Home Discovery

HURRICANE MATTHEW DAMAGE CREATED OPPORTUNITY FOR A FABULOUS REBUILD

Ted Buchanan and Patra Evans couldn’t believe it when they saw the text while home in Atlanta: Hurricane Irma had blown through the South Beach area in Sea Pines with nary a scratch to their getaway villa.

“We were kind of biting our fingernails looking at Irma,” Evans said. “We didn’t want to go through it again.”

Whether you are downsizing into retirement or decorating a vacation condo, these moves tend to mean more excitement and definitely less square footage. In order to maximize your available space, so that every area looks spacious and comfortable, there are certain design and decorating rules that you should follow:

Architect William Court knows a thing or two about transforming the ordinary and everyday into the extraordinary. To him, it’s all in the details.

The ordinary — an open floorplan for a home’s lower level — has been a Lowcountry staple for decades. To elevate that floorplan to extraordinary, Court brought striking architectural elements from the outside in, creating design individual living space niches.

To increase the comfort, beauty and enjoyment of a home, many owners turn to renovations. Sprucing up also adds value to a home by keeping it up to date. In this special section, we have before and after photos of real projects handled by businesses found right here in the Lowcountry. 

When a Pennsylvania couple wanted to build a second home in Port Royal Plantation, the realtor who found a perfect half-acre-plus lot for them suggested they meet a certain architect—who in turn suggested they meet a certain interior designer.

Enter Kelly Caron, owner of Kelly Caron Designs and the 2016 LightHouse-award winner for “Best Interior Design,” bestowed by the Hilton Head Area Home Builders Association.

H2 Builders helps NY couple build Lowcountry house of their dreams

Gary and Gail Neumen are “100 percent” certain they’ll be moving into their new home in Bluffton in January, leaving behind their main residence, careers and life on Long Island, New York.

They will be trading Long Island’s south shore for other bodies of water — the 28-acre lake at Hampton Hall, plus the kidney-shaped swimming pool in the backyard of their new home. After buying and selling one lot in the community in 2015, the couple is finally ready to settling into the home they’ve built on the .45-acre lakeside lot hugging the 10th hole fairway of Pete Dye’s signature course that they bought in 2009.

In the good old days, interior cooling and heating were limited to a specific room or portion of a building with localized units. That worked out just fine, so long as the entire family didn’t mind camping out in the living room. Some could afford more than one unit. Most could not.

Sophisticated homeowners in the Lowcountry have never been beholden to the latest kitchen and bathroom trends. We know what we like, pure and simple. If it happens to be trendy, so be it.

Interestingly, the Hilton Head area has either been a trend-setter ahead of the national curve or behind it by a few years…if ever. Our trends with sustained traction either originate in Hilton Head or trickle down from Atlanta or other cities up and down the seaboard to our inviting shores.

THE INTEGRATION OF MANMADE HARDSCAPES AND NATURE’S NATURAL LANDSCAPING HAS BEEN TRANSFORMING LOWCOUNTRY OUTDOOR LIVING FOR MANY YEARS.

We have been moving our indoor comforts and amenities outdoors in rising numbers while watching the value of our homes increase, thanks to outdoor upgrades.