The pier is a component of a master plan for a new residence and ancillary structures for a family of five on a site of several hundred acres situated in the South Carolina coastal plain.

From the owner/builder: The visual simplicity…is deceiving, and therein lies the beauty of the final design of our home: While appearing simple and elegant to our guests, we know the considerable design skill and craftsmanship that was required to realize our dream.

On first walking the farmland site with the owner we were intrigued by several features: An old borrow pit from the construction of the adjacent “hardtop” road; a high point on the site occupied by maturing mixed hardwoods, many of them live oaks; a large open linear glade oriented north/south bounded by live oaks on the west and a double row of slash pines on the east; a large open field planted yearly with corn and the site of many fall dove hunts; plenty of acreage newly planted with Pinus Palustris, the slow growing but magnificent Longleaf Pine. Standing at the high (north) end of the stunning glade and looking south into its axis, we could turn to see the borrow pits’ potential as a lake to the west with paths to a pier and, over the young pines to the east, an almost mystical view of the field; the live oaks behind a perfect buffer to the road. Here I proposed our building site. Removal of a small swath of the young pines would create an east west axis from field to future lake and where it intersected the north south glade would become a great room composed of the heart of our house: the living room, dining room and kitchen. We nestled the entrance, master suite and office into the hardwoods and the children’s and utility areas toward the pines to the southeast.
The owners requested maximized views, light, and cross ventilation so the vernacular shotgun became our stylistic candidate. We broke up the footprint with three staggered shotguns to optimize view opportunities and ventilation and stitched the whole together with transparent “bridges”. Operable windows on all sides, orient the long axis east/west for energy efficiency, extend the eaves and gable ends to minimize solar gain and you have a house that can perform well on it’s southern coastal plain site.
• Steel beams from the demolition of a nearby building were salvaged and incorporated into the structural system of the pier.
• An open loop water-source heat pump connected to wells takes advantage of the high water table commonly found in the coastal plain. After use, water from the open loop system charges the lake.
• The lake is stocked with bluenose bream, bass and crappie