that forged their own path abroad and at home, in service and in our communities.
Photo by Steve Rosamilia.
Setting a New Course
Top Retired Navy nurses, Arlene Southerland, Alice Bova, Linda Daehn and Sue Widhalm still enjoy a sailor’s life on Southerland’s sailboat “Serenity.” Opposite page From top to bottom: Alice Bova’s friends in the British forces during Operation Desert Storm on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, 1990. Arlene Southerland in a welcome home parade for Operation Desert Storm in Jacksonville, Florida 1990. Arlene Southerland participates in Cold Weather Training in Bridgeport, California in 1991. Alice Bova (fifth from left) during nighttime medevac flight nurse training in San Antonio, 1990. Rustic working conditions on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, where Alice Bova was stationed during Operation Desert Storm, 1990. 74 | SiP
For these four Navy Nurses, the call came in different forms — seeing family members’ service in action, seeking adventure or education. But the promises of the recruitment office soon gave way to the realities of military life. Frequent moves to stations in big cities and backwaters, lots of classes and practicums, and increasing responsibilities kept life interesting. Despite the constant challenges and rewards of the work, the women agree that a major challenge of military life is not getting too comfortable. Changing duty stations every two to three years is not uncommon — but it’s a lifestyle that can be appealing, if it means a unique location or an advanced career opportunity. “The moves were always on orders, although you could request an assignment that was available if you met the qualifications for the position,” Widhalm explains. “Sometimes you got it and sometimes you didn’t. In the end, you just went where they needed you.” With duty stations changing so often, a system of camaraderie evolved in the Navy Nurse Corps (NNC) to help with the transitions. “Back in the 70s, a woman could get married but was required to get out if she got pregnant,” Bova explains. “Some left after a few years, but many of us stayed for careers and never married.” For those that stayed, Bova says, “we were all in the same boat — coming and going all the time. Every time you moved there was a party sending you off and a party welcoming you to the next duty station.” Southerland recalls arriving at Port Hueneme in Ventura, California, only to discover there was no vacant base housing. “I called the Nurse Corps officer sponsoring me, and she offered her house for 30 days while she was on leave and traveling with her fiancé. I had never met her, but I walked in and she gave me the keys to her house. It was that kind of trust everywhere you went.” Outside of the job, worldwide travel also meant adventurous perks. Widhalm’s siblings loved her assignments because it gave them a new place to visit. Southerland picked up a lifelong hobby of sailing while stationed in Spain. Daehn loved the culture, customs and art on her two tours of Japan, as well as the amazing scuba diving off the Great Barrier Reef, Palau and Truk while stationed in Guam. And Bova found herself on the remote island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, passing the time fishing, hobnobbing with the British forces and playing beach volleyball in between flying medevacs during Operation Desert Storm.
I was ‘married’ to the Navy. I gave most of my time to my job and whatever the organization needed. - Sue Widhalm Finding a Forever Home
It wasn’t surprising that a love of the water, island living and cultural enticements made Charleston a draw for these women when it came time to hang up their uniforms. All had been stationed at the Charleston Naval Hospital at one time during their careers, where the nursing family was strong and community opportunities were plentiful. Bova bought property on Isle of Palms in 1992 — a fixer-upper that needed lots of help, thanks to Hurricane Hugo. She kept the house when she was posted to Portsmouth, Virginia, finally returning to the Lowcountry with her adopted daughter, Liann, when she retired from the NNC in 1998 with over 25 years of service. Bova has since worked for two decades at Roper Hospital, MUSC and Trident Tech while pursuing hobbies in singing and dragon boat racing. Motherhood has meant sharing her enthusiasm and organizational skills as a troop leader for the Girl Scouts and as officer for the Charleston School of the Arts Booster Club, where her daughter majored in violin. “My Navy ‘family’ helped me raise my daughter,” Bova says. Liann, now majoring in nursing at the University of South Carolina, “will introduce my Navy Nurse friends as her Navy Nurse family.” Southerland never planned to settle here, but over the years, she invested in real estate as she moved. When she needed a home for her sailboat, “Serenity,” a joint property and boatslip at Wild Dunes fit the bill. The place grew on her, and when she retired after 30 years, she quickly found other outlets for her energy, including the Turtle Team, tower bell ringing at Stella Maris, golf, service in the Coast Guard Auxiliary, and ticket management for the Family Circle Cup (now Volvo Car Open) tennis tournament. Southerland’s love of sailing never ebbed. She tells tales of crewing for friends with sailboats as they moved along the coast and even across oceans. Ten years ago, she talked some of her neighboring boat owners into starting the Wild Dunes Yacht Club, which combines education and socializing on sea and shore. She proudly reports the initial group of 20 has grown to just under 200 members in 2016. Daehn similarly wanted an active retirement with friends nearby, and Charleston fit the bill. Retiring with 29 years of service in 2002, she used her newfound free time to explore volunteer opportunities with organizations like the Turtle Team. “It tuned me in to the wildlife and natural beauty of our barrier islands,” she says, noting that she also works with the Charleston Horticultural Society’s annual plant sale, Plantasia. Additionally, she volunteers 16 hours a week with the Charleston Friends of the Library, having served on its board and in leadership roles over the years. She fills in her remaining time with travel and involvement in the national and Palmetto Chapter of the Navy Nurse Corps Association.” Widhalm, who always wanted to be stationed in Charleston, was “absolutely thrilled” when she finished her Executive Officer tour in Guam and was selected for Command at the Charleston Naval Hospital. She retired in 2006 with 31 years of service and now lives in Wild Dunes, where she volunteers with Hospice of Charleston, plays golf, sails, sings in the Stella Maris choir, and gives special love and attention to her dog sitting charges. Widhalm also champions the NNCA, for which she was a charter member: “I was ‘married’ to the Navy. I gave most of my time to my job and whatever the organization needed.” Far from widowing these nurses at retirement, the NNCA advocates for retired and active duty nurses, collects stories of veterans and celebrates the contributions of nurses in the military. All four are involved in the organization’s local and national leadership. Through their work with the NNCA and beyond, the Navy values of Pride, Patriotism, Integrity, Discipline and Camaraderie continue for Bova, Daehn, Southerland and Widhalm. Their equally active and adventurous lives prove their lifelong mission of service and leadership. SiP
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Frankly my dear, I want to come home Bestselling author Dorothea Benton Frank, one of Sullivan’s Island’s most famous daughters, doesn’t live here anymore. But she’s looking to change that. She invited SiP inside her new beach home, with which she hopes to lure her husband into an idyllic life by the sea. By Jennifer Tuohy. Photos by Steve Rosamilia.
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Home.
It’s a simple word but a powerful one. For Dorothea Benton Frank, the pull toward home was so strong she became a New York Times bestselling author just so she could return to hers. The need to go back, to return to a time or a place — often the Lowcountry — is a dominant theme in Frank’s novels. From her first, Sullivan’s Island, to her latest, All Summer Long and Same Beach, Next Year, her protagonists grapple with returning, be it to a shambles of a beach house, a long-lost first love or the place of their birth. But don’t let this theme fool you into thinking you’re going to read a self-indulgent sob story when you pick up a Dottie Frank novel. It’s just the opposite. Frank’s writing is like the woman herself; vivacious, intelligent and above all, side-splittingly funny. Her wit is worthy of a stand-up comedy routine — but in its home on the pages of her novels her humor is free to run rampant, losing only her gorgeous Southern drawl in translation. Frank follows in the trope of all good Southern writers however, ruthlessly mining her own experiences for her stories, and like many of her characters, Frank didn’t see that home was where her heart needed to be until it was almost too late. A Long Road Home Her story started the moment she left Sullivan’s Island in 1969. Desperate to get away from what she saw as a suffocating place, she pursued a highly successful career in fashion retail — first in Atlanta, then San Francisco and finally New York. But when her mother, Dorothea Blanchard, passed away in 1992, her despair and the impending sale of the family home at 2424 Middle Street, drove her to a new career, one she hoped would provide her with the funds to buy that home. As is often the case for the protagonists within her pages however, something rather important stood in her way — her husband. She had met investment banker Peter Richard Frank in New York, married him and settled down in Montclair, N.J., where she had two lovely children. “He told me if you want your mother’s house you need to go get off your fanny and buy it yourself,” she says. “‘Because I’m not going to spend my money to sit down there and listen to your crazy family tell the same stories over and over again.’” Her solution, like any good Southern-bred girl, was to do exactly as she was told. Her first novel, Sullivan’s Island sold over a million copies and landed at #9 on The New York Times bestseller list. While she was too late to buy her mother’s house, she was able to buy herself a beach house, then upgrade that one, and today she is settling into perhaps one of the most spectacular homes on the island. “It’s a shame it’s sinking into the ocean,” she says. “Nothing wrong with it that eight billion dollars won’t fix.” But to her it’s perfect. “I leave this big mess of civilization in New Jersey and trickle down, until I finally get here to the tip of the island.” WWW.SiPMAGAZINESC.COM | 79
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“I do not want to be buried in New Jersey. I do not want my obituary to read ‘of Montclair, New Jersey.’ I want it to say ‘of Sullivan’s Island.’” - Dorothea Benton Frank
A Million Dollar Money Pit Built in 1850, Frank’s beach house is one of the oldest on the island. “It was used as a Civil War barracks, so they say it has ‘historic significance,’” Frank says, with a deep sigh. That historical significance has thrown up some roadblocks in her quest to remodel the house. “It wasn’t built as a barracks and I don’t know who slept here, it certainly wasn’t George Washington. Honestly, I think it’s been taken apart and added on to so many times that all the historic significance is gone. It’s a wooden house by the sea, it’s falling apart. It’s very sad really.” She channelled her frustrations with the house, and with her husband’s refusal to move from New Jersey to Sullivan’s, into All Summer Long, published in paperback in May. Her heroine is a New York businesswoman and the husband is a dreamy academic who grew up on Sullivan’s Island. They made a deal that when he retired they would move to Sullivan’s, renovate a beach house and settle into life on the sleepy island. The parallels to Frank and her husband are not accidental. “I want to come back,” Frank says with passion. “But my husband’s got his fingernails in the asphalt at Newark airport. He continues to work, and looks like he’s never going to stop. I’ve told him 5,000 times I do not want to be buried in New Jersey. I do not want my obituary to read ‘of Montclair, New Jersey.’ I want it to say ‘of Sullivan’s Island.’ I tell him ‘I didn’t marry you to live in New Jersey for the rest of my life so you’ve got to get me out of here.’” She’s certainly created the most idyllic escape to lure him with, in the big white house at the tip of the island, where the container ships battle with the yachts for dominance, passing so close you feel like you could reach out and pluck them off the water. “The tour boat to Fort Sumter comes by every day on the hour and turns around at our house,” she says. “It’s so close I can hear the guide on the loudspeaker. One time he said ‘That’s where all the rich people live.’ I shouted back, ‘Honey we ain’t rich anymore, we sunk all our money into this hellhole of a house!’” Despite her claims that the remodel is just “lipstick on a pig,” the home is spectacular and the view isn’t too shabby either. “We will never get tired of this place,” she says seriously. “And we will certainly never get tired of this view.” She has saltwater in her veins and sand stuck between her toes, and Sullivan’s Island always will be a part of her. “When I come across that causeway somehow I’m a girl again. When I’m here I sleep better — simple things become extraordinarily exquisite,” she says. “Woody Wood [who also grew up on Sullivan’s] asked me if he’d missed anything by staying here on this island all his life. And my answer was no. He had not missed anything of real consequence. Everything you really value in this life is right here on this little sandbar.” A Truth To Tell Returning to something once lost may be the recurring theme of Frank’s work, but exploring a truth that needs to be told is the purpose behind her writing. Speaking a truth about their own lives to her readers is one of the reasons Frank’s novels are so successful. She doesn’t sugarcoat life’s challenges, she tells it like it is, in all its gory, technicolor glory. Frank chews up and spits out tired stereotypes and reimagines that literary vision of the Southern woman as a downtrodden creature with a beautiful face but who’s a mess inside.
She brings us the new Southern woman, and puts the steel firmly into her steel magnolias. Her female characters are strong and by the end of the book fully in control of their destinies. “I’ve come to the conclusion that my characters, particularly the protagonists, are really my bathroom mirror personality — it’s what you would say if you were not going to be penalized for it. Those crushing punishments of dismissal that you get in the South.” “This society is still very much a patriarchy,” she says. “I like to think of myself as looking at the world today a little bit like Jane Austen did three hundred years ago. It was always tongue-in-cheek. In one way we we sort of blew it with feminism, we set up ourselves up for something that’s almost impossible. How can you be a CEO, have five children, have a perfect home, a perfect second home, a husband who adores you, and have great sex three nights a week? It ain’t happening, honey.” Honesty is tangible in the words on her pages, and that truth to be told more often than not hits home hard. In her newest novel, Same Beach, Next Year, that truth is the danger of assumptions: How easy it is to make them, but how likely you are to be wrong. It also explores heritage — one character returns to her mother’s homeland of Greece, a place she had pushed away from since her mother’s death, and rediscovers the importance of family, understanding where you are from and how that shapes who you are. “The first half of the book is about thinking one thing, the second half is thinking the other,” Frank says. “Things are not always what they seem.” Same Beach, Next Year is inspired by Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner, which follows the friendship of two couples. “I wanted to look at long-term friendships and how you save each other. If you’ve got a great friend who can help you solve a big problem that’s something to hang on to,” she says. Frank’s two couples meet each year at Wild Dunes on Isle of Palms. The story follows their intertwined relationships, including how the secret that two of them were once lovers finds its way out. “I first read Stegner 25 years ago and the story always stayed with me,” Frank says. “At this point in my life I’m looking back at what has mattered to me. That’s a legitimate message to other people: ‘Maybe you better pay attention to how you’re spending the rest of your time.’” Heritage features strongly in Same Beach, Next Year, and delving into Frank’s is worthwhile. “Some woman has done my genealogy — I couldn’t care less,” Frank says. “Lots of people around here glide on their ancestors’ laurels — I’m not in that camp.” The research revealed that Frank’s family has been in Charleston for over 300 years. “Going back, back, back, there’s somebody who was in the original colony from The Mayflower,” she says. Her father, William Oliver Benton, Jr., was born in Savannah, but his family settled in the Walterboro area in the 1700s, sometime before the American Revolution. Her mother, Dorothea, was part of the Blanchard clan and her grandmother a McInerny, two prominent Catholic families on the island. (“The Blanchards and McInernys have just been getting married too much, to each other!”) Frank was born downtown and grew up on the island, “Like a little Geechee brat running round the island barefoot picking blackberries and wild palms and sliding down the hill fort on cardboard.” With such deep roots on the island perhaps it is surprising Frank has written 18 books but no memoir. “Never,” she says without hesitation. “Because if I start naming names there’ll be a lot of suicides in town.” Frank plans to be back home for good within the year, and the addition of the first grandchild, due this summer to her daughter and son-in-law who live on Johns Island, will certainly hasten her return. It’s a return every islander who knows and loves “Dottie” will look forward to (after all, about half of them are related to her). She brings a wonderful sensibility to life here, along with a healthy dose of self-deprecating humor. “When I move back, I’m going to lead a movement for Sullivan’s Island to secede from the United States,” she says with a twinkle in her bright blue eyes. “There’ll be no dog rules, no guns allowed and we’ll open the drawbridge once a week to go out for supplies. Other than that we’re all going to live here in peace and quiet. A big love-in right here on Sullivan’s Island.” SiP WWW.SiPMAGAZINESC.COM | 81
I
THE CHARLESTON L GHT: A STORY OF PAST & PRESENT
Photo provided by National Park Service 82 | SiP
The
lighThouse on
direcTion To Those
sullivan’s island on The sea — iT’s
provides more Than a marker of hisTory and
communiTy To Those ThaT live among iT.
By amy s. mercer.
Tower informaTion
Tower heighT: 140.00' focal plane: 163' acTive aid To navigaTion: Yes laTiTude: 32.758 N longiTude: -79.843 W
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LIGHTHOUSES LINE THE EASTERN SHORE, FROM MAINE TO FLORIDA. PEOPLE TRAVEL LONG DISTANCES ALONG TWISTY COASTAL ROADS TO REACH THE TALL, STARK TOWERS THAT GUARD OUR SHORES. Climbing the ladders inside the narrow walls of a lighthouse is an adventure, and so too, is coming down from the top to stand beside the lighthouse and listen to the waves crash against the shore. As a child, I spent many summers in Maine daydreaming about life as a lighthouse keeper after watching the cold ocean barrel toward the lighthouse and swiftly recede. Romance, mystery and a little bit of fear are wrapped together in lighthouse daydreams. Those who have been lucky enough to sleep beside the ocean and watch the beam of a lighthouse light pulse in and out against their bedroom walls understand the allure. Those who’ve navigated their route with the steady beat of a lighthouse also know the allure. The lighthouse on Sullivan’s Island is a marker of history and home for residents of the island.
FIRST LIGHT
“The rocky ledge runs far into the sea, And on its outer point, some miles away, The Lighthouse lifts its massive masonry, A pillar of fire by night, of cloud by day.” - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The first Sullivan’s Island lighthouse was destroyed during the Civil War. After the surrender of forces in Charleston in 1865, a temporary skeletal light was established, against the owner’s wishes, on the roof of a private house on Sullivan’s Island. In 1868, Congress approved $15,000 to re-establish lighthouses that had been destroyed in the war. The lack of lighthouses was crucial for sailors, because aligning two fixed points on land provides a navigator with a line of position called a “range.” Ranges can be used to precisely align a vessel within a narrow channel such as a river. The closer light is referred to as the “beacon” or “front range;” the furthest away is called the “rear range.” The rear range light is almost always taller than the front. The United States Lighthouse Board wanted to construct a pair of range lights on Sullivan’s Island, the government owned land at Fort Moultrie, so it was decided to place the lighthouses there. The first range guided vessels through the South Channel, whereas the second range guided vessels through a channel between the shore and the south jetty, which was under construction. In the Annual Reports of the Lighthouse Board, these sets of range lights became known as the Sullivan’s Island Range Lighthouses. The range lights at Sullivan’s Island were decommissioned in 1933, leaving only the Morris Island Lighthouse nearer James Island to mark the way to Charleston’s shores.
BRINGING BACK THE LIGHT
To continue to mark the Charleston Harbor, construction of a new lighthouse had begun in 1960 on the northern side of the harbor. The government had established a lifesaving station on the island in 1895, and it was decided to use that location for the lighthouse. A group of engineers was struggling to create a design and “making a mess of things.” “My officer called me up and said, ‘why don’t you give it a try?’” architect Jack Graham says, who was working in D.C. for the U.S. Coast Guard at the time. Graham, now in his eighties, was 23 years-old when he designed The Charleston Light and just a few years out of college. He’d majored in architecture at the University of Pennsylvania in the 1950s and studied under Louis Kahn, who was one of the most important architects of the 20th century. In 1958, a year after he graduated, Graham enlisted in the Coast Guard and went to boot camp in Cape May where he worked on designs for the 84 | SiP
Cape May lighthouse. From there he was recruited to work in the Coast Guard’s headquarters in D.C. When he was asked to take over the project in Charleston, he used the lessons he’d learned from Kahn to create a triangular shaft perched on a hexagonal base and with a hexagonal lantern level. Th is shape would be capable of withstanding hurricane-force 125-mph winds. Graham was discharged soon after he completed the project and says he never got credit for his design. “It wasn’t built for two years and no one contacted me to let me know. I found out when I saw a picture of the lighthouse in a magazine.” The lighthouse was fi rst illuminated on June 15, 1962, and was said to be “one of the most powerful lighthouses in the Western Hemisphere.” Its beam was produced by six separate lights mounted on an aluminum base, which weighed 1,800 pounds. The six lights produced 28 million candlepower, which was said to be visible for 70 miles at sea. “That’s where the saying ‘the lights never set on Sullivan’s Island’ comes from,” Graham laughs. It was painted red and white but according to Graham, the paint quickly turned to a pinkish color that everyone hated. Residents complained about the bright lights and the paint color and their complaints were heard. The light was reduced to 1.5 million candlepower in 1972. Even with this reduction, the light is still visible for 26 miles on a clear night.
A DIMMER FUTURE
In 1975, the Coast Guard automated the lighthouse and removed the keeper. In 1986, the National Park Service took over most of the lifesaving service property for use as temporary housing, offices and storage, however, it did not get ownership of the lighthouse. In 2008, the lighthouse was transferred from the Coast Guard to the National Park Service. “The Coast Guard sold off most of the lighthouses by that time because they were too expensive to maintain,” David Browne, Officer in Charge, USCG ANT Charleston, says. Today, the Coast Guard continues to check and maintain the navigational light itself (see sidebar), but the National Park Service is who ensures the lighthouse remains standing, and keeps its place as a local structure of historical importance. The lighthouse isn’t open to the public, but the Park Service celebrates National Lighthouse Day each year by opening the grounds and nearby U.S. Life Saving Station boathouse to the public. Th is year the event is scheduled for August 6, 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. The boathouse is of particular interest also. One of the few remaining historic life saving stations on the East Coast, it is slated to become a museum commemorating the Life Saving Service, which became the U.S. Coast Guard. In this time of constant change it’s reassuring to look to markers of history like the Sullivan’s Island lighthouse and its historical surrounds. We may no longer be able to scale the ladder to the top and access the view from above, but we can gather around it. We can gaze up at the black and white tower and daydream. And sometime in the near future, we can wander inside a newly minted boathouse museum to view archives of our maritime history. SiP
Trevon Scott and John Dugre inspect the equipment they use to maintain the light. Photo by Steve Rosamilia
MAINTAINING THE LIGHT
The Coast Guard, stationed near the Battery in downtown Charleston, houses the Aids to Navigation Team that services the light. Trevon Scott, lighthouse technician, spent months training for this role that includes climbing towering heights in tight spaces and extreme temperatures. He is trained to conduct periodic “change-outs” of the lights inside the tower and says “climbing the ladder is no joke.” The elevator, one of the features that made the lighthouse unique when it was first built, is no longer functional. The guys suit up with face masks and cover-ups to protect them from the asbestos inside. The job takes about an hour and Scott says that includes about 20 minutes of climbing. There are a series of ladders to ascend before you reach a platform with the main control box that contains motor switches for the lights. “It gets hot in the summer and there’s a wasp nest. Wasps do not play. Their job is to terrorize,” he says. When I asked if he’d been stung he said “No, because I fight!” Scott’s first stop on his climb is at the platform to check the wiring, and if everything looks okay, he continues up another ten feet to the main rotating beacon light. Inside this space is a door to access the walkway on the exterior of the tower. “When I go outside on the walkway I can see the whole beach,” Scott says. He doesn’t linger because it’s a precarious job and the catwalk sways in the wind. “Even when it’s not windy you can feel it move.” Technology advances have made lighthouses less significant, but there is a nostalgia factor that appeals to people, David Browne, Officer in Charge, USCG ANT Charleston, says. “And the view is unparalleled.”
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MAKING A HOME ON
Dewees The journey from falling in love with Dewees to living life on Dewees, as shared by the Anderson family. By Amy S. Mercer. Photos by Steve Rosamilia.
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There is a richness that comes out of a slower design process — in some situations we would do well to take that idea more seriously.
- Stephen Anderson WWW.SiPMAGAZINESC.COM | 87
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From the moment you step off the ferry at Dewees Island, you realize you are in another world. Golf carts replace cars, wildlife is abundant and the absence of the buzz of civilization soothes the soul. A private, 1,200-acre oceanfront island just north of the Isle of Palms, Dewees boasts two and a half miles of unspoiled beaches. No parking battles, no crowds, just a wide stretch of sand textured with unbroken shells and an eagle’s nest in sight. It’s the kind of place that inspires visitors to make an offer on a lot or a home on their very first visit. Jim and Anne Anderson were those sort of visitors. They first arrived in this paradise in 1997. They were living in Charlotte, North Carolina, where Jim worked as an OBGYN and Anne ran a real estate office. Frequent visitors to Charleston, they had never made the trip to Dewees — even though Anne had kept a brochure about the island in the trunk of her car for years. The first time the Aggie Gray ferry transported them to the island however, they knew they’d found their forever home. Within three years they retired, got married and began building a house on the barrier island. BECOMING DEWEES Inhabited since the 1600s, the island become the property of Cornelius Dewees sometime in the mid-1700s, when he started a ship-building business there. During the 19th century, census records identify the next generation of Dewees owners as farmers, oystermen and carpenters. In the early 1900s, the Huyler Family discovered Dewees through an ad in The New York Times, and relocated there until Coulter Huyler died in 1955. The following year the Huylers sold to a group called RS Reynolds, of Reynolds Metal (aluminum), who purchased Dewees and Capers as an investment and hunting resort. In 1972, the islands become the property of Wateree Development Corporation, out of Camden, organized by Ed Royall, and renamed “Seewed.” In 1975, a conservation easement was placed on the land, and the state of South Carolina bought nearby Capers Island. The entire tract would only ever have 150 homesites and would be lightly developed. In 1991, Island Preservation Partnership took over the development of the island and designed the master plan that exists today. By 2003, the island was completely governed by the Property Owners Association, a board of nine elected volunteer members who serve in staggered three year terms.
The ferry is the core of the community because that’s where you sit together for 15 minutes and talk about where the fish are biting.
- Anne Anderson
Opposite page Top left: the ground floor hallway. Top right: entering the upper floor living space. Bottom: Jim and Anne Anderson (looking at photos of building their home on Dewees) WWW.SiPMAGAZINESC.COM | 89
DESIGNING A DREAM When Jim Anderson started dreaming up plans for his island home, he knew he wanted to build it himself. He told his son, Stephen, that he was going to the family farm in the North Carolina mountains to mill the wood to build the house. His son told him he was crazy. “That’s all it took,” Jim laughs. A tall, lean man with white hair and Paul Newman blue eyes, Jim spent a year working in the North Carolina woods, harvesting wood. This rangy looking outdoorsman is clearly comfortable in the wild. There wasn’t any heat in the cabin on the farm, but Jim shrugs it off as a small matter. The bigger issue however, was that he knew nothing about working with wood. “Jim was handy, but he was not a woodsman,” Anne says with a smile. “I really wanted to make the flooring for the house, so I had to learn what’s involved. I read trade magazines and it opened up a whole new world,” he says. “I cleared an area on the farm, created a 20 x 30-foot shop and started accumulating power tools.” These tools included a logging winch, kiln, band saw, planer, and multitude of other tools. Jim lived on the land for a year and spent every day logging, cutting, drying and perfecting the wood. “I was in the best shape of my life,” he laughs. The work was challenging, but he never doubted himself. While Jim toiled away in the woods, Anne continued to work in Charlotte. It wasn’t until he finished the shop work and rented a house on Isle of Palms, that she officially retired and joined Jim in the Lowcountry. Despite his skepticism, Jim’s son, a professor of architecture at Temple University in Philadelphia, agreed to design the house on Dewees. “At that time I was a pretty green project manager, and not in the good way!” he says. “So it never would have worked without Jim and Anne’s laudable patience.” A lot of long phone conversations, express delivery of sketches and the occasional flight followed. Although the back and forth posed some challenges, Stephen believes the design benefited from the attenuated timeline. “It reminds me of the slow-food movement — there is a richness that comes out of a slower design process — in some situations we would do well to take that idea more seriously.“
Top: Anne standing on the “suspended hallway.” Bottom: Jim admiring the view from the exterior deck. 90 | SiP
DIFFERENT BY DESIGN Entering the house the first thing you notice is what looks like a bridge, but is actually a suspended floor that is the structure’s spine. “You should see it when the light is filtering through from the upper living space into the darker corridor below, or feel the spring of it,” Stephen says. “There is something about it that feels uncertain to me, but buoyant, like a long dock projecting into deep water.” The design feels like a series of decks. Different textures and shades of wood shape the interior, from cherry, walnut and poplar (a soft hardwood readily available in North Carolina). Stephen focused on accentuating the character of the lot they eventually chose, trying to design the house to complement the natural surroundings. “I was suspicious of solutions that would result in something like a green suburban home on stilts, and
also of stereotypes like the typical beach house,” he says. Dewees is unique, and so the house on Dewees should be too. The island experience became intertwined with the building. “I tried to work the experience of the island, its atmosphere, its recurring details, the rhythms of hot and cool, sun and shade, vectors and meanders, precision and pause into the living of the house.” A CHALLENGING LOCATION Once the design is complete, the next challenge of building a house on Dewees is timing and coordinating deliveries. “You can’t just run to Lowes if you forget a tool, so your contractors need to understand the process and be really efficient,” Jim says. Everything needs to be brought to the island on a barge and each barge trip adds extra cost. Another important factor is learning from your neighbors. Reggie and Judy “The Mayor of Dewees” Fairchild built their house in 1999 and say the entire process took about 22 months. “The logistics of planning materials and staging them while using a barge create a sort of detailed dance that might add some time,” Judy says. “But it is always entertaining. During the design and review process, you really think about those trees and the site plan so that your house will be situated for prevailing breezes as well as views, and the way the live oaks provide shade and frame the view makes the fi nished product that much more special.” The Dewees community is a tight-knit one. There are currently 16 houses occupied full-time, and everyone is on a fi rst name basis. While island living gives you privacy to be creative, company is here if you want it, says Anne. Jim agrees, saying they hardly knew their neighbors when they lived in Charlotte but neighbors on Dewees are like family. “You know when someone has breast cancer, you know when someone is having trouble with their kids. We depend on each other,” Anne says. “Sometimes the island kids show up with gift s or to ask to borrow eggs. The ferry is the core of the community because that’s where you sit together for 15 minutes and talk about where the fish are biting.” As Jim and Anne speak about the importance of community, their neighbor Diane Kliros, knocks on the door with a paint sample in her hands. Diane is the island’s Arts Council president and she and Anne are trying to decide what color to paint the exterior of the Huyler House. Huyler is where you go for cocktails on Friday night, or quilting workshops during the week. It has tennis courts, a pool and suites that are rented to property owners, guests of owners, or visitors who receive a referral or sponsorship from an owner. Most importantly, the Huyler House is a gathering place helping to build relationships that become community. Island living is not for everyone. There are mornings when the only one to share the eagle sighting is with your dog, afternoons when you walk the length of the beach without seeing another soul, and nights so quiet all you can hear is the sound of the waves. If this sounds unappealing, you probably won’t be one of those visitors who longs to stay when it’s time to go. For the rest of us, the dream of building a house on Dewees will linger long after we’re gone. SiP WWW.SiPMAGAZINESC.COM | 91
The table at The Bea’s Nest is set for a scrumptious Lowcountry feast. 92 | SiP
ENJOY A FEAST OF
Local Flavor
Create a locally sourced Lowcountry feast right in your own home (or that big, beautiful kitchen in your vacation rental), and eat like a true local. By Stratton Lawrence. Photos by Hunter McRae.
F
ew places can claim a true, endemic food culture. In the Lowcountry, we’re blessed to be one of them. From oyster roasts to shrimp and grits, several American culinary traditions have their roots right here. But Charleston’s cuisine scene has evolved far beyond those ubiquitous items. As the downtown restaurant Husk first demonstrated, eating exclusively local no longer demands any sacrifices — it just requires selective sourcing. Sampling local ingredients is especially easy for residents and visitors to the Isle of Palms and Sullivan’s Island, thanks to restaurants like The Obstinate Daughter, shops like Simmons Seafood and local entrepreneurs like Melissa Bowman and her gift box curation company, The Blue Root. Bowman, an Isle of Palms resident, long-time caterer and culinary school grad, gathers together goods from local purveyors and craftspeople to create The Blue Root’s custom gift boxes. To inspire residents and visitors alike to whip up some local Lowcountry cuisine, we asked Bowman to create a quintessential Lowcountry feast that you can easily replicate in your own home or vacation rental.
We gathered at The Bea’s Nest, a seasonal vacation rental on the Isle of Palms. The wide community counter and open indoor/outdoor floor plan allowed everyone to be part of the food preparation action, including Bowman’s two young children, and husband, Ty. Over a sunny afternoon of cooking and conversation that flowed between the kitchen and outdoor dining table, we explored and prepared a bounty of locally sourced provisions. The results? Mouth-watering deliciousness. All of the ingredients here can be found on the islands or nearby in Mount Pleasant, or The Blue Root’s boxes offers a collection of purveyors to start your culinary exploration. “The boxes really evolved on their own, based on meeting people and finding out the stories behind these products,” Bowman says. Although our feast is worthy of mimicry it also shouldn’t be limiting. Whether you catch a red drum or sea trout on a fishing charter, or spot a basket of berries you can’t resist at the farmers market, there’s boundless creativity possible with ingredients sourced from the Lowcountry.
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SOUTHERN CHEESE PLATTER WITH PICKLED SHRIMP
Bowman admits that when she first encountered pickled shrimp on a downtown menu, she was skeptical. “I thought it was the strangest thing,” she recalls. Curiosity got the best of her, however, and an order was placed. “It blew my socks off. I thought to myself, ‘This is the best thing I’ve ever tasted.’” At home, Bowman started tinkering with recipes to nail the perfect blend of spicy and tangy. The best part about pickled shrimp? “It’s really easy, and can be ready in 20 minutes.” Her method includes okra, peppers, shallots, cucumbers, mustard seed and dill. For our feast’s arrangement, Bowman served shrimp from Simmons Seafood with a well-aged cheddar, a blue cheese and a dry jack from Counter Cheese Caves, a local distributor and favorite on menus at The Obstinate Daughter. Accoutrements included pecans from Holly Hill’s Molly & Me, benne wafers, a homemade jam made with green tomatoes (“I try to use them in ways that aren’t fried,” says Bowman) and a sweet potato mustard from Mount Pleasant’s Jack’s Cosmic Dogs.
The Menu
Southern Cheese Platter with Pickled Shrimp Spring Salad Honey Basil Glazed Ribs Farmers Market Squash Gratin Lemon Sugar Cookie Strawberry Trifle
Ingredient curation and preparation: The Blue Root, theblueroot.net Location: The Bea’s Nest, 716 Carolina Blvd., Isle of Palms, beasnest.com Tablescape styling: Liz Martin of The Charleston Weekender, thecharlestonweekender.com Yellow pineapple stirs and Turkish tea towels from The Charleston Weekender Dapper animal plates provided by West Elm Centerpiece designed by SYG Designs
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Quick Pickled Shrimp Boil 2 tbsp Old Bay seasoning 1 tbsp kosher salt 1 yellow onion, halved 1/2 lb shrimp, medium to large wild-caught Brine 2 cups water 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar 3 tbsp Tabasco green chili pepper sauce 1 tbsp Botany Bay sea salt 2 tsp sugar Juice of 1 lemon Jars 4 sprigs of dill (2 per jar) 10 slices of cucumber (5 per jar) 8 thin strips of red bell pepper (4 per jar) 1 shallot, peeled and quartered (2 per jar) 5 okra, halved lengthwise (divided between jars) 1 tsp whole mustard seed (1/2 tsp per jar) Other 2 16-ounce glass jars with lids Directions In a large pot of boiling water, combine Old Bay seasoning, salt and onion, and boil for five minutes. Add shrimp and boil for two minutes. Remove shrimp and immediately place in a bowl of cold ice water. In a large bowl, combine water, vinegar, Tabasco, sea salt, sugar and lemon juice; stir until sugar is dissolved. Equally divide shrimp and remaining herbs and vegetables between jars. Top each jar with pickling marinade and seal with the lids. Lightly shake and then store in the refrigerator for 20 minutes before serving.
The Southern Cheese Platter with Pickled Shrimp assembled by Melissa Bowman.
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SPRING SALAD There’s no need for salads to be complicated, says Bowman — just stick with what’s in season and embellish with a favorite soft cheese and a homemade dressing. Our salad, served in March, included radishes, fresh green peas (quickly blanched), mini cucumbers, beets and lettuce. “All of these ingredients can be found at the farmers market,” says Bowman. That’s good news for island residents, thanks to the new Thursday farmers market in front of the Edgar Allan Poe Library on Sullivan’s Island. Bowman finished her salad with feta cheese and a versatile herb vinaigrette. Although ours featured basil, any seasonal herb on hand will work just as well.
Vinaigrette
1/4 cup olive oil 1/4 cup fresh white wine vinegar 1 tbsp chopped fresh basil 1 tbsp lemon juice 1 garlic clove, minced 1 tsp sugar 1/2 tsp table salt 1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper Directions Combine all ingredients in a jar with a lid. Shake vigorously until well combined.
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HONEY BASIL GLAZED RIBS Thanks to the addition of the New York Butcher Shoppe (a Mount Pleasant-based regional franchise) on the Isle of Palms, it’s now possible to bring home top-shelf cuts without leaving the islands. Bowman chose a hearty rack of pork ribs for the centerpiece of our feast, generously coating them in a dry rub of garlic powder, salt, pepper, coriander, basil, cayenne and brown sugar. Although ribs are often smoked, Bowman chose to bake hers, a method anyone can replicate at home. But before cooking — and intermittently during the process — the meat received a generous brushing with a reduction made from Bee City honey and Cannonborough Beverage Company’s Honey Basil soda.
Honey Basil Glaze
Pour 3/4 bottle of Cannonborough Beverage Company’s Honey Basil soda into a pot at medium/high heat until it’s reduced to 3/4 cup of syrup. Add a tablespoon of local honey immediately upon removing the pot from heat, and finish with a few fresh basil leaves to amp up the flavor. Drizzle over dry-rubbed ribs before wrapping ribs in foil and baking at 225 degrees Fahrenheit for four hours. Uncover, re-glaze with a brush and cook again for 40 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit, reglazing every 15 minutes.
LEMON SUGAR COOKIE STRAWBERRY TRIFLE Bowman is a huge fan of Charleston’s Grey Ghost Bakery lemon sugar cookies, especially because they’re so versatile. The cookie company offered up this strawberry trifle recipe that Bowman was more than happy to adopt. Combined with farmers market strawberries, lemon curd and honey-flavored Greek yogurt, these cookies become a decadent dessert.
FARMERS MARKET SQUASH GRATIN If you’re like most farmers market shoppers, there’s a squash, zucchini or onion hiding at the back of your produce bin. Gratins are an easy, quick way to assure these staple veggies don’t go to waste. “I almost think of it as a cottage dish,” says Bowman. “It’s so simple but so good.” Her preparation begins with Lowcountry Olive Oil, and then cooking onions down until they are translucent. She lines the bottom of a baking dish with onions and then adds “a pretty layer of squash and tomatoes over it,” all pre-tossed in the oil and Botany Bay sea salt. Panko bread crumbs are sprinkled over the top, along with salt, pepper, thyme and parmesan cheese, before a quick bake in the oven. No recipe required — be creative.
Mousse
1 cup heavy cream 1 cup full fat honey-flavored Greek yogurt 1 11-ounce jar lemon curd Directions Beat cream and yogurt in a medium bowl until medium peaks form. Place lemon curd in another medium bowl, and gently fold whipped cream mixture into lemon curd, one third at a time.
Trifle
2 lbs. strawberries (or other berries), hulled and sliced Juice and zest of one lemon 1/4 cup honey 1 dozen Grey Ghost Bakery Lemon Sugar cookies 1 cup heavy cream Directions Place half of the berries in a bowl. Add the lemon juice, lemon zest and honey, and gently mash the berries with the back of a fork. Let sit for about 10 minutes. If berries give off a lot of juice, drain so that just the mashed berries are left. Spoon a little of the lemon mousse into the bottom of a glass bowl or dish, depending on the dish’s capacity, with multiple layers in mind. Top with a layer of the cookies, again subdividing based on the size and depth of your dish — break the cookies if needed to fit evenly in the dish. Top that with a spoon of the strawberry mash, and some of the sliced strawberries. Continue layering until you reach the top of the dish. Refrigerate for two hours, or up to overnight. When ready to serve, whip cream until medium peaks form. Spoon whipped cream onto the top of the trifle, and garnish with strawberry slices and more crushed cookies. SiP WWW.SiPMAGAZINESC.COM | 97
ISLAND ‘FARMERS’
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On our barrier islands, residents who take to the salty, sandy land often share its wealth with their neighbors. Ranging from the sweet treats of buzzing bees and the fruits of a backyard garden to temperamental chickens and their eggs, friends of farmers get to share in the goodness of growing. By Holly A. Fisher. Photos by Steve Rosamilia. WWW.SiPMAGAZINESC.COM | 99
Clockwise from top left: Eric Dodson shows off his bees’ bounty. Lucienne and Stella Fletcher watch as Sydney Langley cuddles her mother’s last remaining chicken. Seth Rice inspects his fast growing tomato plants seedlings.
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Busy with Bees
isit Eric Dodson’s creekside home on Sullivan’s Island and he’s quick to pour you a small jar of honey complete with his “Back Creek Honey” custom label. Of the 10 gallons he collects each year from his backyard beehives, Dodson bottles most of it up and gives it away to neighbors and friends. He started out three years ago with one hive and added another the next year. He keeps Italian bees, which are more docile — smart seeing how the hives (80,000 bees in each) are only about 20 feet from the family’s swimming pool. Dodson say the trick is making sure the queen bee doesn’t mate out of the hive, or he could end up with a more aggressive breed of bee. It’s happened before, so he keeps a close eye on the queen, replacing her every two to three years, which is when her storage of eggs runs out and she’s ready to mate again. Dodson is fi lled with fascinating bee facts like that. He tells me that the queen lays one egg every four to eight seconds, meaning she lays
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Adventures with Chickens
ast year Clydie De Brux thought it would be fun to surprise her daughter, a local kindergarten teacher, with four chicks. Her daughter was not amused, and the chicks ended up in her Sullivan’s Island home. “I was thinking in 18 weeks we would have some eggs and it would be so much fun,” she says. “But I had three roosters and a hen because you don’t know the sex until they grow up.” Still, she’d been bitten by the bug, so she hopped on Craigslist and found six hens for sale in Jedburg, creating a coop of one Bantam rooster and six huge Rhode Island Red hens. Raising chickens has been an adventure for De Brux, especially when she had to load them into the car and drive to North Carolina to escape last fall’s Hurricane Matthew. Then she had to deal with a chicken-stealing opossum. And let’s not forget her monthly trip to Tractor Supply Co. for food, corn treats and pine shavings. “I could have bought 10 dozen eggs with what it’s cost me to preserve these chickens,” she laughs. Each afternoon, De Brux or her husband collect the eggs from the
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more than her body weight in eggs every 24 hours. The female bees are the workers, and the males die after mating. The hive is about 95 percent female and those bees are the ones collecting the pollen as well as fluttering their wings to fan the hive if it gets too hot. The females put in a lot of work in a short time. Their life cycle is just 28 days and each bee produces less than a quarter of a teaspoon of honey during her lifetime, Dodson explains. But with thousands of bees in a hive, the honey adds up. He usually harvests the honey three times a year — late spring, summer and again in the early fall. It’s plenty for his family with enough extra to share. Dodson would love to see more people put hives in their backyards because of the incredible benefit bees have on the environment. The initial cost to start the hives was about $500, he says. And it’s not a large time investment. The bees really do all the work, and the family simply collects the bounty.
coop — about four each day. It’s enough for them and a few to share with friends and her priest who lives around the corner. Plus, it makes for entertaining stories. “Never in my life would I have thought I would do this,” De Brux says. “It has elicited much conversation and humor: Clydie in her high heels goes out and tends to her chickens!” Another Sullivan’s Islander with her share of chicken stories is Rita Langley. Langley bought six chicks four years ago, initially raising them in her dining room. Her daughter and some neighbor children came up with names like Apple, Miss Emily and, of course, Chicken. She’s now down to a single hen — shared between Langley and her neighbor who has a coop in her backyard. Neighbors consider Blackie a sort of freerange community chicken. Blackie hasn’t laid an egg in six months, Langley says. She’s stressed — and why wouldn’t she be? She’s the lone survivor. Langley’s daughter — who’s now off to college — and her 7-year-old neighbor are clamoring for additional chickens, but Langley’s not sure yet. She may pass the torch. A sign in her home reads: “I was normal a dozen chickens ago.”
With Veggies, Sharing is Caring
hile keeping chickens is prohibited on Isle of Palms, residents are still putting their land to good use. Clay Cable has been gardening at his home since he moved to the island in 1957. A self-described “certified country boy,” Cable grew up in the hills of North Carolina and most of his family had farms and gardens, growing everything from cabbage and corn to apples and pears. Half of Cable’s backyard is dedicated to his vegetable garden of cabbage, kale, potatoes and green onions plus his plum, pear and fig trees. He and his wife eat from the garden, while sharing the extra with neighbors — often in a pick-your-own style perfect for this laid-back island community. Also on IOP, Seth Rice started out with several container gardens in his backyard. He’d buy five or six tomato plants only to have most of them shrivel up and die. So he decided to grow the plants himself from seeds. He set up a makeshift greenhouse with growing lights in the room over the garage. The fi rst year he planted 72 tomato seeds and all of them
sprouted. He researched how to keep them going, and by that April had 72 good-sized tomato plants. “I got on the phone, Facebook, called friends and said, ‘Come on over and take your pick.’” A few friends traded tomatoes for collards they’d grown and a veggie swap was born. Over the last few years, Rice has continued growing his tomato plants from seed, increasing the number each year. He’s even growing a few heirloom seeds his wife picked up during a visit to Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello. He keeps about a dozen plants and shares the rest. “I took them to work, I took them to anybody who was interested in growing them,” Rice says, who works at Whole Foods. “It’s a kind of feel-good thing.” Rice compares his tomato project to raising his two daughters, now in their early 20s. “It reminds me of these little kids I bring up and then send them off to college and they go through their lives and they produce. It’s been fun and therapeutic. It’s good for the mind.” SiP
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10 Steps to Beach Baby
Bliss New parents writer Stratton Lawrence and photographer Hunter McRae share their top tips for getting the most out of beach time with baby in tow.
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eagulls, crabs, gentle lapping waves — there’s a lot going on at the beach to keep your baby entertained for hours. But what about sand, sun and big, scary waves? With a few precautions, a bit of know-how and some smart planning, heading to the beach is a fantastic way to bond with your baby. After all, those gently lapping waves can remind them of being in the womb, so you may see your baby return to a state of fetal bliss. For a three-monthold, the perpetual motion machine of ocean waves is perhaps the only sight more entertaining than a ceiling fan. Plus, you’ll give them early exposure to nature, building an appreciation for being outdoors that can help them develop a healthy lifestyle as they mature. However, infants under six months old shouldn’t get direct sunlight or use sunscreen, and sun exposure should be limited even with older babies. Sand is also a factor — it only takes sitting your baby down for five seconds and turning your head to spend the next quarter of an hour picking sand out of a screaming infant’s eyes and mouth. So how do you ensure that family beach day is a pleasant experience that builds happy memories, rather than leading to a stressful “never again” drive home in traffic? We’ve got you covered with this handy 10-step guide.
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1. Schedule Your Fun
Although some parents of infants may still be able to wake up, make a leisurely brunch and ask, “Feel like going to the beach today?” we’ve yet to meet them. First, be willing to substitute the “beach day” of your past for “beach morning” or “beach evening.” Fortunately, this means you can get an early start and skip traffic going and coming. Likewise, it’s better to avoid the heat of the day with an infant in tow, so plan on heading back home or somewhere inside for lunch, or waiting until late afternoon to head out to the beach.
2. Create Shade
3. Make a Play Pit
If your baby is old enough to play but not big enough to walk, make them a play pit by digging a shallow hole and putting a blanket over it. You’ll keep the sand off them while containing them. Obviously, build this in the shade of your umbrella.
4. Pack and Be Prepared
Even if you’re a lifelong sun worshipper, now that you’re a parent, it’s time to invest in a quality beach umbrella. The inexpensive ones at the grocery store are difficult to get into the sand, and will likely blow away if it’s windy. Get a sturdy one, ideally made of canvas, or invest in a tentlike pop-up shelter. When you get to the beach, set it up immediately. Put baby under it and make it their spot for the day. It’s your home base, but it’s their safety canopy. Likewise, bring loose cotton clothes for your baby that cover their arms and legs, plus a wide brimmed hat, in case you decide to take a
Beach Baby Essentials
walk. You may not mind a little burn now and then, but it’s irresponsible to take that risk with a baby’s delicate skin.
Just getting out the door as a new parent suddenly goes from “Wallet, keys, phone,” to “Diapers, wipes, bottles, pacifier, food, stroller, stroller adaptor, change of clothes … let’s just stay home.” See “Beach Baby Essentials” below for list of things you need.
5. Invest in a Beach Wagon
You’re no longer traveling light. Get a big-wheeled wagon so you can bring the kitchen sink without cursing in the process.
Blankets or tapestries to keep baby off the sand Big beach towels Swim diapers. If your baby is old enough to take a dip, bring diapers designed for it
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Sunscreen, 30 SPF or higher (applied pre-outing, but used for top-ups)
Bumbo. If you have one of these handy chairs, they’re a perfect way to keep your baby out of the sand while freeing your hands
6. If You Have To, Pay To Park
Whether you have to run back to the car or make a quick exit, it’s helpful to have your car close by. The days of driving around for 20 minutes searching for the perfect spot or parking five blocks away to save a few dollars are over. Maximize your enjoyment and park as close to where you’re setting up shop as possible.
9. Introduce Salt Water, with Care
7. Bring Adult Food
There’s a cardinal rule of parenting: Never wake a sleeping baby. Whether nap time has miraculously occurred on the beach or everyone is simply having fun, don’t let hunger cut your day unnecessarily short. While restaurants aren’t allowed to deliver onto the beach on the Isle of Palms and Sullivan’s Island, there are many within a short walk, so one of you can pop off to grab a bite to eat for the family, but packing a lunch is also a wise idea, especially if you are solo. If things are going well, that will let you stay put and enjoy it.
8. If You Stroll, Do It Right
Most strollers on the beach are a nightmare. Don’t be the parent that
Something to serve as a windbreak in case sand is blowing (a big cooler can work)
A change of clothes and a spare swimsuit
other people chuckle at as they schlep their kids through the sand on tiny wheels. However, a high-quality jogging stroller is worth its weight in gold on the beach. We run several miles a week pushing one through the sand — just keep to the hard-packed stuff and keep salt water off the wheels, or your next trip won’t be nearly as fun.
Forcing your baby to “enjoy” entering the ocean probably won’t instill a lifetime appreciation for the ocean. Let them learn to love the sea at their own pace. But definitely wade — the salt and magnesium in ocean water can clear stuffy little noses.
10. Adjust Your Beach Day Expectations
In reality, you probably won’t get through several chapters of your Dorothea Benton Frank novel when bringing your baby to the beach. But you will get a chance to see their wonder as they experience new things. Make this about them. And “this” may be an hour instead of a day. Make a plan, be flexible with it, and enjoy the magic of your baby’s trip to the beach. SiP
A cooler with baby food and/or milk Thermos full of warm water if you’re mixing formula If your baby is old enough, floaties, toys, buckets, etc.
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SecretS From
the
Chefs
You know you’re a local when… you don’t have to look at the menu to know what you’re having for dinner. Leave it to the chefs to create something that they love and leave it to your neighbors to tell you about it. Restaurants give us the scoop on their one-night specials, off-menu items and secret stories. By Margaret Pilarski. Photos by Minette Hand.
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“It was the kitchen staff bringing carnitas in on Sunday mornings from North Charleston. That was my first time being exposed to anything like that, really authentic.” - Jimmy Lasher WWW.SiPMAGAZINESC.COM | 107
Crossing the Border For Home Team BBQ Chef Jimmy Lasher, it was some back-of-house authenticity that inspired a unique front-of-house special not listed on the menu — carnitas. “Honestly it was the kitchen staff bringing carnitas in on Sunday mornings from North Charleston. That was my first time being exposed to anything like that, really authentic. We all fell in love with it,” says Lasher. Every weekend the staff would gather and share Mexican pork tacos before shifts, a tradition that still holds now that Lasher adopted a recipe to leverage the restaurant’s own pulled pork — different from its existing chicken, pork or bean tacos. For the carnitas, Lasher explains his take on the dish: “We get our pork nice and crispy and keep it simple with a fresh salsa verde, cotija cheese, pickled red onion and cilantro, garnished with a lime wedge.” Lasher says the Home Team staff gives the unlikely dish a thumbs up. “We still make a couple to share at the beginning of shifts,” he says. The Home Team take on carnitas is a winner for locals as well — word on the street is that the Sullivan’s Island Southern barbecue joint sells out most days, sometimes by midafternoon, so aim to make your way to Middle Street for a south-of-the-border fix for lunch.
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Two for One, Every Day For those who can’t decide between two favorite menu items, Chef Mike Eckert of The Boathouse on Isle of Palms has a simple solution — flounder stuffed with crab cake, topped with chipotle cream and your choice of two sides. “You’re basically getting two entrees for the price of one — I think that’s the selling point when people can’t decide between fish or crab cakes,” he says. As for sides, “grits and collards are my go-to,” says the chef. The dish is wildly popular despite not being listed on the menu; in fact Eckert says it was one of their top three entrees sold last year, merely through word of mouth. The dish is available every day, as are the highly desirable water views. Eckert says tables are first come, first served though, so while the dish may still be available later in the evening, he suggests you plan on arriving early for a window seat. One other way the restaurant is close with its waterways? The restaurant is a partner of the South Carolina Aquarium’s Good Catch Program, pledging to serve sustainable seafood whenever possible. Eckert says the flounder is locally caught most of the time, and if not, it’s from our North Carolina neighbors.
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“It's a great combination of salty, spicy, sweet and savory.” - Will Fincher
Flavor with a Hint of Fame The team at Sullivan’s Island’s pizza, pasta and raw bar haven The Obstinate Daughter prides themselves on frequent menu turnover. “We try to change our menu often and seasonally to keep it fresh,” says Chef de Cuisine Will Fincher. But one of the inaugural menu offerings from the restaurant’s opening in 2014 was “The Dottie,” a sweet and spicy woodfired pizza named after a friend of the restaurant — island resident and writer Dorothea Benton Frank — and locals didn’t stop ordering it when it disappeared from the menu a year after opening. While the restaurant only serves a few Dotties each month to locals that remember the pie, the ingredients are still the same: a mix of Anson Mills and imported Italian flours, 24 hours of cold fermentation, house sauce made from olive oil and imported tomatoes, house-pulled mozzarella and pickled spicy peppers, all topped with fresh La Quercia prosciutto and drizzle of sorghum. “It’s a great combination of salty, spicy, sweet and savory,” says Fincher, who recommends pairing Dotty with the Planeta Rosé, made from Sicilian Syrah grapes. “It’s a nice light balance to all that’s going on with the pizza. Sometimes you just need something to clear the palate between slices and a crisp rose does just that.” 110 | SiP
TGIT at Acme For Isle of Palms locals, Acme Lowcountry Kitchen is a tried-and-true favorite with an expansive menu that’s heavy on both classic and inventive seafood dishes. Co-owner Rodger Tully says their range of menu is by design. “When people like it, we keep it on the menu,” he says. But there’s one caveat for those in the know — Thursday night’s lobster special. With a tip from your server (or Facebook, if you’re following the restaurant on social media), you’ll be in the know as well. Three lobster tails and two sides total up to $24.99 on their one-night-only lobster special. While the restaurant used to list it on the menu, it eventually transitioned into a special offered on Thursday evenings as long as quantities in the kitchen keep up with diner demand. “When have a good amount of locals that like something, we find a place for it,” says Tully, even if it’s limited to one glorious night. While the lobster hails from Maine, the majority of Acme’s seafood items support local fishers and farmers, thanks to the restaurant’s partnership with the South Carolina Aquarium’s Good Catch Program. SiP
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Rising staR: island
songbiRd takes flight
Haley Mae Campbell grew up running along the shores of Isle of Palms’ beaches. Now she’s rocking Lowcountry music venues with her catchy, alt-country music. By Anne Harris. Photos by Steve Rosamilia.
I’ll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up Not me! Not I, Not me! According to Isle of Palms native and rising star Haley Mae Campbell, singing this iconic song from Peter Pan as a young child is one of her first memories of falling in love with music. "It kind of became my anthem,” she laughs. It’s a sentiment that a lot of children growing up on the islands can relate to. After moving from New York, Campbell and her sister, Jillian, were initially homeschooled by their mother and spent a lot of time roaming the beaches, exploring all that the Lowcountry has to offer. “There was no sitting in classrooms — we were definitely spoiled growing up here,” Campbell says. Although there was no one musical in her family, Campbell’s mother encouraged her daughters to pursue the art. Jillian played the piano while Campbell got her start in musical theater. She quickly discovered that while acting was not in her wheelhouse, singing and performing definitely were. 112 | SiP
Campbell enrolled at the School of the Arts in middle school, and got her first real taste of what would eventually become her career came when she performed in the eighth-grade talent show. Her original song on the pressures of middle school was a hit with her peers and gave Campbell an adrenaline rush that she’s been chasing ever since. Campbell credits the start of her career with something of a Christmas miracle. As a fourteen-year-old, Campbell wrote an original song about the very un-Christmas weather that all Lowcountry children know all too well. She was invited to sing live on air with Y102.5’s Brian Cleary. “I was so nervous,” Campbell laughs, “I was sitting in this guy’s office, playing my ukulele!” Despite the nerves, Cleary saw something in Campbell. “Along with her talent, Haley Mae Campbell has that fire, the desire to fulfill her career goals, and a 100 percent commitment to doing what she needs to succeed,” Cleary said. He became invested in her career, introducing her to others at 103.5 WEZL and before long Campbell was playing at Party in the Park and opening for big name artists including Sheryl Crow and The Avett Brothers at local festivals. Campbell continued to craft her own original songs and released her first album, Hugs & Disses, in 2015. The entire debut record was recorded
over five days in Nashville, and even though the songs were her own, the process was mostly in the hands of others. That realization, and the resulting “manufactured, popcountry” vibe of the album, led Campbell to decide to go in another direction — one that felt more authentic to her. The next time around, Campbell knew she wanted the freedom to try out all of her different artistic moods, yet still come together to make an album that defi nitely sounded like Haley Mae Campbell. Last year Campbell teamed up with another local artist, her drummer Ben Sewell, whom she has known since middle school, and began writing again. “I think writing with someone gives you a whole other dimension,” Campbell says. “You are able to bounce ideas off of each other and really hear what works and what doesn’t.”
“
Breathtaking Fresh Views Seafood
There is nothing like hearing one of my singles on the radio when I am not expecting it. - HALEY MAE CAMPBELL
Campbell and Sewell brought in local studio engineer Joey Cox and recorded her newest album, EP Phone Home, right here in Charleston. EP Phone Home was met with widespread praise, The Charleston City Paper going so far as to say, “sometimes the growth of an artist can startle you.” Several of the singles, including Campbell’s personal favorite, Evergreen, were picked up by local radio stations. Another of Campbell’s favorites is her latest single, Lose My Number, released in January and available online. “There is nothing like hearing one of my singles on the radio when I’m not expecting it,” Campbell says, a huge smile on her face. As Campbell’s star continues to rise, she credits much success to the place where she was raised. “Charleston may not be known for its music scene, yet. But we’re getting there. Kind of ‘come for the food, stay for the music,’ I hope!” Her personal ambition and will to succeed is what will take Campbell where she wants to go. “Haley Mae is really focused on her singing and songwriting, and always improving, “ Cleary said. “I've known her for more than 5 years now, and she gets better each time I see and hear her perform. In the end, not everyone makes it. But Haley Mae has the talent, and I hope that her hard work and efforts pays dividends at some point in the near future.” With a new album already in the works, Campbell again plans to stay local and record in the Lowcountry. “I’m working on the mood of the album. I’ve got about six songs done, so I hope to have something by late spring or early summer.” With a work ethic like that, maybe against her wishes, it seems that Campbell is very much growing up. Hear Haley Mae Campbell’s music online at music streaming service Spotify or haleymaecampbell.com SiP
Since 1997
Sun. Brunch 11am-2pm
Dinner served nightly at 5pm
843-886-8000 101 Palm Blvd, Isle of Palms, SC www.boathouserestaurants.com
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FROM SUNRISE TO SUNSET OUR PICKS OF WHAT TO DO ON IOP
Whether you’re daytripping, vacationing, or living on Isle of Palms, this stunning island community offers generous amenities and gorgeous vistas paired with hometown vibes. I’ve been known to while away an easy afternoon on the beach at IOP, but this time I took one for the team and spent a whole day exploring with loved ones, including my adventure-loving rescue dachshund, Rooney. By Margaret Pilarski. Photos by Minette Hand.
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7 A.M. SUNRISE ON THE COAST
It’s seven in the morning and I’m already in need of a nap, but there’s no time for that when the sun is creeping up over the Atlantic. One popular spot to catch the sunrise is at the Isle of Palms pier, but let’s be honest – the sun’s gonna rise no matter your location. If you’re oceanside already, throw on some flip-flops and wander out to a soft spot in the sand. Overachieving early bird? Lace up those running shoes if it’s low tide and take a lap before the crowds take over.
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9 A.M. LIGHTNING BUGZ IN THE DRIVEWAY
Absolutely crucial for a gal on a mission: transportation. Mark Thorn’s Lightning Bugz rentals are low-speed vehicles that are street-legal and delivered upon reservation. While golf carts lack lights for nighttime, slow traffic to a crawl, and aren’t allowed on main roads, Lightning Bugz have lights and go up to 25 mph, giving you legal access to roads with signed speed limits of 35 mph. (They also have seat belts!) While there are a few more distinctions between golf carts and LSVs, both require a valid driver’s license and insurance, and both are great ways to explore the island.
11 A.M. PAWS APLENTY
12 P.M. HEAD EAST
With Rooney worn out, it’s time for a new point of view. Take a picnic pack out toward the water and claim a spot before the brunch crowd makes it out. In my experience, a big beach mat ever-so-slightly minimizes the how-did-sand-get-everywhere feeling, plus there are fewer opportunities for scalding-hot sand on toes and paws. A makeshift tent and a pop up water bowl for Rooney, SPF and sunglasses for the humans and we’re ready to relax, read, and jump in the water when it gets hot. Don’t forget – during the summer dogs must be leashed after 9 a.m., even in the water.
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With caffeine intake at acceptable levels and four hours of the day gone already, it’s time to socialize. For my dog, that is. The IOP Dog Park on 29th Avenue is a magnet for personalities – both four-legged and two-legged. Hounds, retrievers, mutts and tiny fluffballs play, run and sniff at this sociable spot. Regulars to the dog park know each other’s pups and personal lives, but newcomers and visitors are welcomed with open arms and slobbery kisses. (From humans and dogs, respectively, of course.) My rescue dachshund Rooney likes to sniff the entire perimeter before ferociously digging to nowhere, while my significant other, Matthew, catches up with the unofficial human mayor of the dog park, Joe Stubel.
10 A.M. COFFEE, STAT.
Watching a sunrise really takes it out of a woman. Knowing I’ve got a whole day ahead of me, I put the pedal to the metal and cruise over to The Refuge for a to-go coffee to power me through the day’s itinerary. They’ve got coffee, lattes, and signature drinks like their Mexican Mocha, plus bagels and pastries. If you don’t make it for breakfast, bookmark them for lunch.
11:45 A.M. ROUNDING UP BEACH READING
On the way out of the dog park, I let Matthew say goodbyes and untangle the dog leash while I dart over to the IOP Recreation Center’s free library. The library is a collection of books that residents and visitors have donated and books are loaned out on the honor system. I snag The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks to prepare for the new film based on Rebecca Skloot’s truelife science tale and find a Bill Bryson classic for Matthew. Want to read stories inspired by the locale? IOP writer Mary Alice Monroe’s Beach House For Rent is set on the island, making it a perfect summer beach read.
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3 P.M. CHEERS!
Breezy tables and a gin and tonic put the proper amount of bite into postbeach life. After dropping Rooney off in the air conditioning, Matthew and I take the cart over to Morgan Creek Grill to kick off happy hour along the Intracoastal Waterway. The restaurant’s Upper Deck is the perfect spot for to indulge - although any hour along the water with a cocktail is happy. Later in the evening, the restaurant will be filled with the sounds of live music.
1 P.M. SCOPING OUT SHELLS
Getting antsy at the beach? Sitting still and sweating isn’t for everyone. Hop to it and walk the tideline for new finds. Occasionally you’ll come across a sand dollar or a shark’s tooth, but more often you’ll see plentiful whelks, lettered olives, cockles, oyster, conch or clam shells. Put them in a loose pocket and then leave a note for the next beachgoer.
6 P.M. WALK THE BLOCK
The Front Beach area of IOP – Ocean Boulevard between 10th and 14th – is a quick stroll, perfect for peoplewatching and scoping out next stops. There are some gift shops sprinkled throughout, great for souvenirs or beachy necessities that visitors may have forgotten to pack. If you’re feeling frisky, head over to The Windjammer for a game of volleyball or see who’s playing on the deck that evening.
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7 P.M. QUICK DIP INTO THE DINGHY
We make a quick detour to The Dinghy right before the sun starts to set. This corner spot has a long bar with plenty of high-top tables, a screened patio where the live music sets up, and an outdoor patio with community tables and games. We choose brews and rustle up some bean bags for a game of cornhole.
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5 P.M. CONES FOR THE ROAD
I scream, you scream, everyone screams for ice cream – including my mom, Sylvia. In preparation for a walk around IOP’s Front Beach, I meet Mom and we sidle up to Island Joe’s Ice Cream & Espresso. The tiny outpost has walk-up windows for ordering and tables along its two patio areas in case you order something requiring concentration, like a banana split or a sundae to share. Mom and I keep it simple with Strawberry and Mint Chocolate Chip scoops so we can walk and talk.
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8 P.M. WIND DOWN AT SUNDOWN
As the sunlight starts slipping away, we finish up our beers and walk back toward the ice cream shop where there’s a generous beach access walkway. From here you can make your way to the water and have a full view of the IOP coast. To the left, Wild Dunes and the lush lure of Dewees Island. To the right, beautiful Breach Inlet and Sullivan’s Island. Our next stop? Anyone’s guess. For now, sunset marks a day well spent on Isle of Palms.
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SiP SCENE Southern Culture on The Skids performing at The Windjammer.
VIBES &
VOCALS
Local musician Marci Shore takes a tour through Isle of Palms and Sullivan’s Island live music hotspots to bring you the lowdown on the vibes and vocals to be found on the sea islands this season. Photo by Steve Rosamillia.
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BANANA CABANA thebananacabanasc.com, 1130 Ocean Blvd., Isle of Palms, 843.886.4360
Vibe Beachfront with an authentic island vibe. The Banana Cabana, opened in 1990, is family friendly, and has something for everyone, serving up seafood, classic American cuisine, quesadillas, pizza, and festive, frozen cocktails. Vocals Live, acoustic music outside by the bar, just steps away from the beach. Call for schedule.
COCONUT JOE’S coconutjoes.biz, 1120 Ocean Blvd., Isle of Palms, 843.886.0046
Vibe Location, Location. Coconut Joe’s is
beachfront on Isle of Palms, and serves up breakfast, lunch and dinner, and breathtaking views of the beach and sunsets from its rooftop tiki bar. Under the same ownership, Island Joe’s, in front of Coconut Joe’s, serves up fun, fair-like foods such as ice cream, coffee drinks, funnel cakes, and hot dogs.
Vocals For their 15th season, Mystic
Vibrations will be on the rooftop bar on Sundays for “Reggae on The Roof ” from 1:30 – 5 p.m. Local group, Flying Buganskis, play throughout the season alongside other artists on the rooftoop, on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings.
THE DINGHY TAPROOM AND KITCHEN dinghyiop.com, 8 J C Long Blvd., Isle of Palms, 843.242.8310
Vibe Key West meets the Isle of Palms.
tries and breakfast sandwiches in the morning, creative sandwiches by day, upscale menu and cocktails by night. Located in the same shopping center as the Harris Teeter grocery store.
Vocals Live acoustic music for Sunday brunch and most Wednesday-Saturday evenings 7 - 10 p.m.
THE WINDJAMMER the-windjammer.com, 1008 Ocean Blvd, Isle of Palms, 843.886.8596
Vibes No frills — no problem. Always
a Jam Good Time to be had at this Isle of Palms Institution. It’s a favorite with locals and tourists alike, since 1972. If you’re staying on Front Street on Isle of Palms, the Windjammer is within walking distance.
Vocals Acts scheduled for this summer include: Sister Hazel, Cowboy Mouth, Edwin McCain, The Groovy Cools.
DUNLEAVY’S IRISH PUB dunleavysonsullivans.com 2213 Middle St, Sullivan's Island, 843.883.9646
Vibe Celebrating 25 years in business. Visit this family operated pub for your fi x of Irish fare and frivolity. Large booths make it a great setting for groups. Vocals In season, there likely will be music Friday, Saturday nights, and some Tuesdays, featuring local acoustic and blues musicians.
HOME TEAM BBQ hometeambbq.com, 2209 Middle St., Sullivan's Island, 843.883.3131
Sharing the same owners as The Windjammer, The Dinghy is a proud dive bar that has come into its own in its fi rst few years of operation. The kitchen slings out a tasty variety of seafood, appetizers, salads and sandwiches.
Vibes High energy, buzzing crowds and
Vocals Live, acoustic music most nights of the week in season, 7 - 10 p.m. These artists are among the lineup: Donnie Polk, Craig and Jeff, Gracious Day, Sunflowers and Sin and Josh Hughett. Check the website for full schedule.
Vocals Music starts late, 10 p.m. most Friday and Saturday nights. Check the online schedule. You’ll likely hear blues, bluegrass or Americana/rock/country by national, regional and local touring talent. Selwynn Birchwood, Matt Woods w/Jeff Shepherd, Indecision, Davis Coen, Danielle Howle, Five Shot Jack, Ken Chappell, Another Country, Shonuff, Monjah, Marvelous Funkshun, Locust Honey, The Low Counts and Bonnie Blue, are among the lineup for this summer.
MORGAN CREEK GRILL morgancreekgrill.com, 80 41st Ave., Isle of Palms, 843.886.8980
Vibe Waterfront dining beside the Isle of Palms Marina. Family friendly location for fi ne dining and fabulous views on the Intracoastal Waterway. Vocals Some of the best local musical
talent perform at Morgan Creek on Friday, Saturday, some Sundays usually starting at 5 p.m. Songwriter Thursdays May-July feature all original music.
THE REFUGE therefugeiop.com, 1517 Palm Bvld. Isle of Palms, South Carolina, 843.242.8934
Vibe Gourmet fare at reasonable prices in
an elegant setting. Coffee bar, bagels, pas-
Trust Your Vacation Home to the Island Experts
nationally acclaimed BBQ. Home Team BBQ on Sullivan’s Island has become a hub for the locals and tourists, and a popular spot for watching whatever sport is being hyped at the time.
MEX 1 COASTAL CANTINA mex1coastalcantina.com/sullivans-island, 2205 Middle St, Sullivan's Island, 843.882.8172
Vibe New kid on the island. Inside is an inspired ‘come as you are’ atmosphere — a vibe that embodies the surfi ng and coastal lifestyle of the Baja Peninsula culture. TexMex cuisine, with locally sourced produce, creative margarita menu. Vocals Live acoustic music featuring local and regional talent, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday evenings, 8 - 11 p.m.
Family owned and operated Serving Isle of Palms and Sullivan’s Island Property Owners since 1978 Sales & Property Management Carroll Realty, Inc. 1-800-845-7718 843-886-9600 www.carrollrealtyinc.com WWW.SiPMAGAZINESC.COM | 121
SiP SCENE
PEOPLE & PLACES
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1. Alicia Zimov with husband Mike at the Sullivan’s Island Elementary School Wig & Stache bash at the Sand Dunes Club on March 10. 2. Allison Williamson and Janie Ball at Art on the Beach on November 13. 3. Camille Galy with Prince and Tom VandenBerg with Emma at the Dinghy Golf Parade in November. 4. Dee DeDaltorio and husband Vince Sonson celebrate St. Patrick’s Day at Dunleavy’s on March 17. 5. Betsy and Halstead Brooks with Tara Mills carve a pumpkin at Poe’s Tavern in October. 6. Wedding Guests, McKensie Kigh and Erin Kienzle at Mary Alice Monroe’s book signing event in May. 7. Anthony and Gianna Vannatta Adopting-A-Beach at Station 18. 8. Wes, Nate, and Charley Markin show off their model boat at National Lighthouse Day in August. 9. Cory Bates with Reilly Williams and her father at the Sullivan’s Island Fire & Rescue Oyster Roast on February 6. 10. Pilot Kevin Afflick with members of the Isle of Palms Police Department during the National Night Out on August 8.
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11. Colin Rudolph and Daniel Light dole out the main course at the Sullivan’s Island Fire & Rescue Oyster Roast on February 6. 12. Dylan and Vivienne Roedema create beautiful crafts with their grandmother Karen Petersen at the Poe Library. 13. Councilmembers Susan Middaugh, Rita Langley and Sarah Church with Gingerbread Houses in December. 14. Artist Jennifer Pendergrast with husband Mike at the Sealand Grand Opening Party in April. 15. The DiCindio Family at the Windjammer’s Special Olympics Polar Plunge. 16. Jenn Carter with daughters Ella and Addie at the Isle of Palms Easter Egg Hunt. 17. Jessamyn Jacobs, Jim Darlington, Julie Cooke and Shell Royster at Sandpiper Gallery. 18. Wyatt Dezton and Will Morrow at the Isle of Palms surfing event. 19. Lanier and Ashley Brown with Josh and Kristen Leguire at the Suliivan’s Island Elementary Sschool Wig & Stache bash at the Sand Dunes Club on March 10.
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CALENDAR ONGOING EVENTS
Lifeguarded Beaches Isle of Palms County Park is lifeguarded on weekends beginning May 7, 2017 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Beginning Memorial Day, the lifeguards are on duty every day through midAugust and weekends mid-August through the last weekend in September. Sullivan’s Island Farmers Market Enjoy local produce, prepared food and arts and crafts, every Thursday, 2:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. April 6 through June 29, 1921 Ion Ave., Sullivan’s Island. facebook.com/sifarmersmarket Oyster Roasts Two IOP establishments, Morgan Creek Grill, 80 41st Ave. and The Dinghy, 8 JC Long Blvd., host oyster roasts throughout the fall. morgancreekgrill.com, dinghyiop.com ‘Build a Better World’ at the Library The Edgar Allan Poe Branch of the Charleston County Public Library has summer reading incentives for all ages from babies to adults, kick off is June 5 at 12:30 p.m.. For children, the branch hosts special performances on Fridays at 10:30 a.m., games or crafts on Saturdays at 10:30 a.m., a Toddler Storytime on Tuesdays at 10:30 a.m. and a family Pajama Storytime on Thursdays at 7 p.m. Contact the library for more details. 1921 I’on Avenue, Sullivan’s Island. 843.883.3914
MAY 2017
Honey Bees Diana Rouse from Bee Cause discusses honey bees, their life and their vital role in ours, at Battery Gadsden Cultural Center, Ion Avenue, Sullivan’s Island, batterygadsden.com. Migratory Bird Walks On May 20 and 27, join The Center for Birds of Prey’s experienced birding guides for an introduction to the Painted Bunting and other colorful migrants that frequent the Center’s campus each spring. 8:30 - 10:30 a.m. $15 for current members; $20 for non-members. Thecenterforbirdsofprey.org Spoleto Festival For 17 days and nights the arts takes over Charleston. Plays, operas, dance and music of all types fill the streets, churches and outdoor spaces. Runs from May 25 through June 12. Spoletousa.org Memorial Day Wild Dunes Fun Run/Walk Saturday, May 27, 8 a.m. $25 per person, including t-shirt. Register at 843.886.7008.
JUNE 2017
Piccolo Spoleto Sand Sculpting Contest June 3 at 9 a.m. head to Isle of Palms beach for a stunning display of sand-sculpting prowess. The event is part of the Piccolo Spoleto Festival, which runs May 25 through June 12. piccolospoleto.com
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Floppin’ Flounder 5K Run/Walk This community-wide group run hosted by the Charleston Running Club and Sullivan’s Island Fire and Rescue Department takes place Saturday, June 3 at 8 a.m. starting in front of the Fish Fry Shack, 1459 Hennessy St. Registration is $30; day of $35. Sullivan’s Island Fire & Rescue Fish Fry Enjoy freshly fried fish served with a smile. One of the three major fundraisers to support the volunteer rescue operations on Sullivan’s. Held at the Sullivan’s Island Fish Fry Shack, 1459 Hennessy St., Saturday, June 24, 5 to 8 p.m. sullivansisland-sc.com
Isle of Palms Beach Run On July 15 choose from a Youth Fun Run, 5K or 10K run on the beach. Start at The Windjammer, 1008 Ocean Blvd. IOP, at 8 a.m. Registration is $30 before June 15. Race day registration & packet pick-up begin at 7 a.m; race starts at 8 a.m. iop.net/recreation, 843.886.8294 Shaggin’ On The Cooper The popular Shaggin’ on the Cooper series continues July 15 at the Mount Pleasant Pier with live music by The Counts. Advance tickets are $8; tickets sold on-site are $10. 843.795.4386 or charlestoncountyparks.com.
Carolina Day On June 24 celebrate the anniversary of the Battle of Sullivan’s Island (June 28, 1776), with special programs at Fort Moultrie, 1214 Middle Street. Explore the life of a soldier 241 years ago with musket drills and firing demonstrations at 10 a.m., 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. and enjoy other free activities all weekend. nps.gov/fosu
AUGUST 2017
Sea Turtle Project June 21, Mary Pringle talks about the islands’ sea turtle project and the role of the Turtle Ladies at Battery Gadsden, Ion Ave., Sullivan’s Island. batterygadsden.com
Half Rubber Tournament This annual tournament takes place at IOP Recreation Center on August 12. Three and 4 person teams, $25 per person. Games begin at 8 a.m. halfrubber.com
Vacation Bible School Step back in time to explore Rome, the life of the Apostle Paul and what life was like in the first century. 9 a.m. to 12 noon, June 12 through June 16, First United Methodist Church, Isle of Palms. Call 843.886.6610 to register.
Get Eclipsed on IOP Total Solar Eclipse viewing event on August 21 from 11:30 - 4:30 p.m. Free admission. Front Beach Isle of Palms. iop.net/recreation.
JULY 2017
4th of July Golf Cart Parade on Sullivan’s Deck out your golf cart or bicycle for this annual parade celebrating America’s independence. Start at the Sullivan’s Island Elementary School, end at Stith Park. Meet at 8:30 a.m. This is a free event. 4th of July Fireworks on Sullivan’s Fireworks and music in Stith Park on Middle Street start at 4 p.m., fireworks at dusk. 4th of July Fireworks on IOP The Isle of Palms hosts a 4th of July fireworks display over the ocean near 14th Avenue beginning at 9 p.m. Open to the public. iop. net/recreation, 843.886.8294 Wild Dunes Family Fun Run/Walk July 4 at 8 a.m. $25 per person, including t-shirt. Pre-registration required: 843.886.7008 Wild Dunes Watermelon-Eating Contest Come enjoy waterslides and more on the lawn next to Palm Cove pool, July 4 from 11 a.m. from 2 p.m. $10 per person. Watch or compete in the watermelon-eating contest at 12 p.m. wilddunes.com
U.S. Coast Guard Lighthouse Day The grounds and boathouse at the historic U.S. Coast Guard District on Sullivan’s Island will be open to the public with family friendly activities on August 6 from 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. (lighthouse interior will not be open). Free, 1815 I’On Avenue, Sullivan’s Island. nps.gov/fosu
SEPTEMBER 2017
Beach Sweep at Fort Moultrie Come out and pick up trash from 9 a.m. - 12 p.m. on Sullivan’s Island as part of the annual South Carolina Sea Grant Consortium Beach Sweep event, held in conjunction with the Ocean Conservancy’s International Coastal Cleanup on September 16. Sign-up in, 843.883.3123, nps.gov/fosu IOP Community Wellness Fair On September 22, from 7 to 11 a.m. the IOP Recreation Department teams up with the East Cooper Medical Center to offer flu shots and blood work for local residents including cholesterol screenings and lipid profiles at the Recreation Center, 24 28th Ave. Free, iop.net/ recreation, 843.884.7031
OCTOBER 2017
Isle of Palms Connector Run & Walk Fundraising event for the Isle of Palms’ Exchange Club’s programs for the healing and prevention of child abuse takes place October 7, IOP Connector, 8 a.m. Registration is $35 or $40 on the day of the race. ioprun.com Fire Prevention Celebration Look for a SI/IOP parade of engines October 12, at Sullivan’s Island Fire House, 2050 Middle St., Sullivan’s Island.
Ghostly Tide Tales Bring a blanket, flashlight, chairs and friends for spooky stories by bonfire light on the beach at Isle of Palms, 28th Ave Beach Access. This event is free. October 27, 6:30 p.m. iop.net/recreation
Hunley Memorial Event Confederate Heritage Trust hosts a memorial to the Civil War-era Hunley submarine February 17, beginning with a parade to Sunrise Presbyterian Church, 3222 Middle St., Sullivan’s Island, 4:30 - 8:30 p.m.
IOP Halloween Carnival Enjoy games for all ages at the annual carnival on October 31, IOP Recreation Department, 24 28th Avenue, from 5 to 7 p.m. Costume contest at 5:30 p.m. This event is free. iop. net/recreation, 843.886.8294
MARCH 2018
DECEMBER 2017
Sullivan’s Island Tree Lighting Light up the night at the Sullivan’s Island Fire Station, 2050 Middle St. December 1, 5:30 p.m. Enjoy carols, hot cocoa and visits with Santa. sullivansisland-sc.com Holiday Street Festival Join the Isle of Palms’ mayor as he lights the 22-foot holiday tree on December 2 from 2 to 7 p.m. Visit with Santa, enjoy carnival rides and more on Front Beach. Free admission. iop.net/recreation, 843.886.8294 Gingerbread Making The Town of Sullivan’s Island hosts a gingerbread house party around Dec. 15 at the Fire Station. Check website for exact date. sullivansisland-sc.com
JANUARY 2018
Dunleavy’s Polar Bear Plunge “We’re freezin’ for a reason.” Jump into the chilly waters of the atlantic on January 1. Meet at 2213 Middle St. Sullivan’s Island at 2 p.m. dunleaveyspubpolarplunge.com, 843.795.5316 Charlie Post Classic 15K/5K The Charleston Running Club hosts the race January 27, 2018. Starts at 8:30 a.m. in front of the Sullivan’s Island Fire Department, 2050 Middle St. charlestonrunningclub.com
FEBRUARY 2018
Sullivan’s Island Fire & Rescue Oyster Roast Enjoy all you can eat oysters, hot dogs, and fish stew and support local firefighters on February 3. Held at the Fish Fry Shack, 1459 Hennessy St., 5 to 8 p.m. Tickets $30 in advance, $35 day of. sullivans-sc.com Doggie Day at the Rec A dog show, including cutest puppy, most attractive, and most ear’resistable, caps off this annual celebration of all things canine, held on February 3, 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. iop. net/recreation, 843.886.8294 Southeastern Wildlife Expo SEWE is a three-day showcase of everything we love about wildlife and nature. February 16 through 18. sewe.com
Front Beach Fest This annual party on Front Beach celebrates the start of the season with local musicians, food vendors, jump castles, and other entertainment. Free admission. March 3, 12 to 4 p.m. iop.net, 843.886.8294 Together SC Summit March 5 to 7, in Hilton Head, SC. South Carolina’s Nonprofit Summit is the state’s largest conference for SC’s nonprofit sector. Nonprofit professionals and businesses that support charitable organizations are encouraged to attend. togethersc.com St. Patrick’s Day Party in the Park The Town of Sullivan’s Island hosts a familyfriendly event starting at 10 a.m. till 12 p.m. on March 17 at Stith Park on Middle Street. sullivansisland-sc.com Hope on Goat This annual fundraiser on Goat Island benefits a different charity each year, this year’s event is hosted by Barrier Island Eco Tours and is the only opportunity for the public to visit this secluded island. Admission is $55, tickets go on sale in January, visit facebook.com/Goat-Island-Gatherings Isle of Palms Easter Egg Hunt March 31, come hunt eggs and get your photo with the Easter Bunny at 10 a.m. sharp! Jump castles, face painting and balloon artists round out the fun at the Isle of Palms Recreation Center, 24 28th Ave. This is a free event. iop.net/recreation
APRIL 2018
Isle of Palms Exchange Club Easter Sunrise Breakfast Enjoy homemade pancakes, sausages, eggs, grits, coffee and beverages courtesy of the Exchange Club members who serve up this hearty breakfast for free April 1 from 6:50 a.m. to 10 a.m. Easter morning at the Exchange Club, 201 Palm Blvd. Isle of Palms Annual Yard Sale Every year, residents of Isle of Palms sell their old and gently used items in an island-wide yard sale just outside the IOP Recreation Center. 8 a.m. - 12 p.m. on April 21. iop.net, 843.886.8294 Run For Adela April 14, 8 a.m., 9th Annual 5K beach walk / run on Sullivan’s island. runforadela.com
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Photo by Hunter McRae
LAST LOOK
Henry's rigHt
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“Cars are meant to be driven,” Town Councilman Chauncey Clark says. “Sitting is not good for humans or cars. Therefore you will see Henry and I often on the streets of Sullivan’s Island.” Keep an eye out for this dynamic duo tootling around the island on a sunny day. Henry is a 1929 convertible Ford Model A Phaeton, and before becoming the councilman’s carriage, used to drive the guests of The Woodlands Mansion in Summerville.
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Phillip W. Smith General Contractor, Inc. OFFICE 843.881.9828
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WWW.PHILLIPSMITHCONTRACTOR.COM