Home and Garden

Thirty construction companies and builders that are members of the Hilton Head Area Home Builders Association (HBA) have something new to add to their office display case: a lighthouse-shaped marble obelisk 2014 LightHouse Award for industry excellence as craftsmen.

“For 15 years now the Lighthouse Awards have been recognizing builders with exceptional talents,” said Dan Monroe, chairman of the LightHouse Awards program since its inception in 1999. “Each year, winners redefine excellence for not only the home building industry, but for our Lowcountry community.”

Brian Esposito of Esposito Construction Inc. in Bluffton had won one award already that day and wasn’t expecting another.

“I was very surprised because I had won a previous award,” said Esposito, who founded his company in 2008. “It was very surprising, humbling and gratifying.”

Our gift to you this season: three inspirational ways to dress up a room in your home for the holidays. We asked J Banks Design Group, Planatation Interiors and Pyramids to deck the halls of their showrooms to prove there are options to that twisted know of blinking lights hanging out in the garage. The results were stunning. We hope these images inspire you to create a holiday display so elegant, you just may keep it up all year.

Rustic hunting lodge inspired Savannah native to build luxurious Bluffton home

By Dean Rowland
Photos by Hawkeye Photography

In the beginning, there was a large unspectacular home perched on a spectacular waterfront property on the northern tip of Hilton Head Plantation.

 Luxury furniture in the Lowcountry comes in as many shapes, designs, materials, textures, colors and sizes as the diverse homes they inhabit and the homeowners’ lifestyles and personalities they reflect.

We are seeing sleek and sophisticated, steel and metal, leather and wood, retro and vintage, contemporary, traditional, eclectic, mock crocodile patterns, intense blues and purples with a wide swath of influences from historic antebellum Savannah and Charleston, the West Indies/Caribbean, Old World European, the Mediterranean, coastal and farmhouse.
There are at least three common elements found in the high-end furniture in the Hilton Head Island area: Homeowners and interior designers insist on custom quality, premium materials and meticulous craftsmanship.

Luxury real estate is a niche market and caters to a limited number of prospective buyers.

RENOVATION GIVES HILTON HEAD PLANTATION HOME A VIEW THAT’S ALWAYS CAPTIVATING

In the beginning, there was a large unspectacular home perched on a spectacular waterfront property on the northern tip of Hilton Head Plantation.

Beyond the rambling backyard of that nearly 5,000-square-foot home built in 1989 stretched more than 200 feet of private pristine waterfront facing Port Royal Sound and a lagoon offside straddling the sixth hole at Oyster Reef golf course.

There was only one small problem with this Lowcountry piece of paradise: There were limited views of nature’s splendor from anywhere inside or outside the home.

All that changed over a 14-month period of renovation in 2012-13 when the homeowners, architect James Ogden, builder Old World Custom Homes and interior designer Kay Buck put their collective talents and visions together.

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.

Swimming pools and spas, terraces, patios, fountains, waterfalls, ponds, fireplaces and fire pits, retaining walls, outdoor kitchens and creative lighting partner with saw palms, live oak trees, native shrubs and lush ground covers in artistic harmony to create relaxing low-maintenance personal outdoor environments.

Exterior

Lowcountry architecture a half century ago set the standard for the next two decades: simply-designed contemporary ranch homes with wood shingles, screened porches and wide overhang eaves positioned on expansive lots surrounded by towering pine and live oak trees and natural landscaping pruned to perfection.

These small, earth-toned homes in Sea Pines Plantation, Hilton Head Island’s first planned gated community, blended in with the environment and created a design style that went unchanged until the late 1970s.

Kert Huggins, vice president of Kermit Huggins Architecture & Design Inc. on the island, credits Sea Pines visionary Charles Fraser for his pocketful of new ideas for community land-use guidelines and naturalistic appreciation in home building.

“There was lots of glass to bring the outside in, taking advantage of the views and looking carefully at the lot,” the South Carolina native said. “The home would not overwhelm the landscape; the home let the homeowner take advantage of the landscape.”