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Carolina Living
Historical Concepts calls on regional style to create a Southern dwelling.
Text by Sally LaMotte Crane | Photos by Richard Leo Johnson
An open floor plan allows for great flow between the dining, foyer, and prime living spaces. When fully opened, the triple-hung windows allow passage onto the porch beyond, providing exceptional circulation while entertaining. The formal entry is balanced by the more informal, contemporary floor plan.
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Spring Island, once an isolated sea island in South Carolina Low country midway between Hilton Head and the historic town of Beaufort, is now a private community of roughly 200 families who maintain a strong ethic dedicated to preserving its natural environment. Encircled by the Colleton and Chechessee Rivers, almost 40 percent of the island's 3,000 acres has been set aside as a nature preserve overseen by the Spring Island Trust and three staff naturalists.
In this bucolic setting, a New Jersey family built a threestory vacation home—part Classical and part Low country vernacular in style—that fully embraces its natural surroundings, inviting bird songs and river breezes onto their gracious wraparound screen porch and, when its triple-hung windows are fully raised, into their prime living and dining spaces.
Upon buying their lot, perched on a bluff overlooking Chechessee River, the homeowners turned to Historical Concepts of Peachtree City, Georgia, an architectural firm that works on a collaborative team basis, blending traditional styles with the design needs of modern living. "We design houses that meet expectations of contemporary lifestyles, but we want it to look from the outside that it has been there all along," says architect Aaron Daily, a partner who served as project manager leading the design team.
Daily, along with Jim Strickland, firm founder and design principal, and four other team members looked to historic Charleston architecture for partial inspiration for addressing the unique needs of this pie-shaped lot. Just over a quarter acre in size, the Spring Island site seemed a natural fit for the Charleston "single house with side porch" style of residence, especially adapting such traits as placing the house sideways with its narrow end facing the driveway and relying on lengthy, prominent porches for both home entry and for living space.
Rather than facing the street, historic Charleston "single houses" were typically one room deep and were situated sideways facing their gardens, with their back ends against a side property line, allowing for the maximum use of a tight lot space. Their narrow sides faced the street, and entry was from a street doorway onto a long porch or "piazza" that went the length of the house. Serving as a transitional element between a house and its cultivated garden, the piazza was essentially an outdoor room, providing shade in the subtropical heat and ventilation with evening sea breezes.
The homeowners desired the kitchen to be modest in scale, more of a "casual cook's kitchen" according to project architect, Aaron Daily. Meals are eaten in the adjacent dining room or on the screen porch. The kitchen provides views of a small community boat landing situated below.
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Regional Low country architecture also influenced the style of this Spring Island residence. "We took that theme," says Daily, "and used extensive porches, windows, and a reliance on subtle, essential building materials that blend with the natural landscape." Throughout the 4,300-square-foot house, they used solid wood frame and panel walls, antique heart pine floors, cypress doors, and clapboard siding.
"The design for this house was essentially lot-driven," says Daily. Narrower at the front and with a tight setback on one side, the lot allowed the architects only a limited footprint on which to place an ambitious number of rooms to meet the homeowners' needs. The result was to build upward, creating three stories of living space. The ground level, because of flood plain restrictions, was limited to parking and storage underneath the main living space.
One particular challenge the architects faced was how to incorporate a grand stairway while also achieving the room sizes that the homeowners desired within this small building footprint. Their creative solution was to build a cantilever stairway that protrudes out from the back wall on the main floor level, encroaching upon the setback, to achieve an impressive staircase. A classical Palladian window graces the second-floor landing complete with cleverly mirrored faux windows on either side, reflecting light into unexpected spaces.
Other classical features abound—the centered gable pediment with fanlight on the front facade, the traditional front door with transom and sidelights, the exterior three-part windows, and the six traditional, triple-hung windows that lead from the dining and living spaces to the screened porch. When the two lower sashes are fully opened, their 7-foot clearance allows passage between the spaces, nearly doubling the amount of living space. While formal in nature, many of the classical elements blend comfortably with the more relaxed, contemporary open floor plan, which allows great flow through the living, foyer, and dining spaces. By simplifying many of the classical details, such as in the subtle pilasters and square columns, the home becomes more informal. "We describe it as casual elegance," says Daily. "We use a lot of flat pieces of trim with maybe a little bead detail, kind of a hint of the classical elements."
A library and adjacent sun room offer more private space to the homeowners, both avid readers. Also on the first floor, the kitchen, described by Daily as a "casual cook's" kitchen, provides views of a community boat landing below. On the second floor is the master suite, including a porch with views of the river, and two smaller guest bedrooms with baths. The third, or attic floor, with its painted floor design, provides two bedrooms with French doors that open up to create a large suite with a shared bath. From this informal setting, the river views are spectacular.
Included among this home's unique design features are the enclosed porches that project from the sides and rear of the building. While the main mass of the structure is clad in clapboard, Daily says, "These porches are enclosed in simplified flat trim and wood boards butted together. We make it look as if the porch was added on later. We call it 'generational architecture,' in which we make up a fictional history of how a house has grown over time. It allows us the freedom to depart from the style of the main body of the house—to change the style and scale of it. Our goal is to build houses that give the impression of having been there a long time."
"We make sure that we adhere to traditional details for traditional styles," says Daily. "We ensure that the foundation and chimney bricks are set properly, that the mortar is the right color, and that it is wiped away in the fashion that it would have been years ago. We are adamant that the window sills are the proper thickness and are built the old way. At all costs, we try to avoid the house looking new."
Daily says that the wood used throughout the house, the reclaimed, rough-sawed heart pine on the floors and the yellow pine, poplar, and cypress used for walls and doors, "addresses the senses when you walk into this house and gives it the feel of an old home. How it looks, feels, and smells—all of that comes into play."
Historical Concepts only works with a select group of contractors. "They are not builders, but craftspeople," says the architect. "They take the time and energy to do it right, and they have helped perpetuate our reputation." The builder of this Spring Island home is Clements Construction of Frogmore, South Carolina.
Sally LaMotte Crane is a freelance writer and editor who lives along the coast of Maine.
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