Hilton Head’s Sea Pines: From Logging Camp to World-class Luxury Resort

The world was a different place in 1949. The United States had emerged from World War II in jubilant victory a mere four years’ prior, and post-war production and employment were at extraordinarily high levels. The country lead the world in manufacturing, and land was cheap, plentiful and productive---especially in the rural south. Logging camps were sprouting up as Southern timber operations sought to acquire large tracts of virgin pine forest, for lumber was needed to truss the increasing housing demands and fuel the growth of our nation.

It was that year that a 20-year old visionary, Charles Fraser, not yet graduated from University of Georgia, was working in a logging camp set up on Calibogue Cay, an island unto itself---literally, its legal name is Long Island. His father, along with several other businessmen, had recently purchased 20,000 acres on Hilton Head’s south end for around $60 an acre, and the elder had sent the younger to work the logging camp, cruise the land and estimate timber value. Why did Fraser choose Calibogue Cay? Sheer beauty: a peaceful peninsula with the deep waters of Calibogue Sound on one side and a wide pristine creek on the other, a single causeway for access and a prime location for all that is Sea Pines. (Side note: I have lived on the Cay for 14 years; it is the only home my teenage son knows, and the delights and unique experiences of growing up on the Cay will be with him forever).

The entire island population totaled 500 and, since there was no bridge from the mainland, travel to and from Hilton Head was via ferry. Inaccessibility and lack of basic services were just two issues that had to be overcome. A year later, in 1950, the young man now graduated from college and about to enter Yale as a law student, returned to the Cay. Enthralled by the beauty of the land, the great sprawling live oaks and pristine beaches, he convinced his father to give him a twenty-year note on the land. With complete legal control, young Fraser entered law school and made the master plan development his focus of study.

In 1955, Fraser drafted a land-use plan for low-density development on Hilton Head’s south end. The following year, Sea Pines Plantation was born and one year later, in 1956, a drawbridge to the island was built.

In 1957, beachfront lots in Sea Pines debuted for $5,350. That year the first deed to a lot was signed. Two years later Hilton Head Island’s first golf course, the Ocean Course, was built. By then, lot prices had jumped to $9600.00. In 1967, Sea Pines installed its first gates and by 1969 the island’s permanent resident count was 2,500. Lots on the far side of a remote island off the coast of South Carolina accessible by car via a rickety drawbridge weren’t exactly in high-demand, though. Not be deterred, Fraser and his team continued moving forward, confident in their vision to enhance and build on the bounty which Mother Nature conferred on this little island.

Their insightfulness, their robust resolve and dissuadable passion were the driving forces which forged a clear path for Sea Pines, for future eco-developments on Hilton Head Island and for luxury resorts across the world. Today, oceanfront lots in Sea Pines fetch as much as $5 million. The reality of one man’s dream continues to live on. What a vision he had for Sea Pines and how fortunate are we to be living his dream!