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Envision WebStuart Wade, Envision Virtual Tours
The second-largest and most developed of Georgia's barrier islands, St. Simons is approximately twelve miles long and nearly three miles wide at its widest stretch (roughly the size of Manhattan Island in New York). The island is located in Glynn County on Georgia's coast and lies east of Brunswick (the seat of Glynn County), south of Little St. Simons Island and the Hampton River, and north of Jekyll Island. The resort community of Sea Island is separated from St. Simons on the east by the Black Banks River. Known for its oak tree canopies and historic landmarks, St. Simons is both a tourist destination and, according to the 2010 U.S. census, home to 12,743 residents.
Early History
The earliest
St. Simons Island Village
record of human habitation on the island dates to the Late Archaic Period, about 5,000 to 3,000 years ago. Remnants of shell rings left behind by Native Americans from this era survive on many of the barrier islands, including St. Simons. Centuries later, during the period known by historians as the chiefdom era, the Guale Indians established a chiefdom centered on St. Catherines Island and used St. Simons as their hunting and fishing grounds. By 1500 the Guale had established a permanent village of about 200 people on St. Simons, which they called Guadalquini.
Beginning in 1568, the Spanish attempted to create missions along the Georgia coast. Catholic missions were the primary means by which Georgia's indigenous Native American chiefdoms were assimilated into the Spanish colonial system along the northern frontier of greater Spanish Florida. In the 1600s St. Simons became home to two Spanish missions: San Buenaventura de Guadalquini, on the southern tip of the island, and Santo Domingo de Asao (or Asajo), on the northern tip. Located on the inland side of the island were the pagan refugee villages of San Simón, the island's namesake, and Ocotonico. In 1684 pirate raids left the missions and villages largely abandoned.
Colonial History
As
Fort Frederica
early as 1670, with Great Britain's establishment of the colony of Carolina and its expansion into Georgia territory, Spanish rule was threatened by the English. The Georgia coast was considered "debatable land" by England and Spain, even though Spain had fully retreated from St. Simons by 1702. Thirty-one years later General James Edward Oglethorpe founded the English settlement of Savannah. In 1736 he established Fort Frederica, named after the heir to the British throne, Frederick Louis, prince of Wales, on the west side of St. Simons Island to protect Savannah and the Carolinas from the Spanish threat.
Between 1736 and 1749 Fort Frederica was the hub of British military operations along the Georgia frontier. A town of the same name grew up around the fort and was of great importance to the new colony. By 1740 Frederica's population was 1,000. In 1736 the congregation of what would become Christ Church was organized within Fort Frederica as a mission of the Church of England. Charles Wesley led the first services. In 1742 Britain's decisive victory over Spain in the Battle of Bloody Marsh, during the War of Jenkins' Ear, ended the Spanish threat to the Georgia coast. When the British regimen disbanded in 1749, most of the townspeople relocated to the mainland. Fort Frederica went into decline and, except for a short time of prosperity during the 1760s and 1770s under the leadership of merchant James Spalding, never fully recovered. Today the historic citadel's tabby ruins are maintained by the National Park Service.
Plantation Era
By the start of the American Revolution (1775-83), Fort Frederica was obsolete, and St. Simons was left largely uninhabited as most of its residents joined the patriot army. Besides hosting a small Georgia naval victory on the Fort Frederica River, providing guns from its famous fort for use at Fort Morris in Sunbury, and serving as an arena for pillaging by privateers and British soldiers, the island played almost no role in the war.
Following the war, many of the townspeople, their businesses destroyed, turned to agriculture. The island was transformed into fourteen cotton plantations after acres of live oak trees were cleared for farm land and used for building American warships, including the famous USS Constitution, or "Old Ironsides." Although rice was the predominant crop along the neighboring Altamaha River, St. Simons was known for its production of long-staple cotton, which soon came to be known as Sea Island cotton.
Between
Ebos Landing
the 1780s and the outbreak of the Civil War (1861-65), St. Simons's plantation culture flourished. The saline atmosphere and the availability of cheap slave labor proved an ideal combination for the cultivation of Sea Island cotton. In 1803 a group of Ebo slaves who survived the Middle Passage and arrived on the west side of St. Simons staged a rebellion and drowned themselves. The sacred site is known today as Ebos Landing.
One of the largest owners of land and slaves on St. Simons was Pierce Butler, master of Hampton Point Plantation, located on the northern end of the island. By 1793 Butler owned more than 500 slaves, who cultivated 800 acres of cotton on St. Simons and 300 acres of rice on Butler's Island in the Altamaha River delta. Butler's grandson, Pierce Mease Butler, who at the age of sixteen inherited a share of his grandfather's estate in 1826, was responsible for the largest sale of human beings in the history of the United States: in 1859, to restore his squandered fortune, he sold 429 slaves in Savannah for more than $300,000. The British actress and writer Fanny Kemble, whose tumultuous marriage to Pierce ended in divorce in 1849, published an eyewitness account of the evils of slavery on St. Simons in her book Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation in 1838-1839 (1863).
Another
Retreat Plantation
large owner of land and slaves on St. Simons was Major William Page, a friend and employee of Pierce Butler Sr. Before purchasing Retreat Plantation on the southwestern tip of the island in 1804, Page managed the Hampton plantation and Butler's Island. Upon Page's death in 1827, Thomas Butler King inherited the land together with his wife, Page's daughter, Anna Matilda Page King. King expanded his father-in-law's planting empire on St. Simons as well as on the mainland, and by 1835 Retreat Plantation alone was home to as many as 355 slaves.
The center of life during the island's plantation era was Christ Church, Frederica. Organized in 1807 by a group of island planters, the Episcopal church is the second oldest in the Diocese of Georgia. Embargoes imposed by the War of 1812 (1812-15) prevented the parishioners from building a church structure, so they worshiped in the home of John Beck, which stood on the site of Oglethorpe's only St. Simons residence, Orange Hall.
The first Christ Church building, finished on the present site in 1820, was ruined by occupying Union troops during the Civil War. In 1884 the Reverend Anson Dodge Jr. rebuilt the church as a memorial to his first wife, Ellen. The cruciform building with a trussed gothic roof and stained-glass windows remains active today as Christ Church.
Civil War and Beyond
The
St. Simons Island Lighthouse
outbreak of the Civil War in 1861 put a sudden end to St. Simons's lucrative plantation era. In January of that year, Confederate troops were stationed at the south end of the island to guard the entrance to Brunswick Harbor. Slaves from Retreat Plantation, owned by Thomas Butler King, built earthworks and batteries. Plantation residents were scattered—the men joined the Confederate army and their families moved to the mainland. Cannon fire was heard on the island in December 1861, and Confederate troops retreated in February 1862, after dynamiting the lighthouse to keep its beacon from aiding Union troops. Soon thereafter, Union troops occupied the island, which was used as a camp for freed slaves. By August 1862 more than 500 former slaves lived on St. Simons, including Susie King Taylor, who organized a school for freed slave children. But in November the ex-slaves were taken to Hilton Head, South Carolina, and Fernandina, Florida, leaving the island abandoned.
After the Civil War the island never returned to its status as an agricultural community. The plantations lay dormant because there were no slaves to work the fields. After Union general William T. Sherman's January 1865 Special Field Order No. 15 —a demand that former plantations be divided and distributed to former slaves—was overturned by U.S. president Andrew Johnson less than a year later, freedmen and women were forced to work as sharecroppers on the small farms that dotted the land previously occupied by the sprawling plantations.
By
St. Simons Lumber Mills
1870 real economic recovery began with the reestablishment of the timber industry. Norman Dodge and Titus G. Meigs of New York set up lumber mill operations at Gascoigne Bluff, formerly Hamilton Plantation. The lumber mills provided welcome employment for both blacks and whites and also provided mail and passenger boats to the mainland. Such water traffic, together with the construction of a new lighthouse in 1872, designed by architect Charles B. Cluskey, marked the beginning of St. Simons's tourism industry. The keeper of the lighthouse created a small amusement park, which drew many visitors, as did the seemingly miraculous light that traveled from the top of the lighthouse tower to the bottom. The island became a summer retreat for families from the mainland, particularly from Baxley, Brunswick, and Waycross.
The island's resort industry was thriving by the 1880s. Beachfront structures, such as a new pier and grand hotel, were built on the southeastern end of the island and could be accessed by ferry. Around this time wealthy northerners began vacationing on the island.
Twentieth Century
The
St. Simons Island Pier and Village
opening in 1924 of the Brunswick–St. Simons Highway, today known as the Torras Causeway, was a milestone in the development of resorts in the area. St. Simons's beaches were now easily accessible to locals and tourists alike. More than 5,000 automobiles took the short drive from Brunswick to St. Simons via the causeway on its opening day, paving the way for convenient residential and resort development.
In 1926 automotive pioneer Howard Coffin of Detroit, Michigan, bought large tracts of land on St. Simons, including the former Retreat Plantation, and constructed a golf course, yacht club, paved roads, and a residential subdivision. Although the causeway had brought large numbers of summer people to the island, St. Simons remained a small community with only a few hundred permanent residents until the 1940s.
The
St. Simons Island
outbreak of World War II (1941-45) brought more visitors and residents to St. Simons. Troops stationed at Jacksonville, Florida; Savannah; and nearby Camp Stewart took weekend vacations on the island, and a new naval air base and radar school became home to even more officers and soldiers. The increased wartime population brought the island its first public school. With a major shipyard for the production of Liberty ships in nearby Brunswick, the waters of St. Simons became active with German U-boats. In April 1942, just off the coast, the Texas Company oil tanker S. S. Oklahoma and the S. S. Esso Baton Rouge were torpedoed by the Germans, bringing the war very close to home for island residents.
Due in large part to the military's improvement of the island's infrastructure during the war, development on the island boomed in the 1950s and 1960s. More permanent homes and subdivisions were built, and the island was no longer just a summer resort but also a thriving community. In 1950 the Methodist conference and retreat center Epworth by the Sea opened on Gascoigne Bluff. In 1961 novelist Eugenia Price visited St. Simons and began work on her first works of fiction, known as the St. Simons Trilogy. Inspired by real events on the island, Price's trilogy renewed interest in the history of Georgia's coast, and the novelist herself relocated to the island in 1965 and lived there for thirty-one years. St. Simons is also home to contemporary Georgia writer Tina McElroy Ansa.
Since
Epworth by the Sea
1980 St. Simons's population has doubled. The island's continued status as a vacation destination and its ongoing development boom have put historic landmarks and natural areas at risk. While such landmarks as the Fort Frederica ruins and the Battle of Bloody Marsh site are preserved and maintained by the National Park Service, and while the historic lighthouse is maintained by the Coastal Georgia Historical Society, historic Ebos Landing has been taken over by a sewage treatment plant.
Several coastal organizations have formed in recent years to save natural areas on the island. The St. Simons Land Trust, for example, has received donations of large tracts of land and plans to protect property in the island's three traditional African American neighborhoods. Despite its rapid growth and development, St. Simons remains one of the most beautiful and important islands on the Georgia coast.
Envision WebStuart Wade, Envision Virtual Tours
The second-largest and most developed of Georgia's barrier islands, St. Simons is approximately twelve miles long and nearly three miles wide at its widest stretch (roughly the size of Manhattan Island in New York). The island is located in Glynn County on Georgia's coast and lies east of Brunswick (the seat of Glynn County), south of Little St. Simons Island and the Hampton River, and north of Jekyll Island. The resort community of Sea Island is separated from St. Simons on the east by the Black Banks River. Known for its oak tree canopies and historic landmarks, St. Simons is both a tourist destination and, according to the 2010 U.S. census, home to 12,743 residents.
Early History
The earliest
St. Simons Island Village
record of human habitation on the island dates to the Late Archaic Period, about 5,000 to 3,000 years ago. Remnants of shell rings left behind by Native Americans from this era survive on many of the barrier islands, including St. Simons. Centuries later, during the period known by historians as the chiefdom era, the Guale Indians established a chiefdom centered on St. Catherines Island and used St. Simons as their hunting and fishing grounds. By 1500 the Guale had established a permanent village of about 200 people on St. Simons, which they called Guadalquini.
Beginning in 1568, the Spanish attempted to create missions along the Georgia coast. Catholic missions were the primary means by which Georgia's indigenous Native American chiefdoms were assimilated into the Spanish colonial system along the northern frontier of greater Spanish Florida. In the 1600s St. Simons became home to two Spanish missions: San Buenaventura de Guadalquini, on the southern tip of the island, and Santo Domingo de Asao (or Asajo), on the northern tip. Located on the inland side of the island were the pagan refugee villages of San Simón, the island's namesake, and Ocotonico. In 1684 pirate raids left the missions and villages largely abandoned.
Colonial History
As
Fort Frederica
early as 1670, with Great Britain's establishment of the colony of Carolina and its expansion into Georgia territory, Spanish rule was threatened by the English. The Georgia coast was considered "debatable land" by England and Spain, even though Spain had fully retreated from St. Simons by 1702. Thirty-one years later General James Edward Oglethorpe founded the English settlement of Savannah. In 1736 he established Fort Frederica, named after the heir to the British throne, Frederick Louis, prince of Wales, on the west side of St. Simons Island to protect Savannah and the Carolinas from the Spanish threat.
Between 1736 and 1749 Fort Frederica was the hub of British military operations along the Georgia frontier. A town of the same name grew up around the fort and was of great importance to the new colony. By 1740 Frederica's population was 1,000. In 1736 the congregation of what would become Christ Church was organized within Fort Frederica as a mission of the Church of England. Charles Wesley led the first services. In 1742 Britain's decisive victory over Spain in the Battle of Bloody Marsh, during the War of Jenkins' Ear, ended the Spanish threat to the Georgia coast. When the British regimen disbanded in 1749, most of the townspeople relocated to the mainland. Fort Frederica went into decline and, except for a short time of prosperity during the 1760s and 1770s under the leadership of merchant James Spalding, never fully recovered. Today the historic citadel's tabby ruins are maintained by the National Park Service.
Plantation Era
By the start of the American Revolution (1775-83), Fort Frederica was obsolete, and St. Simons was left largely uninhabited as most of its residents joined the patriot army. Besides hosting a small Georgia naval victory on the Fort Frederica River, providing guns from its famous fort for use at Fort Morris in Sunbury, and serving as an arena for pillaging by privateers and British soldiers, the island played almost no role in the war.
Following the war, many of the townspeople, their businesses destroyed, turned to agriculture. The island was transformed into fourteen cotton plantations after acres of live oak trees were cleared for farm land and used for building American warships, including the famous USS Constitution, or "Old Ironsides." Although rice was the predominant crop along the neighboring Altamaha River, St. Simons was known for its production of long-staple cotton, which soon came to be known as Sea Island cotton.
Between
Ebos Landing
the 1780s and the outbreak of the Civil War (1861-65), St. Simons's plantation culture flourished. The saline atmosphere and the availability of cheap slave labor proved an ideal combination for the cultivation of Sea Island cotton. In 1803 a group of Ebo slaves who survived the Middle Passage and arrived on the west side of St. Simons staged a rebellion and drowned themselves. The sacred site is known today as Ebos Landing.
One of the largest owners of land and slaves on St. Simons was Pierce Butler, master of Hampton Point Plantation, located on the northern end of the island. By 1793 Butler owned more than 500 slaves, who cultivated 800 acres of cotton on St. Simons and 300 acres of rice on Butler's Island in the Altamaha River delta. Butler's grandson, Pierce Mease Butler, who at the age of sixteen inherited a share of his grandfather's estate in 1826, was responsible for the largest sale of human beings in the history of the United States: in 1859, to restore his squandered fortune, he sold 429 slaves in Savannah for more than $300,000. The British actress and writer Fanny Kemble, whose tumultuous marriage to Pierce ended in divorce in 1849, published an eyewitness account of the evils of slavery on St. Simons in her book Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation in 1838-1839 (1863).
Another
Retreat Plantation
large owner of land and slaves on St. Simons was Major William Page, a friend and employee of Pierce Butler Sr. Before purchasing Retreat Plantation on the southwestern tip of the island in 1804, Page managed the Hampton plantation and Butler's Island. Upon Page's death in 1827, Thomas Butler King inherited the land together with his wife, Page's daughter, Anna Matilda Page King. King expanded his father-in-law's planting empire on St. Simons as well as on the mainland, and by 1835 Retreat Plantation alone was home to as many as 355 slaves.
The center of life during the island's plantation era was Christ Church, Frederica. Organized in 1807 by a group of island planters, the Episcopal church is the second oldest in the Diocese of Georgia. Embargoes imposed by the War of 1812 (1812-15) prevented the parishioners from building a church structure, so they worshiped in the home of John Beck, which stood on the site of Oglethorpe's only St. Simons residence, Orange Hall.
The first Christ Church building, finished on the present site in 1820, was ruined by occupying Union troops during the Civil War. In 1884 the Reverend Anson Dodge Jr. rebuilt the church as a memorial to his first wife, Ellen. The cruciform building with a trussed gothic roof and stained-glass windows remains active today as Christ Church.
Civil War and Beyond
The
St. Simons Island Lighthouse
outbreak of the Civil War in 1861 put a sudden end to St. Simons's lucrative plantation era. In January of that year, Confederate troops were stationed at the south end of the island to guard the entrance to Brunswick Harbor. Slaves from Retreat Plantation, owned by Thomas Butler King, built earthworks and batteries. Plantation residents were scattered—the men joined the Confederate army and their families moved to the mainland. Cannon fire was heard on the island in December 1861, and Confederate troops retreated in February 1862, after dynamiting the lighthouse to keep its beacon from aiding Union troops. Soon thereafter, Union troops occupied the island, which was used as a camp for freed slaves. By August 1862 more than 500 former slaves lived on St. Simons, including Susie King Taylor, who organized a school for freed slave children. But in November the ex-slaves were taken to Hilton Head, South Carolina, and Fernandina, Florida, leaving the island abandoned.
After the Civil War the island never returned to its status as an agricultural community. The plantations lay dormant because there were no slaves to work the fields. After Union general William T. Sherman's January 1865 Special Field Order No. 15 —a demand that former plantations be divided and distributed to former slaves—was overturned by U.S. president Andrew Johnson less than a year later, freedmen and women were forced to work as sharecroppers on the small farms that dotted the land previously occupied by the sprawling plantations.
By
St. Simons Lumber Mills
1870 real economic recovery began with the reestablishment of the timber industry. Norman Dodge and Titus G. Meigs of New York set up lumber mill operations at Gascoigne Bluff, formerly Hamilton Plantation. The lumber mills provided welcome employment for both blacks and whites and also provided mail and passenger boats to the mainland. Such water traffic, together with the construction of a new lighthouse in 1872, designed by architect Charles B. Cluskey, marked the beginning of St. Simons's tourism industry. The keeper of the lighthouse created a small amusement park, which drew many visitors, as did the seemingly miraculous light that traveled from the top of the lighthouse tower to the bottom. The island became a summer retreat for families from the mainland, particularly from Baxley, Brunswick, and Waycross.
The island's resort industry was thriving by the 1880s. Beachfront structures, such as a new pier and grand hotel, were built on the southeastern end of the island and could be accessed by ferry. Around this time wealthy northerners began vacationing on the island.
Twentieth Century
The
St. Simons Island Pier and Village
opening in 1924 of the Brunswick–St. Simons Highway, today known as the Torras Causeway, was a milestone in the development of resorts in the area. St. Simons's beaches were now easily accessible to locals and tourists alike. More than 5,000 automobiles took the short drive from Brunswick to St. Simons via the causeway on its opening day, paving the way for convenient residential and resort development.
In 1926 automotive pioneer Howard Coffin of Detroit, Michigan, bought large tracts of land on St. Simons, including the former Retreat Plantation, and constructed a golf course, yacht club, paved roads, and a residential subdivision. Although the causeway had brought large numbers of summer people to the island, St. Simons remained a small community with only a few hundred permanent residents until the 1940s.
The
St. Simons Island
outbreak of World War II (1941-45) brought more visitors and residents to St. Simons. Troops stationed at Jacksonville, Florida; Savannah; and nearby Camp Stewart took weekend vacations on the island, and a new naval air base and radar school became home to even more officers and soldiers. The increased wartime population brought the island its first public school. With a major shipyard for the production of Liberty ships in nearby Brunswick, the waters of St. Simons became active with German U-boats. In April 1942, just off the coast, the Texas Company oil tanker S. S. Oklahoma and the S. S. Esso Baton Rouge were torpedoed by the Germans, bringing the war very close to home for island residents.
Due in large part to the military's improvement of the island's infrastructure during the war, development on the island boomed in the 1950s and 1960s. More permanent homes and subdivisions were built, and the island was no longer just a summer resort but also a thriving community. In 1950 the Methodist conference and retreat center Epworth by the Sea opened on Gascoigne Bluff. In 1961 novelist Eugenia Price visited St. Simons and began work on her first works of fiction, known as the St. Simons Trilogy. Inspired by real events on the island, Price's trilogy renewed interest in the history of Georgia's coast, and the novelist herself relocated to the island in 1965 and lived there for thirty-one years. St. Simons is also home to contemporary Georgia writer Tina McElroy Ansa.
Since
Epworth by the Sea
1980 St. Simons's population has doubled. The island's continued status as a vacation destination and its ongoing development boom have put historic landmarks and natural areas at risk. While such landmarks as the Fort Frederica ruins and the Battle of Bloody Marsh site are preserved and maintained by the National Park Service, and while the historic lighthouse is maintained by the Coastal Georgia Historical Society, historic Ebos Landing has been taken over by a sewage treatment plant.
Several coastal organizations have formed in recent years to save natural areas on the island. The St. Simons Land Trust, for example, has received donations of large tracts of land and plans to protect property in the island's three traditional African American neighborhoods. Despite its rapid growth and development, St. Simons remains one of the most beautiful and important islands on the Georgia coast.
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Envision WebStuart Wade, Envision Virtual Tours
The second-largest and most developed of Georgia's barrier islands, St. Simons is approximately twelve miles long and nearly three miles wide at its widest stretch (roughly the size of Manhattan Island in New York). The island is located in Glynn County on Georgia's coast and lies east of Brunswick (the seat of Glynn County), south of Little St. Simons Island and the Hampton River, and north of Jekyll Island. The resort community of Sea Island is separated from St. Simons on the east by the Black Banks River. Known for its oak tree canopies and historic landmarks, St. Simons is both a tourist destination and, according to the 2010 U.S. census, home to 12,743 residents.
Early History
The earliest
St. Simons Island Village
record of human habitation on the island dates to the Late Archaic Period, about 5,000 to 3,000 years ago. Remnants of shell rings left behind by Native Americans from this era survive on many of the barrier islands, including St. Simons. Centuries later, during the period known by historians as the chiefdom era, the Guale Indians established a chiefdom centered on St. Catherines Island and used St. Simons as their hunting and fishing grounds. By 1500 the Guale had established a permanent village of about 200 people on St. Simons, which they called Guadalquini.
Beginning in 1568, the Spanish attempted to create missions along the Georgia coast. Catholic missions were the primary means by which Georgia's indigenous Native American chiefdoms were assimilated into the Spanish colonial system along the northern frontier of greater Spanish Florida. In the 1600s St. Simons became home to two Spanish missions: San Buenaventura de Guadalquini, on the southern tip of the island, and Santo Domingo de Asao (or Asajo), on the northern tip. Located on the inland side of the island were the pagan refugee villages of San Simón, the island's namesake, and Ocotonico. In 1684 pirate raids left the missions and villages largely abandoned.
Colonial History
As
Fort Frederica
early as 1670, with Great Britain's establishment of the colony of Carolina and its expansion into Georgia territory, Spanish rule was threatened by the English. The Georgia coast was considered "debatable land" by England and Spain, even though Spain had fully retreated from St. Simons by 1702. Thirty-one years later General James Edward Oglethorpe founded the English settlement of Savannah. In 1736 he established Fort Frederica, named after the heir to the British throne, Frederick Louis, prince of Wales, on the west side of St. Simons Island to protect Savannah and the Carolinas from the Spanish threat.
Between 1736 and 1749 Fort Frederica was the hub of British military operations along the Georgia frontier. A town of the same name grew up around the fort and was of great importance to the new colony. By 1740 Frederica's population was 1,000. In 1736 the congregation of what would become Christ Church was organized within Fort Frederica as a mission of the Church of England. Charles Wesley led the first services. In 1742 Britain's decisive victory over Spain in the Battle of Bloody Marsh, during the War of Jenkins' Ear, ended the Spanish threat to the Georgia coast. When the British regimen disbanded in 1749, most of the townspeople relocated to the mainland. Fort Frederica went into decline and, except for a short time of prosperity during the 1760s and 1770s under the leadership of merchant James Spalding, never fully recovered. Today the historic citadel's tabby ruins are maintained by the National Park Service.
Plantation Era
By the start of the American Revolution (1775-83), Fort Frederica was obsolete, and St. Simons was left largely uninhabited as most of its residents joined the patriot army. Besides hosting a small Georgia naval victory on the Fort Frederica River, providing guns from its famous fort for use at Fort Morris in Sunbury, and serving as an arena for pillaging by privateers and British soldiers, the island played almost no role in the war.
Following the war, many of the townspeople, their businesses destroyed, turned to agriculture. The island was transformed into fourteen cotton plantations after acres of live oak trees were cleared for farm land and used for building American warships, including the famous USS Constitution, or "Old Ironsides." Although rice was the predominant crop along the neighboring Altamaha River, St. Simons was known for its production of long-staple cotton, which soon came to be known as Sea Island cotton.
Between
Ebos Landing
the 1780s and the outbreak of the Civil War (1861-65), St. Simons's plantation culture flourished. The saline atmosphere and the availability of cheap slave labor proved an ideal combination for the cultivation of Sea Island cotton. In 1803 a group of Ebo slaves who survived the Middle Passage and arrived on the west side of St. Simons staged a rebellion and drowned themselves. The sacred site is known today as Ebos Landing.
One of the largest owners of land and slaves on St. Simons was Pierce Butler, master of Hampton Point Plantation, located on the northern end of the island. By 1793 Butler owned more than 500 slaves, who cultivated 800 acres of cotton on St. Simons and 300 acres of rice on Butler's Island in the Altamaha River delta. Butler's grandson, Pierce Mease Butler, who at the age of sixteen inherited a share of his grandfather's estate in 1826, was responsible for the largest sale of human beings in the history of the United States: in 1859, to restore his squandered fortune, he sold 429 slaves in Savannah for more than $300,000. The British actress and writer Fanny Kemble, whose tumultuous marriage to Pierce ended in divorce in 1849, published an eyewitness account of the evils of slavery on St. Simons in her book Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation in 1838-1839 (1863).
Another
Retreat Plantation
large owner of land and slaves on St. Simons was Major William Page, a friend and employee of Pierce Butler Sr. Before purchasing Retreat Plantation on the southwestern tip of the island in 1804, Page managed the Hampton plantation and Butler's Island. Upon Page's death in 1827, Thomas Butler King inherited the land together with his wife, Page's daughter, Anna Matilda Page King. King expanded his father-in-law's planting empire on St. Simons as well as on the mainland, and by 1835 Retreat Plantation alone was home to as many as 355 slaves.
The center of life during the island's plantation era was Christ Church, Frederica. Organized in 1807 by a group of island planters, the Episcopal church is the second oldest in the Diocese of Georgia. Embargoes imposed by the War of 1812 (1812-15) prevented the parishioners from building a church structure, so they worshiped in the home of John Beck, which stood on the site of Oglethorpe's only St. Simons residence, Orange Hall.
The first Christ Church building, finished on the present site in 1820, was ruined by occupying Union troops during the Civil War. In 1884 the Reverend Anson Dodge Jr. rebuilt the church as a memorial to his first wife, Ellen. The cruciform building with a trussed gothic roof and stained-glass windows remains active today as Christ Church.
Civil War and Beyond
The
St. Simons Island Lighthouse
outbreak of the Civil War in 1861 put a sudden end to St. Simons's lucrative plantation era. In January of that year, Confederate troops were stationed at the south end of the island to guard the entrance to Brunswick Harbor. Slaves from Retreat Plantation, owned by Thomas Butler King, built earthworks and batteries. Plantation residents were scattered—the men joined the Confederate army and their families moved to the mainland. Cannon fire was heard on the island in December 1861, and Confederate troops retreated in February 1862, after dynamiting the lighthouse to keep its beacon from aiding Union troops. Soon thereafter, Union troops occupied the island, which was used as a camp for freed slaves. By August 1862 more than 500 former slaves lived on St. Simons, including Susie King Taylor, who organized a school for freed slave children. But in November the ex-slaves were taken to Hilton Head, South Carolina, and Fernandina, Florida, leaving the island abandoned.
After the Civil War the island never returned to its status as an agricultural community. The plantations lay dormant because there were no slaves to work the fields. After Union general William T. Sherman's January 1865 Special Field Order No. 15 —a demand that former plantations be divided and distributed to former slaves—was overturned by U.S. president Andrew Johnson less than a year later, freedmen and women were forced to work as sharecroppers on the small farms that dotted the land previously occupied by the sprawling plantations.
By
St. Simons Lumber Mills
1870 real economic recovery began with the reestablishment of the timber industry. Norman Dodge and Titus G. Meigs of New York set up lumber mill operations at Gascoigne Bluff, formerly Hamilton Plantation. The lumber mills provided welcome employment for both blacks and whites and also provided mail and passenger boats to the mainland. Such water traffic, together with the construction of a new lighthouse in 1872, designed by architect Charles B. Cluskey, marked the beginning of St. Simons's tourism industry. The keeper of the lighthouse created a small amusement park, which drew many visitors, as did the seemingly miraculous light that traveled from the top of the lighthouse tower to the bottom. The island became a summer retreat for families from the mainland, particularly from Baxley, Brunswick, and Waycross.
The island's resort industry was thriving by the 1880s. Beachfront structures, such as a new pier and grand hotel, were built on the southeastern end of the island and could be accessed by ferry. Around this time wealthy northerners began vacationing on the island.
Twentieth Century
The
St. Simons Island Pier and Village
opening in 1924 of the Brunswick–St. Simons Highway, today known as the Torras Causeway, was a milestone in the development of resorts in the area. St. Simons's beaches were now easily accessible to locals and tourists alike. More than 5,000 automobiles took the short drive from Brunswick to St. Simons via the causeway on its opening day, paving the way for convenient residential and resort development.
In 1926 automotive pioneer Howard Coffin of Detroit, Michigan, bought large tracts of land on St. Simons, including the former Retreat Plantation, and constructed a golf course, yacht club, paved roads, and a residential subdivision. Although the causeway had brought large numbers of summer people to the island, St. Simons remained a small community with only a few hundred permanent residents until the 1940s.
The
St. Simons Island
outbreak of World War II (1941-45) brought more visitors and residents to St. Simons. Troops stationed at Jacksonville, Florida; Savannah; and nearby Camp Stewart took weekend vacations on the island, and a new naval air base and radar school became home to even more officers and soldiers. The increased wartime population brought the island its first public school. With a major shipyard for the production of Liberty ships in nearby Brunswick, the waters of St. Simons became active with German U-boats. In April 1942, just off the coast, the Texas Company oil tanker S. S. Oklahoma and the S. S. Esso Baton Rouge were torpedoed by the Germans, bringing the war very close to home for island residents.
Due in large part to the military's improvement of the island's infrastructure during the war, development on the island boomed in the 1950s and 1960s. More permanent homes and subdivisions were built, and the island was no longer just a summer resort but also a thriving community. In 1950 the Methodist conference and retreat center Epworth by the Sea opened on Gascoigne Bluff. In 1961 novelist Eugenia Price visited St. Simons and began work on her first works of fiction, known as the St. Simons Trilogy. Inspired by real events on the island, Price's trilogy renewed interest in the history of Georgia's coast, and the novelist herself relocated to the island in 1965 and lived there for thirty-one years. St. Simons is also home to contemporary Georgia writer Tina McElroy Ansa.
Since
Epworth by the Sea
1980 St. Simons's population has doubled. The island's continued status as a vacation destination and its ongoing development boom have put historic landmarks and natural areas at risk. While such landmarks as the Fort Frederica ruins and the Battle of Bloody Marsh site are preserved and maintained by the National Park Service, and while the historic lighthouse is maintained by the Coastal Georgia Historical Society, historic Ebos Landing has been taken over by a sewage treatment plant.
Several coastal organizations have formed in recent years to save natural areas on the island. The St. Simons Land Trust, for example, has received donations of large tracts of land and plans to protect property in the island's three traditional African American neighborhoods. Despite its rapid growth and development, St. Simons remains one of the most beautiful and important islands on the Georgia coast.
Saikley ArchitectsThis house was a very small mid-century bungalow with previous additions that resulted in a large but chaotic layout. The owners wanted to convert the house to a super-efficient, and charming Craftsman-style, 6 bedroom home for their large family and work at home.
We achieved the space needs by moving a few walls for a more efficient, organized layout, setting up spaces for overlapping uses, and making a small upstairs addition. Every bit of square footage was optimized to meet the goals of the project without making the house huge or adding unnecessary cost.
Much thought was given to the entry sequence near the front door. A large flow-through mudroom with storage for each family member, and adjacent laundry, make it easy for children to be taught to keep their things organized and to contribute to household chores. A mail station and central home admin area at the mudroom help keep clutter down at other areas and minimize home management tasks. A garage door near the kitchen gives quick access to bulk items.
The existing house had too much view to the street from the living room through large corner windows, and too little entry transition, to the extent that the family did not feel comfortable using the living room much without shades drawn. We raised the window sills and brought the new windows in from the corner of the house, allowing plenty of light while protecting privacy and a sense of enclosure in the living room. We enlarged the front porch to create a more graceful transition from the public to private space. We located the front door so that the circulation from entry into the house would allow for furnishing the living room with a sitting circle that is not intruded upon by people walking through the room.
Sight lines through the living spaces were an important consideration in the design. The owners wanted discreet spaces for living room, kitchen, dining and family room, but also wanted the living spaces to feel connected and to be able to easily watch their children. Being able to see the children playing in the yard while getting things done inside the house was also important. While largely working with the existing structure, we opened walls and rearranged the use of spaces to make a series of connected living spaces with long views through them.
The character of the remodeled house is a contemporary Craftsman with classic materials and cool, consistent colors. A few arches echo through the house to frame spaces and soften the feeling of the rooms.
Photography: Kurt Manley
https://saikleyarchitects.com/portfolio/bungalow-expansion/
Saikley ArchitectsThis house was a very small mid-century bungalow with previous additions that resulted in a large but chaotic layout. The owners wanted to convert the house to a super-efficient, and charming Craftsman-style, 6 bedroom home for their large family and work at home.
We achieved the space needs by moving a few walls for a more efficient, organized layout, setting up spaces for overlapping uses, and making a small upstairs addition. Every bit of square footage was optimized to meet the goals of the project without making the house huge or adding unnecessary cost.
Much thought was given to the entry sequence near the front door. A large flow-through mudroom with storage for each family member, and adjacent laundry, make it easy for children to be taught to keep their things organized and to contribute to household chores. A mail station and central home admin area at the mudroom help keep clutter down at other areas and minimize home management tasks. A garage door near the kitchen gives quick access to bulk items.
The existing house had too much view to the street from the living room through large corner windows, and too little entry transition, to the extent that the family did not feel comfortable using the living room much without shades drawn. We raised the window sills and brought the new windows in from the corner of the house, allowing plenty of light while protecting privacy and a sense of enclosure in the living room. We enlarged the front porch to create a more graceful transition from the public to private space. We located the front door so that the circulation from entry into the house would allow for furnishing the living room with a sitting circle that is not intruded upon by people walking through the room.
Sight lines through the living spaces were an important consideration in the design. The owners wanted discreet spaces for living room, kitchen, dining and family room, but also wanted the living spaces to feel connected and to be able to easily watch their children. Being able to see the children playing in the yard while getting things done inside the house was also important. While largely working with the existing structure, we opened walls and rearranged the use of spaces to make a series of connected living spaces with long views through them.
The character of the remodeled house is a contemporary Craftsman with classic materials and cool, consistent colors. A few arches echo through the house to frame spaces and soften the feeling of the rooms.
Photography: Kurt Manley
https://saikleyarchitects.com/portfolio/bungalow-expansion/
fuse57 llc architectureThis new Lake Minnetonka custom home was designed for a young growing family that decided to trade uptown Minneapolis condo life for lake living. Located on a narrow 40-foot-wide lot, this 2,850sf modern home provides a strong connection to the lake while also balancing privacy from the neighbors. The main level comprises a three-car tandem garage and public living spaces, the upper level consists of private spaces while the finished basement serves as a flexible space.
High performance triple pane European windows were strategically placed to frame views of the lake while interior facing windows were placed to frame tree and sky views. A stone clad fireplace acts as a spatial anchor that helps define the interior spaces as well as encourages the transition from interior to exterior spaces. Future solar panel conduits to the roof were installed as were EV charging stations in the garage and at the dock for future EV boat charging. Site water runoff is managed through an underground retention system.
The exterior cement board siding is painted black to recede into the landscape while accents of thermally modified wood, custom steel slats and stone add visual interest at the street and lake facing sides. The interior material palette is purposefully simple and consists of stained white oak flooring, ebony stained white oak cabinetry and millwork, white quartz counters, powder coated steel railings and stone veneer. The final result is a vibrant home for this young family that infuses warmth with a modern aesthetic.
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DSLD HomesWelcome to Trinity Bluff, a state-of-the-art community in North Shreveport. Located just five miles north of downtown, you’re minutes away from top-notch dining, a lively arts scene, and year-round festivals on the riverfront. A short drive over the Red River to Bossier City and you’ll find plenty of places to shop as well as even more dining options. For families, your children will learn and thrive in Caddo Parish Public Schools, which are home to 12 National Blue Ribbon Schools of Excellence as designated by the U.S. Department of Education. Caddo schools also offer magnet options across its elementary, middle, and high schools. Once at home in Trinity Bluff, you’ll rest easy knowing your house is built with the highest energy-efficient construction and equipped with the highest energy-efficient appliances available in the market. Enjoy features such as an induction cooktop, hybrid heat pump water heater, air-source heat pump, ENERGY STAR® smart thermostat, LED lighting, and Level 2 electric vehicle charging station.
Saikley ArchitectsThis house was a very small mid-century bungalow with previous additions that resulted in a large but chaotic layout. The owners wanted to convert the house to a super-efficient, and charming Craftsman-style, 6 bedroom home for their large family and work at home.
We achieved the space needs by moving a few walls for a more efficient, organized layout, setting up spaces for overlapping uses, and making a small upstairs addition. Every bit of square footage was optimized to meet the goals of the project without making the house huge or adding unnecessary cost.
Much thought was given to the entry sequence near the front door. A large flow-through mudroom with storage for each family member, and adjacent laundry, make it easy for children to be taught to keep their things organized and to contribute to household chores. A mail station and central home admin area at the mudroom help keep clutter down at other areas and minimize home management tasks. A garage door near the kitchen gives quick access to bulk items.
The existing house had too much view to the street from the living room through large corner windows, and too little entry transition, to the extent that the family did not feel comfortable using the living room much without shades drawn. We raised the window sills and brought the new windows in from the corner of the house, allowing plenty of light while protecting privacy and a sense of enclosure in the living room. We enlarged the front porch to create a more graceful transition from the public to private space. We located the front door so that the circulation from entry into the house would allow for furnishing the living room with a sitting circle that is not intruded upon by people walking through the room.
Sight lines through the living spaces were an important consideration in the design. The owners wanted discreet spaces for living room, kitchen, dining and family room, but also wanted the living spaces to feel connected and to be able to easily watch their children. Being able to see the children playing in the yard while getting things done inside the house was also important. While largely working with the existing structure, we opened walls and rearranged the use of spaces to make a series of connected living spaces with long views through them.
The character of the remodeled house is a contemporary Craftsman with classic materials and cool, consistent colors. A few arches echo through the house to frame spaces and soften the feeling of the rooms.
Photography: Kurt Manley
https://saikleyarchitects.com/portfolio/bungalow-expansion/
Saikley ArchitectsThis house was a very small mid-century bungalow with previous additions that resulted in a large but chaotic layout. The owners wanted to convert the house to a super-efficient, and charming Craftsman-style, 6 bedroom home for their large family and work at home.
We achieved the space needs by moving a few walls for a more efficient, organized layout, setting up spaces for overlapping uses, and making a small upstairs addition. Every bit of square footage was optimized to meet the goals of the project without making the house huge or adding unnecessary cost.
Much thought was given to the entry sequence near the front door. A large flow-through mudroom with storage for each family member, and adjacent laundry, make it easy for children to be taught to keep their things organized and to contribute to household chores. A mail station and central home admin area at the mudroom help keep clutter down at other areas and minimize home management tasks. A garage door near the kitchen gives quick access to bulk items.
The existing house had too much view to the street from the living room through large corner windows, and too little entry transition, to the extent that the family did not feel comfortable using the living room much without shades drawn. We raised the window sills and brought the new windows in from the corner of the house, allowing plenty of light while protecting privacy and a sense of enclosure in the living room. We enlarged the front porch to create a more graceful transition from the public to private space. We located the front door so that the circulation from entry into the house would allow for furnishing the living room with a sitting circle that is not intruded upon by people walking through the room.
Sight lines through the living spaces were an important consideration in the design. The owners wanted discreet spaces for living room, kitchen, dining and family room, but also wanted the living spaces to feel connected and to be able to easily watch their children. Being able to see the children playing in the yard while getting things done inside the house was also important. While largely working with the existing structure, we opened walls and rearranged the use of spaces to make a series of connected living spaces with long views through them.
The character of the remodeled house is a contemporary Craftsman with classic materials and cool, consistent colors. A few arches echo through the house to frame spaces and soften the feeling of the rooms.
Photography: Kurt Manley
https://saikleyarchitects.com/portfolio/bungalow-expansion/
Saikley ArchitectsThis house was a very small mid-century bungalow with previous additions that resulted in a large but chaotic layout. The owners wanted to convert the house to a super-efficient, and charming Craftsman-style, 6 bedroom home for their large family and work at home.
We achieved the space needs by moving a few walls for a more efficient, organized layout, setting up spaces for overlapping uses, and making a small upstairs addition. Every bit of square footage was optimized to meet the goals of the project without making the house huge or adding unnecessary cost.
Much thought was given to the entry sequence near the front door. A large flow-through mudroom with storage for each family member, and adjacent laundry, make it easy for children to be taught to keep their things organized and to contribute to household chores. A mail station and central home admin area at the mudroom help keep clutter down at other areas and minimize home management tasks. A garage door near the kitchen gives quick access to bulk items.
The existing house had too much view to the street from the living room through large corner windows, and too little entry transition, to the extent that the family did not feel comfortable using the living room much without shades drawn. We raised the window sills and brought the new windows in from the corner of the house, allowing plenty of light while protecting privacy and a sense of enclosure in the living room. We enlarged the front porch to create a more graceful transition from the public to private space. We located the front door so that the circulation from entry into the house would allow for furnishing the living room with a sitting circle that is not intruded upon by people walking through the room.
Sight lines through the living spaces were an important consideration in the design. The owners wanted discreet spaces for living room, kitchen, dining and family room, but also wanted the living spaces to feel connected and to be able to easily watch their children. Being able to see the children playing in the yard while getting things done inside the house was also important. While largely working with the existing structure, we opened walls and rearranged the use of spaces to make a series of connected living spaces with long views through them.
The character of the remodeled house is a contemporary Craftsman with classic materials and cool, consistent colors. A few arches echo through the house to frame spaces and soften the feeling of the rooms.
Photography: Kurt Manley
https://saikleyarchitects.com/portfolio/bungalow-expansion/
Saikley ArchitectsThis house was a very small mid-century bungalow with previous additions that resulted in a large but chaotic layout. The owners wanted to convert the house to a super-efficient, and charming Craftsman-style, 6 bedroom home for their large family and work at home.
We achieved the space needs by moving a few walls for a more efficient, organized layout, setting up spaces for overlapping uses, and making a small upstairs addition. Every bit of square footage was optimized to meet the goals of the project without making the house huge or adding unnecessary cost.
Much thought was given to the entry sequence near the front door. A large flow-through mudroom with storage for each family member, and adjacent laundry, make it easy for children to be taught to keep their things organized and to contribute to household chores. A mail station and central home admin area at the mudroom help keep clutter down at other areas and minimize home management tasks. A garage door near the kitchen gives quick access to bulk items.
The existing house had too much view to the street from the living room through large corner windows, and too little entry transition, to the extent that the family did not feel comfortable using the living room much without shades drawn. We raised the window sills and brought the new windows in from the corner of the house, allowing plenty of light while protecting privacy and a sense of enclosure in the living room. We enlarged the front porch to create a more graceful transition from the public to private space. We located the front door so that the circulation from entry into the house would allow for furnishing the living room with a sitting circle that is not intruded upon by people walking through the room.
Sight lines through the living spaces were an important consideration in the design. The owners wanted discreet spaces for living room, kitchen, dining and family room, but also wanted the living spaces to feel connected and to be able to easily watch their children. Being able to see the children playing in the yard while getting things done inside the house was also important. While largely working with the existing structure, we opened walls and rearranged the use of spaces to make a series of connected living spaces with long views through them.
The character of the remodeled house is a contemporary Craftsman with classic materials and cool, consistent colors. A few arches echo through the house to frame spaces and soften the feeling of the rooms.
Photography: Kurt Manley
https://saikleyarchitects.com/portfolio/bungalow-expansion/
Saikley ArchitectsThis house was a very small mid-century bungalow with previous additions that resulted in a large but chaotic layout. The owners wanted to convert the house to a super-efficient, and charming Craftsman-style, 6 bedroom home for their large family and work at home.
We achieved the space needs by moving a few walls for a more efficient, organized layout, setting up spaces for overlapping uses, and making a small upstairs addition. Every bit of square footage was optimized to meet the goals of the project without making the house huge or adding unnecessary cost.
Much thought was given to the entry sequence near the front door. A large flow-through mudroom with storage for each family member, and adjacent laundry, make it easy for children to be taught to keep their things organized and to contribute to household chores. A mail station and central home admin area at the mudroom help keep clutter down at other areas and minimize home management tasks. A garage door near the kitchen gives quick access to bulk items.
The existing house had too much view to the street from the living room through large corner windows, and too little entry transition, to the extent that the family did not feel comfortable using the living room much without shades drawn. We raised the window sills and brought the new windows in from the corner of the house, allowing plenty of light while protecting privacy and a sense of enclosure in the living room. We enlarged the front porch to create a more graceful transition from the public to private space. We located the front door so that the circulation from entry into the house would allow for furnishing the living room with a sitting circle that is not intruded upon by people walking through the room.
Sight lines through the living spaces were an important consideration in the design. The owners wanted discreet spaces for living room, kitchen, dining and family room, but also wanted the living spaces to feel connected and to be able to easily watch their children. Being able to see the children playing in the yard while getting things done inside the house was also important. While largely working with the existing structure, we opened walls and rearranged the use of spaces to make a series of connected living spaces with long views through them.
The character of the remodeled house is a contemporary Craftsman with classic materials and cool, consistent colors. A few arches echo through the house to frame spaces and soften the feeling of the rooms.
Photography: Kurt Manley
https://saikleyarchitects.com/portfolio/bungalow-expansion/
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Dulles Kitchen and Bath
Virginia-Based Turnkey Remodeling Specialist | 8x Best of Houzz!
Saikley ArchitectsThis house was a very small mid-century bungalow with previous additions that resulted in a large but chaotic layout. The owners wanted to convert the house to a super-efficient, and charming Craftsman-style, 6 bedroom home for their large family and work at home.
We achieved the space needs by moving a few walls for a more efficient, organized layout, setting up spaces for overlapping uses, and making a small upstairs addition. Every bit of square footage was optimized to meet the goals of the project without making the house huge or adding unnecessary cost.
Much thought was given to the entry sequence near the front door. A large flow-through mudroom with storage for each family member, and adjacent laundry, make it easy for children to be taught to keep their things organized and to contribute to household chores. A mail station and central home admin area at the mudroom help keep clutter down at other areas and minimize home management tasks. A garage door near the kitchen gives quick access to bulk items.
The existing house had too much view to the street from the living room through large corner windows, and too little entry transition, to the extent that the family did not feel comfortable using the living room much without shades drawn. We raised the window sills and brought the new windows in from the corner of the house, allowing plenty of light while protecting privacy and a sense of enclosure in the living room. We enlarged the front porch to create a more graceful transition from the public to private space. We located the front door so that the circulation from entry into the house would allow for furnishing the living room with a sitting circle that is not intruded upon by people walking through the room.
Sight lines through the living spaces were an important consideration in the design. The owners wanted discreet spaces for living room, kitchen, dining and family room, but also wanted the living spaces to feel connected and to be able to easily watch their children. Being able to see the children playing in the yard while getting things done inside the house was also important. While largely working with the existing structure, we opened walls and rearranged the use of spaces to make a series of connected living spaces with long views through them.
The character of the remodeled house is a contemporary Craftsman with classic materials and cool, consistent colors. A few arches echo through the house to frame spaces and soften the feeling of the rooms.
Photography: Kurt Manley
https://saikleyarchitects.com/portfolio/bungalow-expansion/
Rodwin Architecture & Skycastle ConstructionRodwin Architecture & Skycastle Homes
Location: Louisville, Colorado, USA
This 3,800 sf. modern farmhouse on Roosevelt Ave. in Louisville is lovingly called "Teddy Homesevelt" (AKA “The Ted”) by its owners. The ground floor is a simple, sunny open concept plan revolving around a gourmet kitchen, featuring a large island with a waterfall edge counter. The dining room is anchored by a bespoke Walnut, stone and raw steel dining room storage and display wall. The Great room is perfect for indoor/outdoor entertaining, and flows out to a large covered porch and firepit.
The homeowner’s love their photogenic pooch and the custom dog wash station in the mudroom makes it a delight to take care of her. In the basement there’s a state-of-the art media room, starring a uniquely stunning celestial ceiling and perfectly tuned acoustics. The rest of the basement includes a modern glass wine room, a large family room and a giant stepped window well to bring the daylight in.
The Ted includes two home offices: one sunny study by the foyer and a second larger one that doubles as a guest suite in the ADU above the detached garage.
The home is filled with custom touches: the wide plank White Oak floors merge artfully with the octagonal slate tile in the mudroom; the fireplace mantel and the Great Room’s center support column are both raw steel I-beams; beautiful Doug Fir solid timbers define the welcoming traditional front porch and delineate the main social spaces; and a cozy built-in Walnut breakfast booth is the perfect spot for a Sunday morning cup of coffee.
The two-story custom floating tread stair wraps sinuously around a signature chandelier, and is flooded with light from the giant windows. It arrives on the second floor at a covered front balcony overlooking a beautiful public park. The master bedroom features a fireplace, coffered ceilings, and its own private balcony. Each of the 3-1/2 bathrooms feature gorgeous finishes, but none shines like the master bathroom. With a vaulted ceiling, a stunningly tiled floor, a clean modern floating double vanity, and a glass enclosed “wet room” for the tub and shower, this room is a private spa paradise.
This near Net-Zero home also features a robust energy-efficiency package with a large solar PV array on the roof, a tight envelope, Energy Star windows, electric heat-pump HVAC and EV car chargers.
Saikley ArchitectsThis house was a very small mid-century bungalow with previous additions that resulted in a large but chaotic layout. The owners wanted to convert the house to a super-efficient, and charming Craftsman-style, 6 bedroom home for their large family and work at home.
We achieved the space needs by moving a few walls for a more efficient, organized layout, setting up spaces for overlapping uses, and making a small upstairs addition. Every bit of square footage was optimized to meet the goals of the project without making the house huge or adding unnecessary cost.
Much thought was given to the entry sequence near the front door. A large flow-through mudroom with storage for each family member, and adjacent laundry, make it easy for children to be taught to keep their things organized and to contribute to household chores. A mail station and central home admin area at the mudroom help keep clutter down at other areas and minimize home management tasks. A garage door near the kitchen gives quick access to bulk items.
The existing house had too much view to the street from the living room through large corner windows, and too little entry transition, to the extent that the family did not feel comfortable using the living room much without shades drawn. We raised the window sills and brought the new windows in from the corner of the house, allowing plenty of light while protecting privacy and a sense of enclosure in the living room. We enlarged the front porch to create a more graceful transition from the public to private space. We located the front door so that the circulation from entry into the house would allow for furnishing the living room with a sitting circle that is not intruded upon by people walking through the room.
Sight lines through the living spaces were an important consideration in the design. The owners wanted discreet spaces for living room, kitchen, dining and family room, but also wanted the living spaces to feel connected and to be able to easily watch their children. Being able to see the children playing in the yard while getting things done inside the house was also important. While largely working with the existing structure, we opened walls and rearranged the use of spaces to make a series of connected living spaces with long views through them.
The character of the remodeled house is a contemporary Craftsman with classic materials and cool, consistent colors. A few arches echo through the house to frame spaces and soften the feeling of the rooms.
Photography: Kurt Manley
https://saikleyarchitects.com/portfolio/bungalow-expansion/
Saikley ArchitectsThis house was a very small mid-century bungalow with previous additions that resulted in a large but chaotic layout. The owners wanted to convert the house to a super-efficient, and charming Craftsman-style, 6 bedroom home for their large family and work at home.
We achieved the space needs by moving a few walls for a more efficient, organized layout, setting up spaces for overlapping uses, and making a small upstairs addition. Every bit of square footage was optimized to meet the goals of the project without making the house huge or adding unnecessary cost.
Much thought was given to the entry sequence near the front door. A large flow-through mudroom with storage for each family member, and adjacent laundry, make it easy for children to be taught to keep their things organized and to contribute to household chores. A mail station and central home admin area at the mudroom help keep clutter down at other areas and minimize home management tasks. A garage door near the kitchen gives quick access to bulk items.
The existing house had too much view to the street from the living room through large corner windows, and too little entry transition, to the extent that the family did not feel comfortable using the living room much without shades drawn. We raised the window sills and brought the new windows in from the corner of the house, allowing plenty of light while protecting privacy and a sense of enclosure in the living room. We enlarged the front porch to create a more graceful transition from the public to private space. We located the front door so that the circulation from entry into the house would allow for furnishing the living room with a sitting circle that is not intruded upon by people walking through the room.
Sight lines through the living spaces were an important consideration in the design. The owners wanted discreet spaces for living room, kitchen, dining and family room, but also wanted the living spaces to feel connected and to be able to easily watch their children. Being able to see the children playing in the yard while getting things done inside the house was also important. While largely working with the existing structure, we opened walls and rearranged the use of spaces to make a series of connected living spaces with long views through them.
The character of the remodeled house is a contemporary Craftsman with classic materials and cool, consistent colors. A few arches echo through the house to frame spaces and soften the feeling of the rooms.
Photography: Kurt Manley
https://saikleyarchitects.com/portfolio/bungalow-expansion/
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Fairfax Station, VA
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King's Landing Properties LLC
Industry Leading Design-Build Firms in Loudoun County, Virginia
Saikley ArchitectsThis house was a very small mid-century bungalow with previous additions that resulted in a large but chaotic layout. The owners wanted to convert the house to a super-efficient, and charming Craftsman-style, 6 bedroom home for their large family and work at home.
We achieved the space needs by moving a few walls for a more efficient, organized layout, setting up spaces for overlapping uses, and making a small upstairs addition. Every bit of square footage was optimized to meet the goals of the project without making the house huge or adding unnecessary cost.
Much thought was given to the entry sequence near the front door. A large flow-through mudroom with storage for each family member, and adjacent laundry, make it easy for children to be taught to keep their things organized and to contribute to household chores. A mail station and central home admin area at the mudroom help keep clutter down at other areas and minimize home management tasks. A garage door near the kitchen gives quick access to bulk items.
The existing house had too much view to the street from the living room through large corner windows, and too little entry transition, to the extent that the family did not feel comfortable using the living room much without shades drawn. We raised the window sills and brought the new windows in from the corner of the house, allowing plenty of light while protecting privacy and a sense of enclosure in the living room. We enlarged the front porch to create a more graceful transition from the public to private space. We located the front door so that the circulation from entry into the house would allow for furnishing the living room with a sitting circle that is not intruded upon by people walking through the room.
Sight lines through the living spaces were an important consideration in the design. The owners wanted discreet spaces for living room, kitchen, dining and family room, but also wanted the living spaces to feel connected and to be able to easily watch their children. Being able to see the children playing in the yard while getting things done inside the house was also important. While largely working with the existing structure, we opened walls and rearranged the use of spaces to make a series of connected living spaces with long views through them.
The character of the remodeled house is a contemporary Craftsman with classic materials and cool, consistent colors. A few arches echo through the house to frame spaces and soften the feeling of the rooms.
Photography: Kurt Manley
https://saikleyarchitects.com/portfolio/bungalow-expansion/
Envision WebStuart Wade, Envision Virtual Tours
The second-largest and most developed of Georgia's barrier islands, St. Simons is approximately twelve miles long and nearly three miles wide at its widest stretch (roughly the size of Manhattan Island in New York). The island is located in Glynn County on Georgia's coast and lies east of Brunswick (the seat of Glynn County), south of Little St. Simons Island and the Hampton River, and north of Jekyll Island. The resort community of Sea Island is separated from St. Simons on the east by the Black Banks River. Known for its oak tree canopies and historic landmarks, St. Simons is both a tourist destination and, according to the 2010 U.S. census, home to 12,743 residents.
Early History
The earliest
St. Simons Island Village
record of human habitation on the island dates to the Late Archaic Period, about 5,000 to 3,000 years ago. Remnants of shell rings left behind by Native Americans from this era survive on many of the barrier islands, including St. Simons. Centuries later, during the period known by historians as the chiefdom era, the Guale Indians established a chiefdom centered on St. Catherines Island and used St. Simons as their hunting and fishing grounds. By 1500 the Guale had established a permanent village of about 200 people on St. Simons, which they called Guadalquini.
Beginning in 1568, the Spanish attempted to create missions along the Georgia coast. Catholic missions were the primary means by which Georgia's indigenous Native American chiefdoms were assimilated into the Spanish colonial system along the northern frontier of greater Spanish Florida. In the 1600s St. Simons became home to two Spanish missions: San Buenaventura de Guadalquini, on the southern tip of the island, and Santo Domingo de Asao (or Asajo), on the northern tip. Located on the inland side of the island were the pagan refugee villages of San Simón, the island's namesake, and Ocotonico. In 1684 pirate raids left the missions and villages largely abandoned.
Colonial History
As
Fort Frederica
early as 1670, with Great Britain's establishment of the colony of Carolina and its expansion into Georgia territory, Spanish rule was threatened by the English. The Georgia coast was considered "debatable land" by England and Spain, even though Spain had fully retreated from St. Simons by 1702. Thirty-one years later General James Edward Oglethorpe founded the English settlement of Savannah. In 1736 he established Fort Frederica, named after the heir to the British throne, Frederick Louis, prince of Wales, on the west side of St. Simons Island to protect Savannah and the Carolinas from the Spanish threat.
Between 1736 and 1749 Fort Frederica was the hub of British military operations along the Georgia frontier. A town of the same name grew up around the fort and was of great importance to the new colony. By 1740 Frederica's population was 1,000. In 1736 the congregation of what would become Christ Church was organized within Fort Frederica as a mission of the Church of England. Charles Wesley led the first services. In 1742 Britain's decisive victory over Spain in the Battle of Bloody Marsh, during the War of Jenkins' Ear, ended the Spanish threat to the Georgia coast. When the British regimen disbanded in 1749, most of the townspeople relocated to the mainland. Fort Frederica went into decline and, except for a short time of prosperity during the 1760s and 1770s under the leadership of merchant James Spalding, never fully recovered. Today the historic citadel's tabby ruins are maintained by the National Park Service.
Plantation Era
By the start of the American Revolution (1775-83), Fort Frederica was obsolete, and St. Simons was left largely uninhabited as most of its residents joined the patriot army. Besides hosting a small Georgia naval victory on the Fort Frederica River, providing guns from its famous fort for use at Fort Morris in Sunbury, and serving as an arena for pillaging by privateers and British soldiers, the island played almost no role in the war.
Following the war, many of the townspeople, their businesses destroyed, turned to agriculture. The island was transformed into fourteen cotton plantations after acres of live oak trees were cleared for farm land and used for building American warships, including the famous USS Constitution, or "Old Ironsides." Although rice was the predominant crop along the neighboring Altamaha River, St. Simons was known for its production of long-staple cotton, which soon came to be known as Sea Island cotton.
Between
Ebos Landing
the 1780s and the outbreak of the Civil War (1861-65), St. Simons's plantation culture flourished. The saline atmosphere and the availability of cheap slave labor proved an ideal combination for the cultivation of Sea Island cotton. In 1803 a group of Ebo slaves who survived the Middle Passage and arrived on the west side of St. Simons staged a rebellion and drowned themselves. The sacred site is known today as Ebos Landing.
One of the largest owners of land and slaves on St. Simons was Pierce Butler, master of Hampton Point Plantation, located on the northern end of the island. By 1793 Butler owned more than 500 slaves, who cultivated 800 acres of cotton on St. Simons and 300 acres of rice on Butler's Island in the Altamaha River delta. Butler's grandson, Pierce Mease Butler, who at the age of sixteen inherited a share of his grandfather's estate in 1826, was responsible for the largest sale of human beings in the history of the United States: in 1859, to restore his squandered fortune, he sold 429 slaves in Savannah for more than $300,000. The British actress and writer Fanny Kemble, whose tumultuous marriage to Pierce ended in divorce in 1849, published an eyewitness account of the evils of slavery on St. Simons in her book Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation in 1838-1839 (1863).
Another
Retreat Plantation
large owner of land and slaves on St. Simons was Major William Page, a friend and employee of Pierce Butler Sr. Before purchasing Retreat Plantation on the southwestern tip of the island in 1804, Page managed the Hampton plantation and Butler's Island. Upon Page's death in 1827, Thomas Butler King inherited the land together with his wife, Page's daughter, Anna Matilda Page King. King expanded his father-in-law's planting empire on St. Simons as well as on the mainland, and by 1835 Retreat Plantation alone was home to as many as 355 slaves.
The center of life during the island's plantation era was Christ Church, Frederica. Organized in 1807 by a group of island planters, the Episcopal church is the second oldest in the Diocese of Georgia. Embargoes imposed by the War of 1812 (1812-15) prevented the parishioners from building a church structure, so they worshiped in the home of John Beck, which stood on the site of Oglethorpe's only St. Simons residence, Orange Hall.
The first Christ Church building, finished on the present site in 1820, was ruined by occupying Union troops during the Civil War. In 1884 the Reverend Anson Dodge Jr. rebuilt the church as a memorial to his first wife, Ellen. The cruciform building with a trussed gothic roof and stained-glass windows remains active today as Christ Church.
Civil War and Beyond
The
St. Simons Island Lighthouse
outbreak of the Civil War in 1861 put a sudden end to St. Simons's lucrative plantation era. In January of that year, Confederate troops were stationed at the south end of the island to guard the entrance to Brunswick Harbor. Slaves from Retreat Plantation, owned by Thomas Butler King, built earthworks and batteries. Plantation residents were scattered—the men joined the Confederate army and their families moved to the mainland. Cannon fire was heard on the island in December 1861, and Confederate troops retreated in February 1862, after dynamiting the lighthouse to keep its beacon from aiding Union troops. Soon thereafter, Union troops occupied the island, which was used as a camp for freed slaves. By August 1862 more than 500 former slaves lived on St. Simons, including Susie King Taylor, who organized a school for freed slave children. But in November the ex-slaves were taken to Hilton Head, South Carolina, and Fernandina, Florida, leaving the island abandoned.
After the Civil War the island never returned to its status as an agricultural community. The plantations lay dormant because there were no slaves to work the fields. After Union general William T. Sherman's January 1865 Special Field Order No. 15 —a demand that former plantations be divided and distributed to former slaves—was overturned by U.S. president Andrew Johnson less than a year later, freedmen and women were forced to work as sharecroppers on the small farms that dotted the land previously occupied by the sprawling plantations.
By
St. Simons Lumber Mills
1870 real economic recovery began with the reestablishment of the timber industry. Norman Dodge and Titus G. Meigs of New York set up lumber mill operations at Gascoigne Bluff, formerly Hamilton Plantation. The lumber mills provided welcome employment for both blacks and whites and also provided mail and passenger boats to the mainland. Such water traffic, together with the construction of a new lighthouse in 1872, designed by architect Charles B. Cluskey, marked the beginning of St. Simons's tourism industry. The keeper of the lighthouse created a small amusement park, which drew many visitors, as did the seemingly miraculous light that traveled from the top of the lighthouse tower to the bottom. The island became a summer retreat for families from the mainland, particularly from Baxley, Brunswick, and Waycross.
The island's resort industry was thriving by the 1880s. Beachfront structures, such as a new pier and grand hotel, were built on the southeastern end of the island and could be accessed by ferry. Around this time wealthy northerners began vacationing on the island.
Twentieth Century
The
St. Simons Island Pier and Village
opening in 1924 of the Brunswick–St. Simons Highway, today known as the Torras Causeway, was a milestone in the development of resorts in the area. St. Simons's beaches were now easily accessible to locals and tourists alike. More than 5,000 automobiles took the short drive from Brunswick to St. Simons via the causeway on its opening day, paving the way for convenient residential and resort development.
In 1926 automotive pioneer Howard Coffin of Detroit, Michigan, bought large tracts of land on St. Simons, including the former Retreat Plantation, and constructed a golf course, yacht club, paved roads, and a residential subdivision. Although the causeway had brought large numbers of summer people to the island, St. Simons remained a small community with only a few hundred permanent residents until the 1940s.
The
St. Simons Island
outbreak of World War II (1941-45) brought more visitors and residents to St. Simons. Troops stationed at Jacksonville, Florida; Savannah; and nearby Camp Stewart took weekend vacations on the island, and a new naval air base and radar school became home to even more officers and soldiers. The increased wartime population brought the island its first public school. With a major shipyard for the production of Liberty ships in nearby Brunswick, the waters of St. Simons became active with German U-boats. In April 1942, just off the coast, the Texas Company oil tanker S. S. Oklahoma and the S. S. Esso Baton Rouge were torpedoed by the Germans, bringing the war very close to home for island residents.
Due in large part to the military's improvement of the island's infrastructure during the war, development on the island boomed in the 1950s and 1960s. More permanent homes and subdivisions were built, and the island was no longer just a summer resort but also a thriving community. In 1950 the Methodist conference and retreat center Epworth by the Sea opened on Gascoigne Bluff. In 1961 novelist Eugenia Price visited St. Simons and began work on her first works of fiction, known as the St. Simons Trilogy. Inspired by real events on the island, Price's trilogy renewed interest in the history of Georgia's coast, and the novelist herself relocated to the island in 1965 and lived there for thirty-one years. St. Simons is also home to contemporary Georgia writer Tina McElroy Ansa.
Since
Epworth by the Sea
1980 St. Simons's population has doubled. The island's continued status as a vacation destination and its ongoing development boom have put historic landmarks and natural areas at risk. While such landmarks as the Fort Frederica ruins and the Battle of Bloody Marsh site are preserved and maintained by the National Park Service, and while the historic lighthouse is maintained by the Coastal Georgia Historical Society, historic Ebos Landing has been taken over by a sewage treatment plant.
Several coastal organizations have formed in recent years to save natural areas on the island. The St. Simons Land Trust, for example, has received donations of large tracts of land and plans to protect property in the island's three traditional African American neighborhoods. Despite its rapid growth and development, St. Simons remains one of the most beautiful and important islands on the Georgia coast.
Saikley ArchitectsThis house was a very small mid-century bungalow with previous additions that resulted in a large but chaotic layout. The owners wanted to convert the house to a super-efficient, and charming Craftsman-style, 6 bedroom home for their large family and work at home.
We achieved the space needs by moving a few walls for a more efficient, organized layout, setting up spaces for overlapping uses, and making a small upstairs addition. Every bit of square footage was optimized to meet the goals of the project without making the house huge or adding unnecessary cost.
Much thought was given to the entry sequence near the front door. A large flow-through mudroom with storage for each family member, and adjacent laundry, make it easy for children to be taught to keep their things organized and to contribute to household chores. A mail station and central home admin area at the mudroom help keep clutter down at other areas and minimize home management tasks. A garage door near the kitchen gives quick access to bulk items.
The existing house had too much view to the street from the living room through large corner windows, and too little entry transition, to the extent that the family did not feel comfortable using the living room much without shades drawn. We raised the window sills and brought the new windows in from the corner of the house, allowing plenty of light while protecting privacy and a sense of enclosure in the living room. We enlarged the front porch to create a more graceful transition from the public to private space. We located the front door so that the circulation from entry into the house would allow for furnishing the living room with a sitting circle that is not intruded upon by people walking through the room.
Sight lines through the living spaces were an important consideration in the design. The owners wanted discreet spaces for living room, kitchen, dining and family room, but also wanted the living spaces to feel connected and to be able to easily watch their children. Being able to see the children playing in the yard while getting things done inside the house was also important. While largely working with the existing structure, we opened walls and rearranged the use of spaces to make a series of connected living spaces with long views through them.
The character of the remodeled house is a contemporary Craftsman with classic materials and cool, consistent colors. A few arches echo through the house to frame spaces and soften the feeling of the rooms.
Photography: Kurt Manley
https://saikleyarchitects.com/portfolio/bungalow-expansion/
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