Facing on the sea, it is most pines, tall and good. The ayr is clean and sweet, the land passing pleasant… the goodliest, best and fruitefullest isle ever was seen. “So, over three centuries ago, Captain William Hilton, master of the good ship Adventure out of Gravesend, England, first described the green headlands of the South Carolina island which would one day bear his name.
Hilton Head and several neighboring sea islands that dot the Atlantic coast south of Charleston are now home to some of the Eastern Seaboard’s most lavish resort communities. With them have come certain concessions to modern times, yet there still remains a sense of place and presence to this lushly wooded, subtropical “low country” that seems almost oblivious to the passing of centuries.
As early as 1526, Spanish, French, and British explorers successively attempted to settle Hilton Head Island, but not until the mid-18th century were English colonists able to take up land grants and establish plantations. They prospered with the production of indigo and, later, the famous long staple sea island cotton. The island’s Confederate Fort Walker was the setting of the early Civil War battle of Port Royal, during which 13, 000 Union forces captured the fort and converted it to a huge naval encampment. For three and a half years, Hilton Head was headquarters of the Union’s Department of the South, site of a booming city with hundreds of frame buildings and acres of tents. After the Civil War, attempts were made to revive sea island cotton culture, but a rigorous Reconstruction economy and the advent of the boll weevil made this impossible. Gradually, the island went “back to nature, ” its few remaining buildings crumbling to ruins soon hidden by thick tangles of undergrowth.
And so it remained until just over 20 years ago, an almost untouched, idyllic spot of palms, pines, ancient live oaks, and salt marshes, a refuge for alligators and shore birds and deer. Then a $1. 5 million bridge was constructed, linking Hilton Head to the mainland. Although no part of this lovely island could still be considered wilderness, neither has it become a wilderness of short-order stands and garish neon lights. It has instead evolved into one of the finest – and most strictly zoned – resort and residential communities in the country, a heartening example of what good taste and planning can bring about. Sizable tracts of the island remain inviolate forest and marshland, a preserve for native plant, bird, and animal life.
The 45-square-mile island is the site of several separate, large developments, scattered amid choice portions on both ocean and sound side. The major resorts include Sea Pines Plantation, Palmetto Dunes, and the Hilton Head Company’s Shipyard Plantation and Port Royal Plantation. All offer accommodations in lodges, motor inns, and hotels, as well as rental condominium villas, houses, and apartments. Sea Pines owns and manages the Hilton Head Inn fronting the ocean, and there’s an elegant new 360-room Hyatt Hotel at Palmetto Dunes. The island also boasts an uncommonly attractive Holiday Inn, a Quality Inn, and several independent motor inns, along with numerous restaurants, shopping centers, gift shops, art galleries and boutiques.
Sea Pines Plantation remains the yardstick by which latter day coastal resorts along the south Atlantic Seaboard – and to some extent, the Caribbean – are measured. First of the new breed of luxurious island resorts, it was created 22 years ago by Charles Fraser, who in his heyday gained something of a na-tional reputation as a wunderkind among developers of choice resorts. Long before “ecology” became a parlor byword, Fraser determined to preserve the region’s unique and delicate natural environment.
Generally considered the most complete private resort in the continental United States, 4500-acre Sea Pines has become internationally acclaimed as a golf and tennis center. But with all its emphasis on genteel activity and the casually luxurious good life, a fair portion is still naturally beautiful and untouched.
Sea Pines has three championship golf courses, including renowned Harbour Town, designed by Pete Dye with Jack Nicklaus, home of the Heritage Golf Tournament. Daily golf lessons and Bert Yancey’s Classical School of Golf are offered all year. The resort boasts 60 tennis courts. The 30-court Sea Pines Racquet Club is best known, having hosted several tournaments, including the yearly mid-April Family Circle Magazine Women’s Tennis Championships. Stan Smith, Sea Pines’ touring pro and tennis advisor, annually directs clinics and a week-long camp. A variety of packages includes golf and tennis holidays, and a supervised youth recreation program offered June 1 to Labor Day.
The Sea Pines Company is also developer of the newer Hilton Head Plantation, a private 4000-acre residential community offering only limited access to non-residents.
While primarily residential, Shipyard Plantation and Port Royal Plantation, communities of the Hilton Head Company, do offer golf packages to non-residents. Accommodations are available in townhouse villas at Shipyard and private homes at Port Royal, with golfing available at the Hilton Head Golf Club at Shipyard and the Barony and Robber’s Row courses at Port Royal. Both resorts have tennis courts.
Located in the center of the island is Palmetto Dunes, an 1800-acre resort and residential community offering recreational and sports facilities for residents, property owners, and vacationers alike. A few years ago, Palmetto Dunes added a sophisticated new dimension to the island when it opened the $17-million, 360-room ocean front Hyatt Hotel, with gourmet dining room, nightclub, and lavish convention facility.
Palmetto Dunes has three miles of beach, several freshwater lakes, 11 swimming pools, a boat and fishing equipment rental facility, and a beach-front recreation center. A 14-mile navigable lagoon system winds through the resort. Accommodations are available in fully equipped townhouse condominiums, in addition to the Hyatt Hotel. The resort’s 25-court Racquet Club is Rod Laver’s eastern home base, and his tennis schools are offered year-round under the direction of Tom Hawkins and Doc Malloy.
Palmetto Dunes boasts two championship golf courses. A professional teaching staff, directed by Bob Toski, offers daily lessons and clinics. A wide variety of golf, tennis, and family packages, including a supervised summer children’s recreational program, are available.
Northward, toward Charleston, the barrier islands lie scattered off the South Carolina mainland like slightly misplaced jigsaw puzzle pieces. Across Port Royal Sound, not far from Parris Island (definitely not a resort, as any past or present U. S. Marine will attest), is Fripp Island. It is said that the infamous pirate Blackbeard was a 17th-century visitor, making the island a depository for part of his contraband gold. Today, it is home to the Fripp Island Resort, with a tennis center under the direction of pro Butch Trellue and a championship golf course. Golf holidays, family vacation packages, and tennis clinics are available. Accommodations are in Inn rooms or fully equipped villas. This lovely island is especially rich in marshland wildlife and vegetation, and is an excellent hunting ground for beachcombers. It’s also a major incubation ground for loggerhead turtles.
Just up the coast, past where the Comba-hee, Ashepoo, and Edisto Rivers flow into serene St. Helena Sound, lies one of the largest barrier islands, Edisto, with a peaceful, stopped-in-time quality. Oristo, a 300-acre family resort, is nestled in a lush subtropical enclave on the island’s southern tip. It offers an 18-hole par 72 golf course and a tennis center, with professional instruction in both sports. Golf packages are offered September through May. Accommodations are in fully equipped cottages and lodge cabins.
There is also a state park on Edisto, some lovely antebellum churches, and a small, picturesque fishing harbor and marina. But much of the Island remains private, secluded, and remote, accounting for much of its appeal.
Down winding side roads bordered by arched live oaks, glowing faintly behind fanciful wrought iron gates, are vast plantation houses. Some are closed; others have been restored, as often as not, by northern or eastern industrialists. Drive past, pause, but don’t attempt to trespass, for this is not a tourist area.
The sense of privacy obtains just as much to another phenomenon of Edisto Island: small, simple houses dotting the roadsides, with doors, window frames, even mailbox stands painted bright blue. The origins of this custom are shrouded in the occupants’ African or West Indies heritages, but the general consensus is that the bright blue color was once thought to ward off evil spirits. The people who live here today will not talk about the custom, not wishing to be thought ignorant or superstitious. Neither do they welcome photographers. If you want to chronicle this rare bit of Americana on film, be discreet, and use a long-range lens!
Neighboring Seabrook and Kiawah Islands, just up the coast, offer the best of two worlds, situated as they are just short drives from storied, dreaming old Charleston, probably the most beautiful antique city in the United States. Seabrook Island has been called a “wildlife refuge for people. ” Hundreds of brown pelicans nest on Deveaux Bank, a crescent island just yards offshore from Seabrook’s Beach Club. An official Audubon Society sanctuary, it’s one of the northernmost rookeries of this rare and endangered species.
This island, too, goes back to South Carolina’s earliest origins. Part of the original land grant designated by King Charles II to the Lords Proprietors, it was claimed by Lt. Col. Robert Sanford in 1666, when he sailed into the North Edisto River, disembarked somewhere along Bohicket Creek, and boldly “took possession by turf and twig of the whole country from the latitude of 36N to 29SW, to the South Seas!”
The island was purchased in 1816 from the estate of plantation owner Francis Simmons by William Seabrook. Simmons’ home, circa 1750, still stands at the Andell Place just across the causeway from Seabrook. Never timbered, as were most low country-barrier islands, Seabrook Island remains in large part a virgin, subtropical jungle. William Seabrook, who was a wealthy sea island cot ton planter on nearby Edisto Island, apparently used his namesake island solely as a hunting preserve.
Seabrook Island Resort has an 18-hole par 72 golf course, and pro Jim Haslam offers golf clinics and group and private lessons. Beth Daniel, two-time U. S. Women’s Amateur Golf Champion, was recently named touring pro. Peter Fleming is touring tennis pro, and resident pro Grigsby Arnette offers a complete program of instruction at Seabrook’s Tennis Club, which is also the site of an annual fall Grand Masters Tennis Tournament. Supervised children’s activities are offered during the summer, and sports packages are available year-round. Accommodations are in fully equipped villas and cottages.
One of the newest of South Carolina’s hideaways is Kiawah, across a causeway just off Johns Island, some 21 miles south of Charleston. Although much of Kiawah has reverted to wilderness today, it was not always so. It was developed as an indigo plantation in the early 18th century and after the indigo market disappeared, sea island cotton was grown. In the 1950’s, it was extensively logged. In the 1970’s virtually the entire 10, 000-acre island was sold to the Kuwait Investment Company, which announced plans to develop a posh residential-resort community there. Glimmerings of controversy were heard. Kiawah was the last untouched major South Carolina barrier island, it was argued, and should be preserved in its natural state. The developers commissioned an environmental study. Teams of scientists surveyed the island and a comprehensive report resulted, recommending what should – and should not – be done.
Surprisingly, the scientists found that unlike most barrier islands, Kiawah is growing some eight to ten feet a year, due to diverted flow and silt accumulation from long-ago Charleston harbor construction. It was also determined that the island is a favorite nesting haven for the loggerhead turtle, which comes ashore at night to lay its eggs, then lumbers back to sea again, leaving the baby turtles to hatch on their own.
Even before construction began, Kiawah “turtle monitors” began making nightly beach runs during the laying season, digging up the eggs, moving them to protected sites away from predators, then returning the half-dollar-sized baby turtles to the sea. Now, from May through August, marine biology graduates and students operate a Turtle Beach Patrol and staff a full-fledged hatchery. Because of the mother turtles’ sensitivity to lights, special non-glare lighting is used at the Kiawah Island Inn. During nesting season, guests are also reminded to keep draperies closed. Nobody seems to mind.
Kiawah Island is a shell collector’s delight. Like Sanibel Island, Florida’s famed shelling haven, it lies east and west, so the ocean’s currents deposit extra treasures on its magnificent broad beaches. Along with shelling expeditions, popular options open to Kiawah guests include jeep and boat safaris. During the jeep safari, a stop is made at the remarkably intact remains of the antebellum Vanderhorst Plantation, said to be the stalking grounds of the island’s resident ghost, an unfortunate gentlemen who accidentally shot himself during a long-ago hunting expedition.
Kiawah’s Racquet Club, where Roscoe Tanner is touring pro and Roy Barth resident pro, offers personalized instruction to small groups. Family vacation plans, children’s programs, tennis and golf vacation packages are also offered. Kiawah Island has a par 72 championship golf course, co-designed by Gary Player. A new Jack Nicklaus-designed 18-hole golf course is scheduled to open early in 1981. Accommodations are in the handsome Kiawah Island Inn and fully equipped condominiums, townhouses, and cottages.
A 1500-acre residential resort community is being developed at the Isle of Palms Beach and Racquet Club, 15 miles from Charleston. The property has two and a half miles of magnificent and uncrowded beach front for surfing, sailing sunning, and shelling. Its tennis club is designed to include 22 courts, 10 of which are currently in play. Adjacent to the courts are a 25-meter pool and a restaurant-clubhouse. An 18-hole championship golf course, is under construction. The course, winding close to the ocean and through. beautifully forested terrain, should be completed by spring of 1981. Accommodations are in privately owned, completely furnished villas. Vacationers receive guest memberships entitling them to unlimited use of all club facilities.
Each of South Carolina’s languid, subtropical island retreats has its own tone and personality, yet what they share is a singular absence of commercialization. “Charles Fraser set the tone, ” one developer admits, referring to Sea Pines, the forerunner of them all. “It could have gone the other way, with midways, trailer parks, and quick-dollar hokum.”
Fortunately, it didn’t. Three hundred years after Captains Hilton, Sanford, et al sailed these placid bays and inlets claiming turf and twig for Mother England, South Carolina’s island playgrounds remain a “land passing pleasant, ” making up quite a place in the sun.
Getting There.
Eastern Airlines provides service from Dallas/Fort Worth to Charleston and Savannah, Georgia. If you’re heading for Hilton Head or Fripp Islands, Savannah is nearest; to the other islands, opt for Charleston. Air taxi service is available to some of the islands from both Savannah and Charleston. Major car rental companies have offices at both cities’ airports. It’s definitely advisable to have a car for area sightseeing, especially on Hilton Head Island, where shopping centers and restaurants are rather spread out.
When To Go.
Autumn, winter, and spring are all delightful. Summer is pleasant, but there are crowds – and humidity – to contend with. It’s a little too cool to splash in the ocean or bask on the sand from late winter to early spring, but otherwise this is one of the most agreeable times to visit, to walk, jog, or bike the splendid broad beaches. Golf, tennis, boating, fishing, riding, skeet and trap shooting are available year-round.
For more information and reservations, contact:
Sea Pines Plantation
Hilton Head Island, SC 29928
Phone: 1-800-845-6131
Palmetto Dunes
Post Office Box 5606
Hilton Head Island, SC 29928
Phone: 803-785-4256
Hyatt-on-Hilton-Head Island
Post Office Box 6167
Hilton Head Island, SC 29928
Phone: 1-800-228-9000
Shipyard Plantation & Port Royal Plantation, The Plantations of the Hilton Head Company
Post Office Box 1304
Hilton Head Island, CS 29928
Phone: 803-785-4256
Fripp Island Resort
Fripp Island, SC 29920
Phone: 803-838-2411
Oristo Resort
Post Office Box 27
Edisto Beach, SC 29438
Phone: 803-869-2561
Seabrook Island Resort
Post Office Box 32099
Charleston. SC 29407
Phone: 1-800-845-5531
Kiawah Island Resort
Post Office Box 12910
Charleston, SC 29412
Phone: 1-800-845-2471
Isle of Palms Beach & Racquet Club Post Office Box Y
Charleston, SC 29402
Phone: 803-886-8525
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