The owners requested that their home harmonize with the spirit of the surrounding Colorado mountain setting and enhance their outdoor recreational lifestyle - while reflecting their contemporary architectural tastes. The site was burdened with a myriad of strict design criteria enforced by the neighborhood covenants and architectural review board. Creating a distinct design challenge, the covenants included a narrow interpretation of a “mountain style” home which established predetermined roof pitches, glazing percentages and material palettes - at direct odds with the client‘s vision of a flat-roofed, glass, “contemporary” home. Our solution finds inspiration and opportunities within the site covenant’s strict definitions. It promotes and celebrates the client’s outdoor lifestyle and resolves the definition of a contemporary “mountain style” home by reducing the architecture to its most basic vernacular forms and relying upon local materials. The home utilizes a simple base, middle and top that echoes the surrounding mountains and vegetation. The massing takes its cues from the prevalent lodgepole pine trees that grow at the mountain’s high altitudes. These pine trees have a distinct growth pattern, highlighted by a single vertical trunk and a peaked, densely foliated growth zone above a sparse base. This growth pattern is referenced by placing the wood-clad body of the home at the second story above an open base composed of wood posts and glass. A simple peaked roof rests lightly atop the home - visually floating above a triangular glass transom. The home itself is neatly inserted amongst an existing grove of lodgepole pines and oriented to take advantage of panoramic views of the adjacent meadow and Continental Divide beyond. The main functions of the house are arranged into public and private areas and this division is made apparent on the home’s exterior. Two large roof forms, clad in pre-patinated zinc, are separated by a sheltering central deck - which signals the main entry to the home. At this connection, the roof deck is opened to allow a cluster of aspen trees to grow – further reinforcing nature as an integral part of arrival. Outdoor living spaces are provided on all levels of the house and are positioned to take advantage of sunrise and sunset moments. The distinction between interior and exterior space is blurred via the use of large expanses of glass. The dry stacked stone base and natural cedar cladding both reappear within the home’s interior spaces. This home offers a unique solution to the client’s requests while satisfying the design requirements of the neighborhood covenants. The house provides a variety of indoor and outdoor living spaces that can be utilized in all seasons. Most importantly, the house takes its cues directly from its natural surroundings and local building traditions to become a prototype solution for the “modern mountain house”. Overview Ranch Creek Ranch Winter Park, Colorado Completion Date October, 2007 Services Architecture, Interior Design, Landscape Architecture

Bathroom and Shower Teak Wood Mat Superior Quality Price start at $89.95 5 sizes and custom order available Teak Wood Mat Rectangle 14" x 20" - $89.95 Teak Wood Mat Square Round Corners 30" x 30" - $295.00 Teak Wood Mat Rectangle 14" x 32" - $165.00 Teak Wood Mat Rectangle 36" x 30" - $345.00 Teak Wood Mat Rectangle 18" x 25" - $165.00 Custom mats at $0.48 per sq inch We offer a wide range of standard sizes and styles plus we can create just about any size, shape or design that you can imagine. Whether you want to add a non-slip surface by your tub or totally surround your shower with a rich, custom mat, we can do it. Best of all, these mats can be used inside the shower as well as outside! Feature • Ideal for indoor or outdoor use • Marine grade stainless steel screws are used in the construction • Made of natural teak wood • All screws are countersunk into the bottom supports and into the top slats. • Ideal for use in or out of the shower and or high-moisture areas. • Slip and bacteria resistant • Battens are 1/4" rounded on the edge of each top batten to assure comfort • All mats are built on 3/4" x 3/4" solid teak supports • Anti-bacterial rubberized strips are bonded to each teak support to assure the mat stays in place Plantation Teak Our FSC certified Plantation Teak comes from trees harvested from an actual plantation of younger Teak trees. Since we only use the heartwood of the tree, it has all the same qualities of old growth Burmese Teak but it is a little lighter in color. Handcrafted in the USA Ship same day Worldwide Our store open to the Public 5047 W Jefferson Blvd Los Angeles CA 90016 Mon - Fri 7:00 am - 5:00pm Sunday 8:00 am- 12:00 noon For more product visit our web site http://www.flooringsupplyshop.com Or call us at 323-731-8453

The owners requested that their home harmonize with the spirit of the surrounding Colorado mountain setting and enhance their outdoor recreational lifestyle - while reflecting their contemporary architectural tastes. The site was burdened with a myriad of strict design criteria enforced by the neighborhood covenants and architectural review board. Creating a distinct design challenge, the covenants included a narrow interpretation of a “mountain style” home which established predetermined roof pitches, glazing percentages and material palettes - at direct odds with the client‘s vision of a flat-roofed, glass, “contemporary” home. Our solution finds inspiration and opportunities within the site covenant’s strict definitions. It promotes and celebrates the client’s outdoor lifestyle and resolves the definition of a contemporary “mountain style” home by reducing the architecture to its most basic vernacular forms and relying upon local materials. The home utilizes a simple base, middle and top that echoes the surrounding mountains and vegetation. The massing takes its cues from the prevalent lodgepole pine trees that grow at the mountain’s high altitudes. These pine trees have a distinct growth pattern, highlighted by a single vertical trunk and a peaked, densely foliated growth zone above a sparse base. This growth pattern is referenced by placing the wood-clad body of the home at the second story above an open base composed of wood posts and glass. A simple peaked roof rests lightly atop the home - visually floating above a triangular glass transom. The home itself is neatly inserted amongst an existing grove of lodgepole pines and oriented to take advantage of panoramic views of the adjacent meadow and Continental Divide beyond. The main functions of the house are arranged into public and private areas and this division is made apparent on the home’s exterior. Two large roof forms, clad in pre-patinated zinc, are separated by a sheltering central deck - which signals the main entry to the home. At this connection, the roof deck is opened to allow a cluster of aspen trees to grow – further reinforcing nature as an integral part of arrival. Outdoor living spaces are provided on all levels of the house and are positioned to take advantage of sunrise and sunset moments. The distinction between interior and exterior space is blurred via the use of large expanses of glass. The dry stacked stone base and natural cedar cladding both reappear within the home’s interior spaces. This home offers a unique solution to the client’s requests while satisfying the design requirements of the neighborhood covenants. The house provides a variety of indoor and outdoor living spaces that can be utilized in all seasons. Most importantly, the house takes its cues directly from its natural surroundings and local building traditions to become a prototype solution for the “modern mountain house”. Overview Ranch Creek Ranch Winter Park, Colorado Completion Date October, 2007 Services Architecture, Interior Design, Landscape Architecture

Backyard with custom pergola and built in grill in Geneva, Illinois.
Inspiration for a large timeless backyard brick patio remodel in Chicago with no cover

Images by Nic LeHoux Designed as a home and studio for a photographer and his young family, Lightbox is located on a peninsula that extends south from British Columbia across the border to Point Roberts. The densely forested site lies beside a 180-acre park that overlooks the Strait of Georgia, the San Juan Islands and the Puget Sound. Having experienced the world from under a black focusing cloth and large format camera lens, the photographer has a special fondness for simplicity and an appreciation of unique, genuine and well-crafted details. The home was made decidedly modest, in size and means, with a building skin utilizing simple materials in a straightforward yet innovative configuration. The result is a structure crafted from affordable and common materials such as exposed wood two-bys that form the structural frame and directly support a prefabricated aluminum window system of standard glazing units uniformly sized to reduce the complexity and overall cost. Accessed from the west on a sloped boardwalk that bisects its two contrasting forms, the house sits lightly on the land above the forest floor. A south facing two-story glassy cage for living captures the sun and view as it celebrates the interplay of light and shadow in the forest. To the north, stairs are contained in a thin wooden box stained black with a traditional Finnish pine tar coating. Narrow apertures in the otherwise solid dark wooden wall sharply focus the vibrant cropped views of the old growth fir trees at the edge of the deep forest. Lightbox is an uncomplicated yet powerful gesture that enables one to view the subtlety and beauty of the site while providing comfort and pleasure in the constantly changing light of the forest.

Rustic Zen Residence by Locati Architects, Interior Design by Cashmere Interior, Photography by Audrey Hall
Mountain style formal and open concept light wood floor and gray floor living room photo in Other with white walls

AFTER: View after 7 years of growth. Note that the columnar conifers have been strategically located to prevent blocking the river view, but their height also gives the owner some privacy and the house has an improved sense of belonging to the site.

Stuart Wade, Envision Virtual Tours Envision Virtual Tours and High Resolution Photography is your best choice to find just what you are looking for in the Ellijay, Ga. area .Ellijay, Georgia, known as the “Apple Capital” of Georgia, is located between the Ellijay and Cartecay Rivers where they join to make the Coosawattee River and is the county seat of Gilmer County, Georgia. The origin of the city’s name is not certain but thought to be the English derivative of an Indian word(s) meaning “many waters”, “place of green things” or “new ground”. Some histories say it may have been named for an Indian chief. Inhabited for countless years by the Cherokee people indigenous to the North Georgia, the area was first mentioned as a village and trade center before the onslaught of white settlers inhabited the region. During the 1830’s both white settlers and Indians occupied Ellijay. During the original land lottery in 1832, Martin Scalf acquired the 160 acre lot where the town now stands. In 1833, Clemonds Quinland bought 10 acres from Scalf, retained one acre for himself and donated the rest of the purchase to the County. A plan for twenty town lots, streets and a public square was created and the streets were oriented to allow maximum sunlight exposure to the buildings. Proceeds from lot sales were used to build a jail and courthouse and pay other city expenses. During this same year, Gilmer County was appropriated $800.00 from the State to build a school, and a three-acre lot was donated for the city cemetery. On December 29, l834, Ellijay was incorporated and designated as the County seat of Gilmer County. By 1837, the town had twenty dwellings, three stores and one attorney. Most of these early buildings were of log construction. Many roads led to Ellijay by 1849. The population had grown to 150 by 1850 and the town at five stores. Some wood-frame buildings were being constructed at this time and in 1854, a new courthouse was built in the center of the square, replacing the earlier building. The County’s first newspaper was the Ellijay Courier, started in 1875, and during this time period, Ellijay was a stop on the stagecoach line. The railroad bridge over the Cartecay River was completed in 1884 and the town now had rail service. With the arrival of the railroad and subsequent tracks to White Path, Ellijay began to grow much faster. Many hotels were constructed and land was donated for a depot east of town. More industries, such as a cheese factory and the Shippen Brothers Lumber Mill, located in Ellijay. By 1898, the city had expanded its limits in every direction and now included the depot. By 1900, all the buildings on the town square were brick. This included the recently completed Hyatt Hotel. Most of the other buildings in town were still of log construction, but new wood-frame buildings were being built. The Shippen Brothers Lumber Company production was expanding and exporting their lumber to Europe. Within the next few decades, this company grew to be one of the largest employers in Ellijay, often with five to six million feet of lumber in the yard at one time. The population of Ellijay grew to 659 by 1910, and began to acquire many new modern conveniences such as electric lights and power, a telephone company and many new businesses. Then in 1912, a fire ravaged the city, destroying 23 buildings. As a result, many new buildings were constructed under new and stricter fire and safety guidelines. The population, however, decreased slightly at this time to 632 in 1920. During the 1920’s the town’s population began to grow again and, by this time, apples were being shipped out of the county and new storage facilities were built. Chickens were also shipped to markets outside of Ellijay and Gilmer County. From the mid 1930’s to 1950, Ellijay received much assistance from the Federal WPA Programs. The old courthouse was removed from the center of town square and the Hyatt Hotel was remodeled to be the new courthouse. A park was created on the site of the old courthouse and the streets around the square were paved. A new street was built at this time entering town from the northeast. Other new roads, bridges, sidewalks and gutters were constructed to improve the city. A school and gymnasium were also built and other structures improved. This growth began to impact the city’s infrastructure and in the l950’s and l960’s, a period of upgrading water systems, roads, and power supplies began. New low-rent housing appeared in l960 and a new hospital was built in l957. Georgia Highway 5 was widened in l962, new buildings around the square replaced old ones and some were remodeled. In 1974, the hospital was enlarged. Currently, Ellijay attracts tourists who love the small-town feel and friendly atmosphere. Hotels and restaurants, unique shops, antiques and art galleries lend their charms to those who visit. A new courthouse constructed to resemble the old one, new streetscaping, family-oriented downtown events and the beautification of the square have stepped up the social and economic activity and have made Ellijay a popular destination.

Stuart Wade, Envision Virtual Tours Envision Virtual Tours and High Resolution Photography is your best choice to find just what you are looking for in the Ellijay, Ga. area .Ellijay, Georgia, known as the “Apple Capital” of Georgia, is located between the Ellijay and Cartecay Rivers where they join to make the Coosawattee River and is the county seat of Gilmer County, Georgia. The origin of the city’s name is not certain but thought to be the English derivative of an Indian word(s) meaning “many waters”, “place of green things” or “new ground”. Some histories say it may have been named for an Indian chief. Inhabited for countless years by the Cherokee people indigenous to the North Georgia, the area was first mentioned as a village and trade center before the onslaught of white settlers inhabited the region. During the 1830’s both white settlers and Indians occupied Ellijay. During the original land lottery in 1832, Martin Scalf acquired the 160 acre lot where the town now stands. In 1833, Clemonds Quinland bought 10 acres from Scalf, retained one acre for himself and donated the rest of the purchase to the County. A plan for twenty town lots, streets and a public square was created and the streets were oriented to allow maximum sunlight exposure to the buildings. Proceeds from lot sales were used to build a jail and courthouse and pay other city expenses. During this same year, Gilmer County was appropriated $800.00 from the State to build a school, and a three-acre lot was donated for the city cemetery. On December 29, l834, Ellijay was incorporated and designated as the County seat of Gilmer County. By 1837, the town had twenty dwellings, three stores and one attorney. Most of these early buildings were of log construction. Many roads led to Ellijay by 1849. The population had grown to 150 by 1850 and the town at five stores. Some wood-frame buildings were being constructed at this time and in 1854, a new courthouse was built in the center of the square, replacing the earlier building. The County’s first newspaper was the Ellijay Courier, started in 1875, and during this time period, Ellijay was a stop on the stagecoach line. The railroad bridge over the Cartecay River was completed in 1884 and the town now had rail service. With the arrival of the railroad and subsequent tracks to White Path, Ellijay began to grow much faster. Many hotels were constructed and land was donated for a depot east of town. More industries, such as a cheese factory and the Shippen Brothers Lumber Mill, located in Ellijay. By 1898, the city had expanded its limits in every direction and now included the depot. By 1900, all the buildings on the town square were brick. This included the recently completed Hyatt Hotel. Most of the other buildings in town were still of log construction, but new wood-frame buildings were being built. The Shippen Brothers Lumber Company production was expanding and exporting their lumber to Europe. Within the next few decades, this company grew to be one of the largest employers in Ellijay, often with five to six million feet of lumber in the yard at one time. The population of Ellijay grew to 659 by 1910, and began to acquire many new modern conveniences such as electric lights and power, a telephone company and many new businesses. Then in 1912, a fire ravaged the city, destroying 23 buildings. As a result, many new buildings were constructed under new and stricter fire and safety guidelines. The population, however, decreased slightly at this time to 632 in 1920. During the 1920’s the town’s population began to grow again and, by this time, apples were being shipped out of the county and new storage facilities were built. Chickens were also shipped to markets outside of Ellijay and Gilmer County. From the mid 1930’s to 1950, Ellijay received much assistance from the Federal WPA Programs. The old courthouse was removed from the center of town square and the Hyatt Hotel was remodeled to be the new courthouse. A park was created on the site of the old courthouse and the streets around the square were paved. A new street was built at this time entering town from the northeast. Other new roads, bridges, sidewalks and gutters were constructed to improve the city. A school and gymnasium were also built and other structures improved. This growth began to impact the city’s infrastructure and in the l950’s and l960’s, a period of upgrading water systems, roads, and power supplies began. New low-rent housing appeared in l960 and a new hospital was built in l957. Georgia Highway 5 was widened in l962, new buildings around the square replaced old ones and some were remodeled. In 1974, the hospital was enlarged. Currently, Ellijay attracts tourists who love the small-town feel and friendly atmosphere. Hotels and restaurants, unique shops, antiques and art galleries lend their charms to those who visit. A new courthouse constructed to resemble the old one, new streetscaping, family-oriented downtown events and the beautification of the square have stepped up the social and economic activity and have made Ellijay a popular destination.

This renovated brick rowhome in Boston’s South End offers a modern aesthetic within a historic structure, creative use of space, exceptional thermal comfort, a reduced carbon footprint, and a passive stream of income. DESIGN PRIORITIES. The goals for the project were clear - design the primary unit to accommodate the family’s modern lifestyle, rework the layout to create a desirable rental unit, improve thermal comfort and introduce a modern aesthetic. We designed the street-level entry as a shared entrance for both the primary and rental unit. The family uses it as their everyday entrance - we planned for bike storage and an open mudroom with bench and shoe storage to facilitate the change from shoes to slippers or bare feet as they enter their home. On the main level, we expanded the kitchen into the dining room to create an eat-in space with generous counter space and storage, as well as a comfortable connection to the living space. The second floor serves as master suite for the couple - a bedroom with a walk-in-closet and ensuite bathroom, and an adjacent study, with refinished original pumpkin pine floors. The upper floor, aside from a guest bedroom, is the child's domain with interconnected spaces for sleeping, work and play. In the play space, which can be separated from the work space with new translucent sliding doors, we incorporated recreational features inspired by adventurous and competitive television shows, at their son’s request. MODERN MEETS TRADITIONAL. We left the historic front facade of the building largely unchanged - the security bars were removed from the windows and the single pane windows were replaced with higher performing historic replicas. We designed the interior and rear facade with a vision of warm modernism, weaving in the notable period features. Each element was either restored or reinterpreted to blend with the modern aesthetic. The detailed ceiling in the living space, for example, has a new matte monochromatic finish, and the wood stairs are covered in a dark grey floor paint, whereas the mahogany doors were simply refinished. New wide plank wood flooring with a neutral finish, floor-to-ceiling casework, and bold splashes of color in wall paint and tile, and oversized high-performance windows (on the rear facade) round out the modern aesthetic. RENTAL INCOME. The existing rowhome was zoned for a 2-family dwelling but included an undesirable, single-floor studio apartment at the garden level with low ceiling heights and questionable emergency egress. In order to increase the quality and quantity of space in the rental unit, we reimagined it as a two-floor, 1 or 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom apartment with a modern aesthetic, increased ceiling height on the lowest level and provided an in-unit washer/dryer. The apartment was listed with Jackie O'Connor Real Estate and rented immediately, providing the owners with a source of passive income. ENCLOSURE WITH BENEFITS. The homeowners sought a minimal carbon footprint, enabled by their urban location and lifestyle decisions, paired with the benefits of a high-performance home. The extent of the renovation allowed us to implement a deep energy retrofit (DER) to address air tightness, insulation, and high-performance windows. The historic front facade is insulated from the interior, while the rear facade is insulated on the exterior. Together with these building enclosure improvements, we designed an HVAC system comprised of continuous fresh air ventilation, and an efficient, all-electric heating and cooling system to decouple the house from natural gas. This strategy provides optimal thermal comfort and indoor air quality, improved acoustic isolation from street noise and neighbors, as well as a further reduced carbon footprint. We also took measures to prepare the roof for future solar panels, for when the South End neighborhood’s aging electrical infrastructure is upgraded to allow them. URBAN LIVING. The desirable neighborhood location allows the both the homeowners and tenant to walk, bike, and use public transportation to access the city, while each charging their respective plug-in electric cars behind the building to travel greater distances. OVERALL. The understated rowhouse is now ready for another century of urban living, offering the owners comfort and convenience as they live life as an expression of their values. Photography: Eric Roth Photo

Photo of a farmhouse full sun stone landscaping in San Francisco.

This is an example of a contemporary landscaping in Seattle.

Stuart 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.

Stuart 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.

Stuart 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.

Images by Nic LeHoux Designed as a home and studio for a photographer and his young family, Lightbox is located on a peninsula that extends south from British Columbia across the border to Point Roberts. The densely forested site lies beside a 180-acre park that overlooks the Strait of Georgia, the San Juan Islands and the Puget Sound. Having experienced the world from under a black focusing cloth and large format camera lens, the photographer has a special fondness for simplicity and an appreciation of unique, genuine and well-crafted details. The home was made decidedly modest, in size and means, with a building skin utilizing simple materials in a straightforward yet innovative configuration. The result is a structure crafted from affordable and common materials such as exposed wood two-bys that form the structural frame and directly support a prefabricated aluminum window system of standard glazing units uniformly sized to reduce the complexity and overall cost. Accessed from the west on a sloped boardwalk that bisects its two contrasting forms, the house sits lightly on the land above the forest floor. A south facing two-story glassy cage for living captures the sun and view as it celebrates the interplay of light and shadow in the forest. To the north, stairs are contained in a thin wooden box stained black with a traditional Finnish pine tar coating. Narrow apertures in the otherwise solid dark wooden wall sharply focus the vibrant cropped views of the old growth fir trees at the edge of the deep forest. Lightbox is an uncomplicated yet powerful gesture that enables one to view the subtlety and beauty of the site while providing comfort and pleasure in the constantly changing light of the forest.

entry courtyard (just planted!)
Cottage wood exterior home idea in Seattle with a metal roof and a brown roof

The owners requested that their home harmonize with the spirit of the surrounding Colorado mountain setting and enhance their outdoor recreational lifestyle - while reflecting their contemporary architectural tastes. The site was burdened with a myriad of strict design criteria enforced by the neighborhood covenants and architectural review board. Creating a distinct design challenge, the covenants included a narrow interpretation of a “mountain style” home which established predetermined roof pitches, glazing percentages and material palettes - at direct odds with the client‘s vision of a flat-roofed, glass, “contemporary” home. Our solution finds inspiration and opportunities within the site covenant’s strict definitions. It promotes and celebrates the client’s outdoor lifestyle and resolves the definition of a contemporary “mountain style” home by reducing the architecture to its most basic vernacular forms and relying upon local materials. The home utilizes a simple base, middle and top that echoes the surrounding mountains and vegetation. The massing takes its cues from the prevalent lodgepole pine trees that grow at the mountain’s high altitudes. These pine trees have a distinct growth pattern, highlighted by a single vertical trunk and a peaked, densely foliated growth zone above a sparse base. This growth pattern is referenced by placing the wood-clad body of the home at the second story above an open base composed of wood posts and glass. A simple peaked roof rests lightly atop the home - visually floating above a triangular glass transom. The home itself is neatly inserted amongst an existing grove of lodgepole pines and oriented to take advantage of panoramic views of the adjacent meadow and Continental Divide beyond. The main functions of the house are arranged into public and private areas and this division is made apparent on the home’s exterior. Two large roof forms, clad in pre-patinated zinc, are separated by a sheltering central deck - which signals the main entry to the home. At this connection, the roof deck is opened to allow a cluster of aspen trees to grow – further reinforcing nature as an integral part of arrival. Outdoor living spaces are provided on all levels of the house and are positioned to take advantage of sunrise and sunset moments. The distinction between interior and exterior space is blurred via the use of large expanses of glass. The dry stacked stone base and natural cedar cladding both reappear within the home’s interior spaces. This home offers a unique solution to the client’s requests while satisfying the design requirements of the neighborhood covenants. The house provides a variety of indoor and outdoor living spaces that can be utilized in all seasons. Most importantly, the house takes its cues directly from its natural surroundings and local building traditions to become a prototype solution for the “modern mountain house”. Overview Ranch Creek Ranch Winter Park, Colorado Completion Date October, 2007 Services Architecture, Interior Design, Landscape Architecture

A Desert Modern home that is unpretentious, yet elegant, exuding a warm feeling and captures the amazing views of the surrounding desert. “Warm Modern” defines both the architecture and interior design though use of subdued colors and textures. Employing a biophilic approach, window walls bring one closer to nature. Cantilevered Patio roofs minimize columns to preserve views and to offset solar loading. Natural desert plants were minimally disturbed with additional plantings chosen to minimize water usage. Home siting to capture views yet minimize solar heat gain. Deep Patios and recessed windows minimize solar gain in the summer and allows solar heating in winter. Natural desert is maintained, additional plantings chosen to minimize water usage.