Azalea Magazine Fall 2017

ARTIST SETH DEITCH / A RURAL HOME BUILT BY HAND / OPERATION FINALLY HOME W. MILEWSKI'S CLASSICAL REVIVAL / CONSERVATIONIST GEORGE MCDANIEL / THE BEND M&G SHEBY SWEET / HOLIDAY GREETING CARD ETIQUETTE / THE ULTIMATE CUPCAKE

For a delicious slice of AppleCranberry Galette, turn to pg. 64

EDISTO ISLAND, SOUTH CAROLINA THE LOWCOUNTRY’S BEST KEPT SECRET!

Edisto Island is a relaxing 45 minute drive from Charleston and Summerville, accessed by

a National Scenic Highway winding among historic churches, plantations, marsh views, creek vistas, & signature Live Oaks. Over half of Edisto Island is under a conservation easement. You will arrive at your destination to discover an unspoiled coastal community without traffic lights, hotels, or high rises, just 8 miles of pristine shell strewn beach with amazing sunrises and sunsets.

Sail, golf, fish, dine, and unwind. You will see why we love to call Edisto home! Contact Edisto’s expert in all things real estate, Marie C. Bost. Since 1982 Marie has assisted thousands of buyers & property owners to reach their real estate goals. Call Marie today for the best values on the coast!

Marie C. Bost EDISTO’S REAL ESTATE SPECIALIST®

EDISTO@MARIEBOST.COM|MARIEBOST.COM

843-830-8669 | 143 JUNGLE RD, EDISTO BEACH, SC

7 Lost Village Trail| $658,900 | | Beachfront Gated Community | 2.6 acres | Creekfront

8926 Palmetto Road | $2,350,000 | Deepwater | 60’ Floating Dock Custom Masterpiece | 4Br 4.5Ba | All Luxury Appointments | Wine Cellar

302 Bay Creek Villa| $242,000 | Beachwalk Marshview | Amenities | Furnished | 3Br 2Ba

520 Palmetto Blvd | $539,000 | Beachfront | Great Rental Classic Beach Cottage | 2Br 1Ba | Furnished | Carport | Sundeck

134 Jungle Road | $474,000 | Covered Porch Two Commercial Lots | 1440 sq. feet

Marie C. Bost EDISTO’S REAL ESTATE SPECIALIST®

EDISTO@MARIEBOST.COM|MARIEBOST.COM

843-830-8669 | 143 JUNGLE RD, EDISTO BEACH, SC

The Natural Playground of the Lowcountry

THE NATURAL PLAYGROUND OF THE LOWCOUNTRY

Dorchester

Harleyville

St. George

Ridgeville

Reevesville

Just minutes away from the hustle & bustle of Charleston you’ll find a totally different side of the

Lowcountry. Our charming small towns are connected by wooded landscapes, outdoor adventures, winding rivers, and centuries of history. Spend the night in a treehouse on the river, go kayaking or birding in the ancient cypress swamps, stop in for some farm fresh produce at the market, or visit historic sites that remain standing in time... whatever you do you are bound to experience some authentic rural South Carolina charm.

www.villagesofdorchestersc.com

A Z A L E A

M A G A Z I N E

Fall 2017

Screening the Music Artist Seth Deitch

56 HUMBLE PIE

Less is more when serving up rustic pies that need no embellishments to bring the flavor home

66 POSTER BOY

Seth Deitch creates artwork for some of the most famous artists in the world

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HISTORIC F O U N D AT I O N S What began as a simple construction company has evolved to become one of the areas greatest resources for a multitude of disciplines

Fall 2017 AZALEAMAG.COM

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CONT ENT S

/ Fall 2017

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30 08 Editor’s Letter 12 Contributors FIELD GUIDE A brief look into our local culture 15 The Tailgate 16 Q&A Sheby Sweet 18 Local Product 20 Etiquette Holiday Cards SOUTHERN LIFE 23 Southern Spotlight - Conservation 26 Southern Spotlight - Art 30 Southern Spotlight - Community 33 Southern Spotlight - Conservation

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23 COLUMNS 37 Natural Woman

by Susan Frampton

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41 Kids These Days

by Tara Bailey 45 Life & Faith

by Lili Hiser 49 OPEN HOUSE - Planting their time, talent, and fertile imaginations in the soil of a rural peanut field, Beth and Russell Hilton have reaped the rewards of a beautiful and hand-crafted harvest home

O N T H E C O V E R : A Rustic Apple Cranberry Galette / Photograph by Dottie Rizzo 8

AZALEAMAG.COM Fall 2017

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88 THE VILLAGE POET - When Autumn Comes

— IS THE PLACE – There’s an energy here, a sort of fusion. The spark that happens when you mix new homes, new businesses and new thinking. Some call it town spirit.

Some just call it life. Whatever it is, we invite you to be part of it.

Homes from the $200s to $400+ | 843 - 900 - 3200 | nexton.com Greeting House Info Studio | 106 Greeting House Road

nexton

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© 2017 Nexton. All rights reserved. Nexton is a trademark of NASH Nexton, LLC, and may not be copied, imitated or used, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. NASH Nexton, LLC (“Fee Owner”) is the owner and developer of the Nexton Community (“Community”). Certain homebuilders unaffiliated with the Fee Owner or its related entities are building homes in the Community (“Builder(s)”). Fee Owner has retained Newland Communities solely as the property manager for the Community. Prices, specifications, details, and availability of a Builder’s new homes are subject to change without notice. EQUAL HOUSING OPPORTUNITY.

EDITOR’S LETTER

When you have a child who is an overachiever, you never know what tomorrow might hold.

Perfectly Imperfect When I was a kid, there were two days of the year that I looked forward to the most: Christmas Eve and the last day of school before summer break. Christmas Eve was easy to understand. As soon as you wake the following morning, you are showered with gifts that you don't need, an overwhelmingly exciting proposition for many kids. But summer was different. It was mysterious and full of wonder and hope; a three month hiatus from the real world. Bedtimes were later, mornings stretched on, and junk food was much more prevalent than the average school day.

And then there were the adventures: family vacations, sleep away camps, late night bike rides around the neighborhood, or even your first scary movie; the possibilities were endless. But, not all summers are created equal.

I understand that as adults, summer doesn't have quite the carefree sensibility as it had when we were kids. If we are honest, though, I think most of us still find a little wonder in what summer might bring. Somehow, we find a way to take a little hiatus from that real world we heard so much about growing up.

When you have a child who is an over-achiever, you never know what tomorrow might hold.

Literally, you can't even put together a proper calendar, because ultimately, they are going to have something that will conflict with those plans. This summer, our little over-achiever dominated the calendar space: a week at Girls State, a week in Florida for a health occupations competition, two weeks attending a scholarship competition, and cheer camp. So, we tried to make the best of it, injecting a little fun into the hectic schedule whenever we could.

We tacked on a day at Busch Gardens first, and then opted to spend a day at the beach after her week spent in Florida. In true Florida fashion, it rained both days, but we still had a good time.

We spent a day at the zoo during her scholarship competition week, and took a small detour to visit a potential college on the way home from Girls State. Throughout it all, our anticipation for the 2017 solar eclipse increased exponentially. We were prepared early, purchasing the required glasses and making plans to go out on the lake with friends during the extraordinary event.

When the day came, we weren't able to make it to the lake for the eclipse; my daughter had to work. Instead, we had a quiet day at the house, no less excited than we would have been on the lake. When it was time to view the eclipse, we all went outside, put on our fancy glasses, looked up into the sky, and...clouds. Nothing but clouds. We were disappointed, yet we couldn't help but see the humor in the whole situation.

Not all summers are created equal. This summer, we were busy, to be sure. But our family was together more than we were apart; crammed in the car making up games to avoid delirium, or piled on hotel beds laughing until we cried. On paper, this was not the perfect summer. But, this was the first summer, of all my summers, that I didn't want to come to an end. Now, on to fall.

Will Rizzo Editor in Chief

Simply home Come home to the place you’ve always wanted to be.

A thoughtfully planned community that celebrates the simple pleasures and gentle pace of life in a Lowcountry town. Quiet, tree-lined streets flow seamlessly among beautiful parks, lakes and miles of trails. And carefully crafted homes reflect the beauty and timeless grace of the Lowcountry. Ideally located minutes from I-26 and downtown Summerville, Carnes Crossroads is the simply perfect place to call home.

CarnesCharleston.com

Fall 2017 AZALEAMAG.COM

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Will Rizzo Co-Publisher and Editor in Chief will@azaleamag.com Dottie Rizzo Co-Publisher and Managing Editor dottie@azaleamag.com Susan Frampton Senior Editor Jana Riley Senior Editor Rachelle Cobb Copy Editor

Lewis Frampton Distribution Manager Contributors Tara Bailey Elizabeth Donehue Susan Frampton Lili Hiser Ellen Hyatt Jana Riley Jason Wagener

AZALEAMAG.COM Fall 2017

Azalea Magazine is published by

Photography Intern Patrick Baird Advertising Susie Wimberly susie@azaleamag.com 843.568.7830 Laura Fletcher laura@azaleamag.com 843.991.0446

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Subscribe *Available for $16.99 a year (4 Issues). Visit azaleamag.com for details.

114B E. Richardson Ave. Summerville, SC 29483 info@azaleamag.com www.azaleamag.com 843.478.7717

Play. Giggle. Live.

From big kids to little kids, taking care of our community is what we do best. We want to help you and your SM family Live your healthy .

Go to CharlestonHealthy.com to take one of our health quizzes.

CONTRIBUTORS

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JANA RILEY Writer

SUSAN FRAMPTON Writer

JASON WAGENER llustrator

LILI HISER Writer

TARA BAILEY Writer

Jana Riley alternates her working time between interviewing people about their passions, writing inspiring stories as quickly as her fingers can type, and editing some of the most interesting magazines she has ever read.

The rest of the time, you can find her immersed in love for her family while exploring places near and far.

An accidental writer, Susan Frampton lives in Summerville, SC. Along with a fluctuating number of wiener dogs, chickens, turtles, snakes, and the occasional pig, her husband and family provide endless material for her musings on life, love, and laughter. Her life is full of adventure and comedy; and some days she contemplates having wine with breakfast.

Jason started his illustrious art career when he won a coloring contest in third grade, subsequently entitling him proud owner of a Mickey Mouse dry erase board.

He moved to the Lowcountry in 1990, before attending The Savannah College of Art and Design.

Lili was born in Charleston and raised in both the Lowcountry and Florida. She holds degrees from CSU and USC. She invested more than ten years of service in the non-profit/ higher education sector and many years as Communication Studies adjunct faculty. She and her husband enjoy re-experiencing life through the eyes of their young children.

Tara Bailey lives in Summerville with her husband and three daughters, assuming the one in college comes home to visit.

She has worked as a naturalist, a teacher, a writer, and an editor, balancing her love of the outdoors with her compulsion to alter sentences. She enjoys natural history, horror movies, and reads anything in print. She can usually be found on her bike or behind a coffee mug.

AZALEAMAG.COM Fall 2017

Caesar may have been history's first recorded tailgater.

After races, the leader opened up the Coliseum, inviting people in to enjoy food, drink, and various types of entertainment.

Americans spend over $35 billion on food, beverages, and supplies for tailgating each year.

A survey found that 79% percent of tailgaters are men, making women a serious minority in stadium parking lots.

During the Civil War, people actually tailgated some of the battles.

Ivy League is home to the earliest football tailgating. These East Coast schools were some of the first to be established in America.

According to Yale, their alums were the first to start the practice of tailgating before games.

In 1967, tailgating fans braved a wind chill of 48 degrees below zero to see the Packers defeat the Cowboys in what would become known as the "Ice Bowl."

The Tailgate Fire up the grill and put the drinks on ice. Tailgating is one of the South's most cherished past times

240 million people or 80% of the US population tailgates.

The majority of tailgaters are between 25 and 44 years old.

30% of tailgaters don't even attend the game.

Whether they're supporting their alma mater or just huge sports fans, college grads make up a large percentage of those who tailgate.

Featuring: The Tailgate pg. 15 / Q&A with Sheby Sweet pg. 16 / Not Your Average Cupcake pg. 18 / Etiquette: Holiday Greeting Cards pg. 20

Fall 2017 AZALEAMAG.COM

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What is your dream job?

Hmmm, if I could, I would build a huge barn/house on a lot of land and have all the unwanted dogs there running free, and I would just spend my day driving around on a golf cart feeding and checking on them and of course loving on them. Can you tell I love dogs?

Is there a motto that you live by?

What goes around comes around, and you will continue to get the same lesson over and over in your life until you learn.

Who or what are you a fan of?

I love to watch football. I mean look at those hot bodies and tight pants. What woman doesn't, right?

Coffee or tea?

I love both coffee and tea. However, I was raised in the South, but I take my tea unsweetned.

What's one thing you've bought in the last five years that you couldn’t live without?

I could not live without the pool cleaner I purchased last year. You just drop it in the pool and turn it on. It crawls around and even up on the walls. Then you just take it out, clean it, and the pool is done. It was too hard to find that one cute pool boy.

Q& A

Sheby Sweet P rocessor with Environmental Monitoring Ser vices

What is your favorite thing about living in the Lowcountry?

We have lived here three different times and I think it's the feeling of being in a small town where a lot of people know your name. I know it is growing like a wild fire but when you have moved as much has we have (military) you want to go back to that one place that made you feel welcomed.

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AZALEAMAG.COM Fall 2017

What's one thing you've bought in the last five years that you could go the rest of your life without?

The Street Rambler elliptical bike. It's for sale if someone would like it. Good deal. A bottle of wine, home alone, and on the computer does not mix well.

What is your favorite music?

1970s music is the best. It's all we play out by the pool and in the car.

What is your dream vacation?

For over 20 years, the family got together and spent a week at the beach. The entire week was planned with food, games, beach, and photos. Now that the family has moved all over the USA and members have passed, we don't get to do that anymore. Just one more time with everyone would be so much fun!

What is your fondest memory of growing up or living in the Lowcountry?

The friends we have met and keep making. There's no place like home. AM

They’ll remember this.

This is Summers Corner.

Memories just waiting to be made.

Dorchester District Two schools.

Beautiful architecture.

From the mid $200s–$400s.

Models open daily.

Homes available for quick move-in.

BE S T NE W C OM MUNI T Y O F T HE Y E AR

summerville, sc Hwy 61 & Summers Drive | SummersCorner.com Prices, specifications and availability subject to change without notice.

Named Best New Community of the Year by the Charleston Home Builders Association.

STYLE

Over The Top

Bubbies Bakery Banana Pudding cupcake.

Proof in the Pudding

Bubbies Bakery in Summerville offers 9 varieties of fresh made cupcakes in house daily, among several other desserts.

This Banana Pudding cupcake is quite the Southern treat, with a vanilla cake, topped with homemade banana pudding and whipped cream frosting, and finished with a Chessman cookie. bubbies-bakery.com Available at Bubbies Bakery $3

20 AZALEAMAG.COM Fall 2017

DARE to COMPARE.

Best Schools I On-site YMCA I Ponds & Lake for Kayaks, Canoes and Fishing 1,000+ Acres of Preserves I 20 Floorplans to Choose From I 9 Designer Model Homes

Better Value, Lifestyle and Amenities.

When shopping for a new home, we invite you to compare the lifestyle, value and wide variety of options The Ponds offers versus other new home communities.

Compare and see if The Ponds “checks all the boxes� you are looking for.

Download your free homebuying checklist at ThePondsLiving.com

New Homes from the $240s

8 8 8 . 8 0 9. 5 4 1 4 Summerville, SC

ETIQUETTE

Season's Greetings Dust off that address book. It will soon be time again to send holiday greeting cards. Here are some things to think about when selecting and mailing your holiday hellos.

Who to include. Holiday cards are a great way to reach out to friends, neighbors, close business associates, and family. Edit your list, and check it twice!

What to send. Holiday photo cards have become increasingly popular. Photo or not, be certain to include a personalized holiday verse and your family name.

When to send. Update addresses and order custom cards in early November. Mail your cards any time after Thanksgiving. Plan to send cards so they arrive at their destination before Christmas Day. January 1 is considered the official final day of the holiday card season.

Hand write recipient addresses. This gives your cards a personal touch. A hand-addressed card is always more charming than a printed label.

Include your return address. This ensures that

your recipients have your current address every year, and they can use it to send a card back to you if they haven’t already.

Other Things to Keep in Mind when Sending Greeting Cards: • It is preferable to use stamps rather than run envelopes through a postage meter.

• Cards should be inserted into the back of the envelope face up so that when the recipient opens the envelope the face of the card is in front of them.

• Plan to have an extra 10-15 cards so that when a card arrives from friends not on your original list, you can reciprocate.

There you have it! Here’s to enjoying the holiday card process and always putting our most gracious foot (or should I say card) forward! AM

ELIZABETH DONEHUE

Arbiter of social graces, with a heart for simple hospitality and tendency for adventure...Elizabeth lives in Summerville with her husband, Wesley, baby boys, Harlowe and Tennyson, and yorkie, Gucci.

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AZALEAMAG.COM Fall 2017

SPEC I A L A DV E RTI SE ME N T

Southern Gift Guide THANKSGIVING m HANUKKAH m CHRISTMAS Color-In Socks

Featuring fun designs like sea turtles and unicorns, these soft socks come with 4 Crayola fabric markers to create your own fashion statement. shown $10.95

SC Pecan Basket

Make holiday gifting easy—grab one of our ready-made gift baskets, or build your own from scratch in just a few minutes.

shown $27.50

Handmade Jewelry

Silver, gold, and rose gold wire are beautifully hand-wrapped to create delicate and unique designs.

Bird Seed Gifts

shown $45 - $47.50

These spectacular garden gifts were 2016’s holiday best-seller! Mr. Bird produces gourmet treats and abodes for our feathered friends.

The Best Fruit Cake We’ve Ever Eaten

shown $27.95

I know what you’re thinking—but this handmade fruitcake is absolutely light and delicious, and de�initely not your average doorstop material.

Available beginning in November; freezer-friendly.

$9.50 - $17

Mulling Spices

Don't stop at apple cider—try mulled wine, cranberry punch, spiced tea, or a festive holiday sangria. One package makes a whole gallon! $3.95

Handcrafted Pecans

Carolina Glassware

Show your Palmetto State pride with this stylish seeded glassware. Go for a matched set, or mix styles. Monogram designs also available to order.

From right up the road in Holly Hill, Molly & Me Pecans crafts some of the most incredible candied pecan treats we’ve ever had. shown $10.95

$17.50 each, or 4 for $60

Colorful Jewelry

One of our best-selling lines of 2017, Jilzarah Jewelry features bright colors and creative designs for grownups and little ones alike. shown $14.99

See more at FourGreenFieldsGallery.com/holiday / Four Green Fields / 117-A Central Avenue, Historic Downtown Summerville / Open Mon-Sat 10am-5pm & Sunday afternoons Oct-Dec

Up For Downtown You will find charming shops, a vibrant night life, live theater, and a wide array of unique dining. Here is how one young woman explores Historic Downtown Summerville.

Saturday in Summerville 10:30 - Stop by the Farmers market for coffee and fresh produce 12:00 - Lunch with friends at The Shuckin' Shack Oyster Bar 1:00 - Shop Short Central for gift for Mom's B-day 2:30 - Stop by ATM, then head to pedicure appointment 7:00 - meet at Montreux's patio for drinks and cornhole

For info about Historic Downtown Summerville, visit summervilledream.org

Bridget and her friends, Reeves, An, and Christian meet for lunch at the Shuckin' Shack Oyster Bar ^

Southern L I F E & C U L T U R E from O U R L I T T L E S L I C E of T H E S O U T H

Sacred Ground

George McDaniel walking the grounds at Drayton Hall

The Voice of History

George McDaniel’s approach to historic preservation reaches across our differences and helps connect us to a future honoring the commonalities that binds us together

by Susan Frampton

Featuring: The Voice of History pg. 23 / Classic Revival pg. 26 / A Soft Place To Land pg. 30 / Riverside Dreams pg. 33 / Columns Fall 2017 AZALEAMAG.COM

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The Voice of History

I

n the Lowcountry, history is not found simply on the brittle pages of dusty books. It does not hide in ivory towers, cut off from the facts and practicalities of the real world, or lurk in the shadows. Here, history is alive, preserved by those who recognize that it is impossible to know where we are going without knowing where we have been. And when George McDaniel is in the house, history speaks in a rich, melodious voice that carries a distinct Georgia drawl.

Recently retired after twenty-five years as Executive Director of Drayton Hall, the iconic 18th-century estate seated on the banks of the Ashley River, McDaniel has long been one of the area’s most noted historians and a leading figure in historic preservation. The timing of his arrival at Drayton Hall could not have been more critical, with his first day on the job coming the day after Hurricane Hugo ravaged the state. He questioned, as he drove through the massive destruction to the site, whether the estate would even be intact when he got there. Amidst the destruction of Mother Nature and the march of time, McDaniel immediately set out to change the course of history.

In the years he served as director, McDaniel was instrumental in preservation efforts to conserve the estate itself, recognizing the complexity and diversity of those who shaped it. He worked to maintain the balance of the cultural landscape of the Ashley River and scenic Ashely River Road within the larger context of a growing community. The Atlanta native, whose leadership and work in historic 26 AZALEAMAG.COM Fall 2017

education and preservation have earned him numerous awards and national recognition, was recently announced as namesake for the George McDaniel Education Center, now under construction at Drayton Hall.

The road McDaniel traveled to Drayton Hall began with history, his major at Sewanee’s University of the South. A year spent studying in Paris also ignited a fire for the historic buildings he visited, many restored by dollars from American foundations. His passion for both subjects and for the teaching job he secured after getting his undergraduate degree was interrupted in 1968 when a stint in the Peace Corps took him to Togo, West Africa, and then the U.S. Army drafted him for service in Vietnam. There, he earned the Army’s Commendation Medal for Valor. Regrouping when he returned from his duties, he went on to Brown University for a Masters of Arts in Teaching, and later to Duke, where he completed his Ph.D. in history.

Watching historic antebellum homes being razed for development in his home town and surrounding area, he could not help wonder why Americans were restoring Europe’s architectural treasures, but letting their own fall by the wayside. He decided that rather than taking the conventional route to teaching history, he would build a career combining the disciplines of art, history, architecture, and landscape as a way to teach historic preservation.

“When you ask a question like that, it kind of rebounds back to you.

Stomping Grounds From left to right: George McDaniel at Drayton Hall; McDaniel played an integral part in preserving the land across the Ashley River from Drayton Hall; Drayton Hall is the earliest and finest example of Palladian architecture in the US

property now lies in a permanent conservation easement.

“You just have to take the initiative to prevent the kind of things happening to the environment that we have sadly seen in other places,” McDaniel says. “This area has a way of calling forth our better angels, and I am really proud to have been associated with those projects. Just think of the history that we would have lost. The Lowcountry really deserves our best efforts.”

Retirement has not motivated McDaniel to rest on his many laurels; instead, he continues to work tirelessly to offer the Lowcountry his best efforts. Today he focuses his attention on helping local history organizations maintain a perspective that allows them to be viewed as more than simply a nicety, but rather as a necessity for successful historic preservation—encouraging less insular and more inclusive strategies to help engage a larger audience.

What was I going to do about the issue? I’m a teacher at heart, and I see education and historic preservation as two sides of the same coin,” McDaniel says of the two specialties in which he has developed programs that have garnered national attention.

McDaniel played a pivotal role in having the Ashley River designated a state scenic river, a project vital to Drayton Hall’s vision statement: “to preserve and interpret the estate and its environs in order to educate and inspire the public to embrace historic preservation.”

The action called into being a citizens’ advisory council, responsible for the advocacy and stewardship of the river, with a range of landowners, business people, conservation organizations and others organized in order to cooperatively speak out on behalf of the river. To date, it is the only scenic river program still active under SCDNR. One of that council’s initiatives led to the purchase of the land that became the first public park in Dorchester County, located on the Ashley River at Bacon’s Bridge Road, and subsequently eighty-plus acres across from the park.

In addition, when over 100 acres across the river from Drayton Hall zoned for multi-family housing came on the market, McDaniel went into action, creating a capital campaign juxtaposing an image of the landscape with development against an image of the natural state of the marshes and uplands. He asked potential contributors, “Which future do you want?” The campaign raised over $675,000, and the

In an essay entitled Building Bridges through Local History, submitted for the Encyclopedia of Local History, published by the American Association for State and Local History and AltaMira Press, McDaniel asks history organizations to be realistic and diplomatic, rather than “disremembering” negative things about the past in order to tell the history as opposed to simply a history.

Today, he works with organizations such as Mother Emanuel AME Church, Charleston Heritage Foundation, and many local and state museums to help incorporate every aspect of our lives into a collaborative narrative of history that crosses the boundaries of race, gender, geography, religion, and socio-economics. This risky proposition prohibits blind nostalgia from telling only one side or the other of the past.

McDaniel hopes to teach that when we have the courage to let history speak the truth, we can better understand our differences and find the commonalities that bind us together. He credits William Faulkner’s concept of using words to “uplift our hearts.”

“We uplift our hearts,” McDaniels writes in his essay, “by trying to tell the truth, warts and all, about our past. If we look at one side of history—only the good or the bad, or only at the elite or oppressed— we do not uplift our hearts. To deny either the good aspects of history or its bad aspects is to defraud our past.”

History could have no better advocate than George McDaniel, for as its spokesperson he speaks with a voice that acknowledges an imperfect past while projecting the empathy and confidence of a visionary, and he holds the tools of a master bridge builder. With McDaniel leading the way, there is no doubt that bridge will connect to a bright future for historic preservation. AM Fall 2017 AZALEAMAG.COM

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Music Man SCO Music Director, Wojciech Milewski

SOUTHERNSPOTLIGHT Summerville Community Orchestra

Classical Revival A young conductor breathes new life into a talented local musical organization

by Jana Riley

The room is packed to capacity. Every single seat in every single church pew is taken: row after row of strangers within inches of each other, quietly anticipating the coming performance. Almost 725 people watch as the performers settle in, instruments in hand, and prepare to play. There is a still reverence in the air, typical for an orchestra performance, and soon, the conductor takes the stage. Youthful and spirited, Wojciech Milewski brings with him a relaxing energy, immediately putting the crowd at ease as he turns to face them.

For just a moment, the audience, the orchestra, and the conductor connect, setting the tone for the whole evening. Later, after a few musical pieces, Milewski will share jokes, notes, and stories relevant to the performance, engaging the audience in a way not typical in the world of symphonies and concertos. But right now, it is time for the show to begin.

The conductor flashes a smile, turns toward the musicians, and raises his baton. The audience leans forward in anticipation, and the orchestra begins to play.

As a mostly volunteer organization, the Summerville Community Orchestra is full of passionate, talented musicians from Summerville and the surrounding areas.

They range in age from thirteen to eighty, and their level of skills are quite varied,

but most are former high school or college musicians who ended up pursuing unrelated career paths. Some of them initially gathered together in 2003, collectively seeking an opportunity to play orchestral music once again. They founded the Summerville Community Orchestra; as the years went on, the organization grew. Musicians young and old flocked to the auditions, concerts were scheduled and performed, and attendance to the shows rose and fell.

Originally, Music Director George Frink led the orchestra, but he was replaced in 2005 by

Alexander Agrest. Agrest served as Music Director until 2015, when the Board of Directors opted to open the position back up to applicants in a bid to refresh the organization.

Soon, applications for the position were arriving from all over the world: in the end, the orchestra received inquiries from 63 individuals. Each submitted a YouTube video of themselves, and the committee pored over each one until they narrowed the pool down to just four possibilities. One by one, the conductors came to town, each leading one of the season concerts. After each performance, both the audience and the orchestra voted on

the applicants. When the auditions were over, the Board of Directors deliberated, taking into account the reception of the orchestra and community to each conductor. Within a short time, they arrived at their decision: they would offer the position to Wojciech Milewski.

••• Wojciech Milewski spent his early childhood outside of Warsaw, Poland, in a town called Otwock. In the early 90’s, his family moved to New York City in search of a better life, “chasing the American Dream,” he says.

Though no one in his family was musically inclined, Milewski began taking music lessons in fourth grade. He went on to attend SUNY Oswego, and majored in Music with a specialization in Clarinet and Piano, while simultaneously training to become a Navy SEAL. Eventually, he added a second major to his course load: Global and International Studies, and he took an internship at the Department of State in Washington, D.C. for six months.

Feeling emptier and unfulfilled by the day while working for the government, he went back to school and realized that while focusing on his Global and International Studies major, he had neglected his love of music. He shared his feelings with his advisor, who encouraged him to pursue conducting and offered him the opportunity to conduct the school’s upcoming performance of “Grease: The Musical.” Milewski accepted, and felt a rush of adrenaline and excitement when he stepped into the conductor role. He spent the next few years taking and teaching private lessons and attending graduate school at the University of New Mexico, bolstering his education and experience in conducting.

After three years in New Mexico, he began to browse job listings, more than a little prepared to spend years seeking out the right position as conductors typically do.

Immediately, he found a listing for a Music Director at a small community orchestra near Charleston, South Carolina, and sent in his YouTube video application. Not long after, he received an email from the Summerville Community Orchestra informing him that he was one of the finalists. He flew to South Carolina a few months later, immersed himself in the town of Summerville, and gave his best at his audition. Even though

the audience erupted into applause when the show was over, Wojciech wasn’t sure if he made the cut until a few weeks later. In July of 2016, the Summerville Community Orchestra officially offered him the position, and by the next month, Wojciech Milewski was a Summerville resident, directing an orchestra of talented volunteers with focused attention and gracious passion.

On paper, Milewski says, the role of a conductor is to prepare the orchestra to perform as well as possible, and to grow the orchestra and community. While Milewski puts an emphasis on those responsibilities, he has a much more centered level of focus.

“My job is to get people to believe and to trust,” says Milewski. “To believe that they can, believe in what we are doing, in the mission, in the music. To trust one another, the process, and that we can do it together.

When someone believes and trusts that they can do something and they do it, that is what people call inspiration. The job of a conductor is beyond technical—if it were just a series of steps, everyone could do it. Great conductors know how to relate to people the most, and that is my focus. I build everyone up with positivity while using my educational knowledge to teach them about the pieces and shepherd the orchestra in the right direction.”

Milewski is now entering into his second year as Music Director for the Summerville Community Orchestra, and the ticket sales speak to his popularity, the impact his presence has had on the musicians, and the success of the campaign to refresh the organization. The year before Milewski came on board, the orchestra had 491 season ticket holders. Last year, they had 1002, selling out every concert during their season. Before they shared any concert information about their 2017-2018 season, they already had 430 season ticket holders and anticipated selling out every seat for the entire season yet again.

At just ten dollars a ticket for adults and one dollar a ticket for children, the orchestra is heralded as one of the best deals in town, and it features both popular and classical music at every show. Before each concert, Jan Coldwell offers an educational talk, and Milewski regularly communicates with the audience between performance pieces. Members of the orchestra also offer an Encore Series on the second Friday of every month at Coastal

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Coffee Roasters, and Milewski leads a recurring music education class at the Dorchester County Library. Together, the members of the Summerville Community Orchestra work to bridge the gap between the community and orchestral music, making the orchestra accessible and enjoyable for all.

As Milewski and the Summerville Community Orchestra look to the future, hopes and dreams abound.There is a dream for a larger performance space, enabling them to perform more often for larger audiences. There are hopes to continue to make orchestral music relevant while continuing to bring joy to the musicians performing the pieces. There are visions of more standing ovations, and of the feeling of collectively sharing in beautiful experiences with the community. And for Naomi Nimmo, Executive Director of the SCO,there are fantasies of never having to say goodbye to Milewski. “He is just a wonderful addition to Summerville as a whole,” Nimmo says. “His rapport with everyone—the way he treats each individual he meets, the way he leads— coupled with his sheer talent make us put blinders on to the fact that we only have a three-year contract with him right now. He has changed everything, and we couldn’t be happier.” AM

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ALL SH O P S A R E W IT H IN W A L K IN G D I S T AN C E I N H I S T ORI C D OW N T OW N S U M M E RVI L L E

Building A Future Julie Drombowski, Communications Director for Daniel Island Company and Jamison Howard, president of Max Crosby Construction; a wall of well wishes from the community

SOUTHERNSPOTLIGHT O p e r a t i o n F I N A L LY H O M E

A Soft Place to Land Notes of love, gratitude, and support welcome a veteran and his family to a life in the Lowcountry built just for them

by Susan Frampton

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AZALEAMAG.COM Fall 2017

It has been ten years since the fateful night that changed Jeremy and Tia Brookings' lives forever. Ten years since a commander held the phone to the lips of a nineteen yearold Marine who lay dying in a hospital so that he could speak with his wife­—perhaps for the last time. Struck in the chest by a sniper’s bullet, the young Marine first landed in a Fallujah hospital before the gravity of his wounds required his transfer to medical facilities in Iraq, then to Germany, and then into the care of VA hospitals stateside.

wife, Tia, struggled to help her childhood sweetheart rebuild his body and their lives.

Traumatic brain injury tested her husband’s ability to recall the events of his day, and as his body healed, he often required a wheelchair, making parts of their two-story house inaccessible. His days disappeared into an endless fog of pain medication.

Told that he would likely succumb to his wounds, it was not until two days later that Tia Brookings learned that, though critically wounded, her husband would survive. But life would never be the same.

In the course of the process of Jeremy’s medical discharge from the Marines, a case worker helped them fill out an application for a program established to provide mortgagefree homes across the country for wounded, ill, or injured veterans, surviving spouses, and their families. The couple soldiered on, and as Jeremy’s recovery slowly progressed, they welcomed two daughters to their family.

Days turned into months of mind-numbing treatment for the nerve damage and chronic pain associated with the trauma Cpl. Jeremy Brookings’ body endured. By his side, his

They didn’t know it, but behind the scenes, wheels began turning the day they filled out that home application. They had no idea that there would eventually be celebration to

the story of pain and perseverance that had become a part of their daily lives.

It was four years later, when local builder, Jamison Howard, president of Max Crosby Construction, attended a Southern Living Custom Builder Program conference. There he learned of the magazine’s partnership with Operation FINALLY HOME; a national, non-profit organization with a unique network of experienced builders, suppliers, and supporters dedicated to building homes for America's military heroes and the widows of the fallen—those who have worn America's uniform and sacrificed so much to defend its freedoms and values.

Deeply moved by what he heard, Howard immediately put up his hand to volunteer the services of his company for the program to provide the veterans a strong foundation to help them move forward with their lives.

“When I heard about all of the incredible work they were doing, I knew that we wanted to be a part of it,” he said.

A few months later, he learned that the program had matched the Brookings to the Lowcountry, and the family received the news that they would soon begin a new life in Summerville.

Howard enlisted the support of the Daniel Island Company, who donated a lot for the home in Summerville’s Carnes Crossroads community. Julie Drombowski, Communications Director for Daniel Island Company, says that the project seemed like a good fit for the neighborhood. “We have a lot of residents in Carnes Crossroads who are retired or former military, and we hoped that support system could provide an added benefit.”

Howard found encouragement in the community’s response. “We found that there were companies and individuals that wanted to do something like this, but didn’t have an avenue to do it. Operation FINALLY HOME allowed them to contribute by doing the very things they do best, right here at home.”

Suzanne Stern of Our Town Plans served as architect for the project, which was designed to meet the specific needs of the Brookings family, with custom adjustments to the space that will accommodate Jeremy’s injuries and facilitate continued healing.

But perhaps some of the most important additions to the home were the result of contributions made by future neighbors, members of the community, friends, family and complete strangers, who were invited to write notes of blessing and welcome to the family on framing, concrete floors, and stairs during construction. The “Notes of Love” event is a tradition of Operation FINALLY HOME that offers an opportunity for wellwishers to embed their words in the very walls of the family’s new home—words of gratitude, encouragement, and a longawaited home-coming for those who would begin a new life there.

Good Wood Members of the community left notes of encouragement for the family on the framing of the house; the house taking shape in the Carnes Crossroads Community

“For the first time since I’ve been back, I feel hope and love. That’s an amazing feeling,” Jeremy said of the handwritten messages left like happy graffiti across the construction site.

Move-in for the family, who moved to the area in July, is planned for October. The Brookings' daughters are already enrolled in nearby schools, and the family has found a home church right next door. Their faith has played an important role in bringing them to this place, and Tia feels, “It’s as though God made this happen perfectly.”

It has been a humbling and intensely satisfying process for those involved. “This project allows those of us who don’t serve in the military for whatever reason, to show our gratitude for those that do,” Howard says of his association with the home’s construction.

“Their sacrifice cannot be measured.”

Molly Halliday, who represents Operation FINALLY HOME, sums up the organization’s philosophy for addressing one of the most pressing needs of America’s military heroes and families making the transition to the home front, “This family was not given a home. They earned it.”

As the Brookings family turns the key in the front door of their new house, they will step inside accompanied by the prayers of those who know that this family has indeed earned the comfort and peace of a soft place to land, and they may enter here safe in the knowledge that they have the allegiance and support of neighbors and friends all about them. It has been ten years coming, but they have arrived. The long and difficult journey to this place is over, and the Brookings are finally home. AM Fall 2017 AZALEAMAG.COM

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SOUTHERNSPOTLIGHT

Special Development Chet Morse tours the grounds; a crochet wrapped tree trunk on the property

The Bend

Riverside Dreams A picturesque, 17-acre property in North Charleston receives a makeover and a bright future, guided by the vision of a dedicated Charlestonian

by Jana Riley

The musician’s fingers glide effortlessly along the guitar strings as the sound travels over the picnic blankets, the people, and the marsh. A flock of birds numbering into the hundreds lifts off of the river as if on cue, beating their wings against the pink and orange sky. Dogs lounge lazily in the grass as children run around them, and friends connect over local brews. Susan Pearlstine looks around and sighs happily; her vision is becoming a reality. This is Marsh Jam, just one of the many offerings at her passion project and 17-acre natural gathering place, The Bend.

A sixth generation Charlestonian, Pearlstine comes from a long line of savvy businesspeople and philanthropists. The Pearlstine family is most known regionally for their family business, Pearlstine Distributors, which sold in 2012 after 147 years of faithful service to the area. After the sale, the family moved into manufacturing, investing in Palmetto Brewery

in 2013. When they began to look for a new location for the company, they worked with Firefly Distillery to purchase 17 acres of land in North Charleston in 2015, intending to build a new brewery and distillery overlooking the Ashley River. Not long after, Firefly Distillery opted to go a different direction, and the Pearlstine family bought them out. Reevaluating, the family decided that they would rather not build the new brewery on the site, and Susan Pearlstine sensed her opportunity.

She made a deal with her family members:

they got the brewery, she got the land. Then she set to work.

Situated on a picturesque, literal bend in the Ashley River on Azalea Drive in North Charleston, the property that Pearlstine purchased has a storied history dating back to the 1600s. Bordered by the historic Riverview Memorial Park Cemetery and The Jenkins Institute, the land most recently served as home to over 100 tenants in the Ashley Shores apartment complex. The buildings on the site Fall 2017 AZALEAMAG.COM

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Riverside Dreams

had fallen into disrepair over the years, and crime had become a mainstay on the property, creating a sense of frustration among nearby residents and the City of North Charleston.

When Pearlstine acquired the property, most of it was paved over. The river was obscured from nearby Azalea Drive by dilapidated apartment buildings and townhomes. A stormwater pond dike had been breached, and the water was full of decades' worth of discarded garbage. The whole area needed work, but Pearlstine knew exactly what she wanted to consider first. An avid lover of everything outdoors, Pearlstine has a true appreciation for environmental conservation.

“A lot of parks and projects do not open to the public until they are perfectly groomed and manicured,” remarks Chet Morse. “That’s just not us. We are okay with being a little rough around the edges; we don’t have to sit here behind closed gates while we figure everything out. We want to embrace the community and grow while sharing.”

“The very day I became a full owner of this place,” Pearlstine remembers, “I called the Coastal Conservation League and said, ‘Okay, what are the right ways to solve the environmental issues here?’ I wanted to partner with the right organizations to make sure that I took the correct steps to treat this place well, and they were my first stop.”

After crafting an environmentally responsible plan, a crew began working on the site, razing buildings, breaking up the concrete and asphalt, grading the soil, and pulling truckloads of debris out of the stormwater ponds. They planted grass seed, and spent countless hours removing trash and broken glass from the ground. Pearlstine hired a Site Director, Chet Morse, whose ten years at the Charleston County Parks made him a perfect candidate for managing the now-open land. Inspired by a TEDx talk about class divisions made greater by Wi-Fi deserts, they created completely solar-powered Wi-Fi stations, which offer free high speed internet for thousands of users at a time. They also began a partnership with the Bee Cause Project, hosting over a million honeybees on site during the summer; the hives are used as in-school observational education tools during the academic year. When Lowcountry Local First needed a place to store their most recent art project, huge letters that spell out “Love a Local,” the crew at The Bend obliged. Later, the two groups determined that The Bend was a perfect place for the art to become permanently installed. Now, the artwork greets every visitor to the land.

At this point, Susan Pearlstine is entertaining a host of ideas for the property, guided by her principles and visions for the space. Driven by her lifelong passions for conservation, the arts, environmental issues, and community, Pearlstine hopes to transform the land into a multi-use destination that touches on all of her interests. Though she acknowledges that it will not always be a 17-acre park, she is committed 36 AZALEAMAG.COM Fall 2017

Lay of the Land Marsh Jam is a monthly outdoor performance of local musicians, poets and more; Site Director, Chet Morse

to maintaining a substantial amount of open space and access to the public, and she is determined to find a proper fit with either a residential or commercial company who will uphold the same considerations for the land and surrounding community.

“I’m taking everything I’ve cared for in my life and seeing if I can make it all play out on this property,” explains Pearlstine. “Will it work? I think it can, but of course I’ve never been in this place before. I understand that even as a newbie, I am saying things that don’t make sense in the world of development, but I believe it will work, because I believe in this.

Fortunately, I have financial resources and time on my side to see how it shakes out.”

While the team at The Bend determines their next move, they maintain a sense of transparency and openness with the world around them, encouraging the community to get involved and lend their voices to the everevolving project. Though the site was (and is) still a work in progress, the gates opened for the first event, a drop-in family picnic, in April of this year.

Since its inaugural event, the space has become one of the most popular gathering places in Charleston, particularly at its aforementioned monthly event, Marsh Jam. Organized by Eddie White, the great mind behind the Awendaw Green Barn Jams, the free event brings out scores of guests for its engaging atmosphere, incredible music, exceptional views, delicious food truck fare, and local brewery offerings.

Locals also turn out in droves for the free Bird Walks every Tuesday morning, and the free Golden Hour Photography Sessions Chet Morse holds every other Thursday evening continue to be a hit. In August, the site hosted its largest event yet in celebration of the total solar eclipse, bringing locals and visitors together for a once in a lifetime opportunity.

Regularly, suggestions and offers for events are brought to Pearlstine and Morse; for every query, they weigh it against their overall mission: if it doesn’t enrich the community, it is a pass every time. If it does, they look into forming a partnership.

As the team at The Bend looks to the future, they embrace the people and land around them, truly passionate about coming to a solution that brings joy to as many people as possible, while making environmentally conscious decisions.

With an organic, free-flowing approach to the eventual development of the land, Pearlstine hopes to work with the community to find a perfect fit that ensures the land is accessible to the public and used responsibly. To her, this is a project that could define her legacy.

“Every time I see this place I think, ‘oh my gosh, this is unbelievable,’” says Pearlstine. “It is so beautiful and so close to Charleston and its surrounding cities. I envision this as eventually becoming a sort of live/work/play environment where people of all backgrounds and financial means can coexist. I am just following my instincts with this, in hopes of one day leaving a really beautiful place where everyone can come together. I’m confident that with my vision in place, this land can continue to provide wonderful experiences for the people of the Charleston area and beyond.” AM For more information and event dates, visit www.thebendcharleston.com

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In the Company of Heroes We don’t always recognize them, but we can never forget the debt we owe the heroes who walk among us

by Susan Frampton

T

he brick-lined trail through the woodland follows the contours of the land, gently rolling in some places and climbing abruptly in others. At the top of one such rise, a man stands ramrod straight, his gaze fixed on a granite monument set in the curve of the path. Sculpted in bronze around the impressive stone are scenes from a time in the man’s life that are forever impressed on his mind—of a time when he and many other young men thought and fought as though they would live forever.

They have come to be known as The Chosin Few; those at the Chosin Reservoir who were engaged in one of the fiercest battles in the United States Marine Corps’ storied history. Though it has been close to seventy years, he can still feel the bone-chilling, minus 40°cold. For a moment, it is 1950, and he is transported back to a frozen mountainside in North Korea.

The man on the hill is my father, and we have traveled to the Semper Fidelis Park outside of Quantico, Virginia, for the dedication of the monument standing before him. My dad, a nineteen year-

ILLUSTRAT ION BY JASON WA G E N E R Fall 2017 AZALEAMAG.COM

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N AT U R A L WOMAN Book by Hugh Wheeler. Music and Lyrics by Steven Sodheim

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old Marine, was among those wounded in the sub-zero temperatures of the unforgiving landscape. Though often referred to as The Forgotten War, the families of the 36,914 who did not return remember it well.

My family has come here in gratitude for the life and service of that nineteen year-old, for the man he became, for those that stood shoulder to shoulder with him in the unrelenting cold of a distant land, and for all those whose names were etched in the granite of white crosses by the time it ended. Each and every one was a hero.

Apart from the occasional bumper sticker or tattered ball cap, there is little to indicate that at one time in their lives, they rose every morning and put on the uniform ready to do battle for us. “No man's a hero to himself,� author Ray Bradbury wrote, his words a testament to the exceptional people who not only see beyond themselves, but selflessly

40 AZALEAMAG.COM Fall 2017

act on others’ behalf. It was years before I realized that I had been raised in the company of heroes, because my dad and those like him never considered themselves extraordinary.

They walk among us without our ever knowing. They live across the street, work in our office buildings, idle next to us in traffic jams, and deliver our mail. Apart from the occasional bumper sticker or tattered ball cap, there is little to indicate that at one time in their lives, they rose every morning and put on the uniform ready to do battle for us.

It’s easy to miss the tiny Purple Heart on the tag of the elderly man backing slowly out of a parking space, to write off the globe and eagle tattoo on the shoulder of a young woman in line at the supermarket as a fashion statement, or to attribute the slight limp of a middle-aged man to arthritis. We move at a pace that makes it difficult to take the time to look beyond what is obvious, and they, by their very nature, don’t ask us to do so.

So, it’s up to us to pay attention, to keep what they do for us and for our country relevant in our everyday lives, and to remember that each man and woman who has worn the uniform representing the United States of America was willing to look beyond themselves to the greater good.

It may have been last month or it might have been seventy years ago. They might have been called by their country to serve or chosen the path for themselves; either way, they raised their hands and took the oath. Whether deployed to foreign soil or serving from within our own borders, on

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N AT U R A L WOMAN

the battlefield or supporting the fight, they gave up their days and nights, their time with family and friends, their minds and bodies, and some, their very lives.

Standing on the trail in Semper Fidelis Park, I’m grateful for this monument, which forever will stand as a tangible reminder of all that my dad and so many others were willing to sacrifice. It is a thank you that has been a long time coming, one made bittersweet by the memory of those absent as we watch it stand against the wooded hills.

Too many are overlooked and unsung. It’s easy to get caught up in the politics, and to forget the men and women inside the boots on the ground. But we must always remember that because of those who first fought to make us Americans; those who landed on the beaches of Normandy; who watched the sky fall into a harbor in the Pacific; those who marched the frozen mountains of Korea or sweltered in the jungles of Southeast Asia; and those men and women who will sleep this very night in the mountains of Afghanistan—we sleep safe—knowing that they never forget us.

This year as always, there will be a day of parades and celebrations on November 11th, the day our nation annually pauses to honor our veterans. It’s on all of us to make an effort to see them the rest of the year—in the parking lots, standing in line at the supermarket, at the PTA meeting, or coaching our kids’ baseball team, and to offer our own heartfelt gratitude to the heroes who quietly walk among us. Thank you, Dad, and thank you to every United States Veteran. God bless you all. AM

Feeling My Way Through The Dark

K ID S THESE D AY S

by Tara Bailey

S

chool is back in session, but it still feels like summer. We are back to our routines as if those months following May never happened, yet it’s still light enough outside to take a decent afterdinner walk and hot enough to return with one’s shirt discolored with sweat. Though the structure this time of year brings is usually welcomed after the unrestrained freedom of summer, it’s still hard to accept that the katydids are now telling us to get to bed at a decent hour instead of calling us back outside for another drink on the deck. These days, coffee must be drunk in haste, strictly for its enlivening properties, poured into a travel cup with a prayer that the lid is screwed on tightly; we no longer linger over it with a newspaper, the feel of a favorite mug bringing succor to the morning. It’s still summer, but it’s not.

One morning soon, cool air will surprise us all, and people will celebrate with leather boots and lattes. The cool morning will be a good enough reason for wearing new jackets or maybe even a light sweater, though it will be seventy-six degrees by the middle of the day. The sound of marching bands from McKissick Field will replace the katydids, and eventually leaf blowers will wake us on Saturday mornings instead of cicadas. Just a few more weeks, and we will be getting our hands stamped and heading into the midway for Tilt-A-Whirls and elephant ears. After that it will be time to put the finishing touches on costumes. By then, I will think of my favorite memories from the summer as if they happened years ago.

That season will be packed away along with the bathing suits and boogie boards; then we will have football games to watch, pigs to roast, and homework to do. We have karate. We have clubs. We have schedules.

ILLUS TRAT ION BY JASON WA G E N E R Fall 2017 AZALEAMAG.COM

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KIDS THESE D AY S

And soon—too soon—the darkness will come. After-dinner walks will be traded for test prep, night air swapped for indoor lighting. I can bid farewell to summer in exchange for jeans, barbecue, and Halloween, but is one extra hour of sleep on a Sunday worth the following months of caliginosity that will descend upon us before dinner is on the table? I have a hard time with the persistently dark season, despite the coming holidays and family gatherings. So we manipulate the night with bonfires and oyster roasts and other events that allow us to light the darkness and celebrate the flames around which we gather. No one is ever huddled together in the shadows—at least no one we trust. The fires combatting the tenebrosity host the laughter and stories and optimism.

Fires are where we keep warm with heat and ritual and friendship. Light is how we get through the darkness.

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We also cling to our routines for security during the dark months.

What we were so eager to abandon

by Memorial Day, we gladly clutch to our chests by Labor Day. A burden is relieved when we know where we are supposed to be and when, what we are supposed to be doing and how. Imagine how it would feel to toss aside the rigors of the day and run carefree into the cold, black air for nearly a whole season. We might feel exhilarated at first, followed by panic, like a cosmonaut entering the Karman line and then quickly tumbling into the thermosphere untethered, searching for something concrete to grasp for stability. Our alarm clocks and unforgiving schedules are this stabilizing force during the dark months, keeping us engaged with the world and producing and creating when we would rather be holed up beneath a down blanket until the white-throated sparrow beckons us out on its way back North.

My kids don’t have this condition.

They invite the autumn. Like most, they dread the first day of school and complain about the schoolwork, but they never really complain about school. They are happy to return to a worthy workload and once again feel like they’re good at something besides cleaning their rooms and sleeping until their next spate of hunger or boredom.

They are too busy to be oppressed by a dearth of daylight; they are perfecting their katas and keeping their heads above treacherous academic waters, not caring what it looks like outside.

They embrace the darkness when it means they get to prove themselves.

They are regulated by internal forces, not external ones.

Meanwhile, I am making plans that distract me from the darkness. I will spend all of October planning for November, all of November worrying about December, and most of December getting ready for January and beyond. Our calendar (like yours, I’m sure) doesn’t catch a break during the dark months, so maybe that’s why I struggle with the season. As much as I am happy for my family to get back to normal when school starts, I miss the time I set aside to just listen to the birds and bugs of summer from my deck.

Back to school, back to work, back-toback everything. The dark months are just part of the rhythm, the inhalation to summer’s exhalation, the left brain and the right brain synchronized, the superego banishing the id to its bright place in the summer sky. The light days will return, but not before we earn them with our self-discipline, patience, and toil. Then, when the equinox passes by, we can smile back on all on the hard work we put into the past several dark months and greet the cicadas when they again welcome us to the light. AM

Fall 2017 AZALEAMAG.COM

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SOL Southwest Kitchen

A Will to Live

L IF E & F A IT H

by Lili Hiser

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pastor once said, “Extensive studies have shown that 10 out of every 10 people die.� He earned some chuckles for the morbid comment. I laughed, too. But, years later, the gravity of that unavoidable statistic has become more relevant to me, especially now that I have a young family.

Just watching the top stories in the evening news reminds me that our breaths are numbered and I need to prepare in case the unexpected happens. In creating our will and estate plans, my husband and I included the standard legal documents, but there was still a void. If our children had to travel the challenging road of life without parents, I wanted to ensure they had some reflective words to bring a measure of comfort and direction. So we wrote the following and included it in our estate plans: See the world. More specifically, witness the wealthiest and help the poorest. In our own country, you will not have to travel far to see great wealth. Experience the atmosphere, taste the food, and meet the people. Then travel to a third world country with the mission to help the poorest in society. Again, experience the atmosphere, taste

the food, and meet the people.

There are no conversations or publications that can teach you the lessons you will acquire from these encounters. I cannot describe how your perspective will permanently alter. Your appreciation for the opportunities in our own country will change. You will see a person does not have to have money in order to have a rich life. The basics, like clean water and electricity, will hold a new value. And the list of problems you thought you had will dim, if not completely extinguish.

Visit the wise. Some of the wisest people you will find are spending their sunset years in care facilities or in their quiet homes. Take time to visit and befriend members of this unique community. In their seasoned age, they have likely experienced great love along with great loss. They have stories of simpler times and reflective words you may find relevant in your own life.

This was a generation who thrived with primitive technology, all while experiencing wars and uncertain world events. In a few conversations, you will learn there is a difference between having

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LIFE & FA I T H

knowledge and having wisdom.

Your thoughts on gray hair and wrinkles may also change, as aging is a privilege many never reach.

Sit in a rocking chair. A rocking chair is somehow the tangible collaboration of nostalgia, like a mother’s embrace and homecoming molded together. Occasionally you need to unplug yourself from the world and just rock. Allow yourself to have a conversation with God and explore your own creative thoughts.

Today’s society sends messages on how you should think, act, and behave. Remember that you are uniquely and wonderfully made

by Someone much greater who has guidance to offer. You will face crossroads in life, make huge decisions, and encounter obstacles.

Make it a habit to pray, read the Bible, and rejuvenate your soul by seeking God’s will continuously. You need to be reminded often to release the burdens of this world and renew your spirit in order to serve others.

And don’t just seek Him in times of need, but praise Him in times of joy.

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131 E. R i char ds on Sum m e r vi l l e / 8 43 . 8 7 1 . 2 2 1 0 / s he l bour n e la w . c o m

It is my prayer that my children never have to read this in their youth.

Writing such a letter just in case was difficult, as it is a reminder of my own mortality—but that is reality.

My vision is after my husband and I live a long and fulfilled life, our children will come across this dusty document and find the words familiar and reflect how they live— and how their parents did.

I hope that you are encouraged, if you have not already, to create an estate plan for your loved ones and include some personal reflections.

To the mourning, such words can present more value than any assets you leave behind. To the living, as you compose it, let it serve as a reminder of the beauty and value that comes with life. AM

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OpenHouse Built To Suit The Master Bedroom

Growing Home Planting their time, talent, and fertile imaginations in the soil of a rural peanut field, Beth and Russell Hilton have reaped the rewards of a beautiful and hand-crafted harvest home

by Susan Frampton photos by Dottie Rizzo

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or those who follow the ever-popular home improvement shows on television, there is something about the couple sitting in rocking chairs on the porch of a farm-style cottage in rural Lebanon, SC, that makes us want to know a little more about them and their comfortably stylish surroundings. As they rise with hands outstretched in welcome, the beautiful backdrop suggests that we might have stumbled onto the set of our favorite home and garden show.

Beth and Russell Hilton don’t have their own home improvement show, but it doesn’t take long to realize that we’d all be glued to the screen if they did. He is an avid woodworker; she lives to design. He speaks with the slow drawl of the rural South, and she fairly buzzes with creative energy. Tall and red-haired, he has an easy-going nature and quick wit. Her dark eyes sparkle with humor, and her small frame belies her drill, hammer, and paintbrush skills. They could easily be network stars, but this local couple is too busy to contemplate Hollywood.

You might call them the ultimate power couple—although in their case, power-tool couple might be a better description. While many of us imagine what we might do if we had the time or were willing to make the effort, the Hiltons put their imaginations to work, sketching, cutting, hammering, and nailing their ideas into reality.

Now a practicing attorney in Summerville, there was a time when young Russell Hilton quite literally worked for peanuts. In western Berkeley County, on family land that lay within about 52

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150 yards of the spot where his great-grandmother’s house once stood, Hilton planted the crop that would help him through school—and put a little change in his pocket for things like dates with pretty girls. He was nineteen when money from the cash crop financed his first date with a Summerville girl he had known since childhood. It would take seven years for Beth Brewer to agree to a second date.

“He was so sweet, and my parents loved him,” she says, smiling at her memories of the quiet young man. “I wasn’t ready for that.

That’s not really what you’re looking for when you’re that age. The timing just wasn’t right.”

“I just thought that her phone didn’t work,” he teases, a glimmer of bashful boy appearing for a moment in the grown man.

But like any good farmer, Hilton knew that it takes time for a seed to grow, and he used the years in-between those dates wisely: graduating from college and law school in Mississippi, while Beth went on to earn a teaching degree. When they reconnected after seven years, their subsequent marriage proved the old adage that “timing is everything.”

Early on in their marriage, the two recognized just how much they appreciated the quiet, rural landscape of the small community of Lebanon, and they realized that the same peanut field that had once afforded an income for the young student would provide the perfect foundation on which the couple could build their life together. They decided that it would not be a future built by others, but one crafted by their own hands—board by board, nail by nail.

Home Made This page: The bright and airy kitchen is the centerpiece of the home; the dining room is an eclectic mix of old and new.

Opposite page: Antique details in the bedroom; the front entrance

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From The Ground Up This page, clockwise from top left: The main entrance leads into a cozy living room; Beth and Russell Hilton; the kitchen as seen from the living room. Opposite: Details from the house and grounds

“We’re a constant work-in-progress,” Beth says of the many projects they still have on their to-do list. “I’m constantly rearranging and re-doing. I was having some ladies over from church recently and realized that we needed a coffee table. We built this one in just a few hours.” The simple, wax-finished table would most likely fetch a fortune from a specialty furniture store.

And so began the project that would occupy every second of their daydreams and require every minute of their spare time for well over a year. It was not a typical construction project, with trucks from manufacturers delivering lumber and workers crawling like ants among the emerging framework. By the time it was finished, they would be able to trace the provenance of each and every piece of wood in the house to its local source, and count their laborers on one hand.

“We had our hands on each and every board in the house,” Russell says, recalling the trees that were cut from the nearby New Hope area. The wood was then milled at his father’s sawmill to create the lumber needed to build the house and its outbuildings, as well as the finer details of cabinets, baseboards, doors and moldings.

The gleaming planks of the floors were milled from the heart of a massive Summerville pine.

Though Russell had woodworking experience, the couple had little construction knowledge; but they were willing to learn on the job. Cooking on a camp stove, they lived in the garage for six months, working from the time they left their jobs until the wee hours of the morning, laying the foundation themselves, and learning plumbing, electrical work, masonry, and roofing.

“It looked like a football field out here,” Beth says, describing the big lights they set up in the field to light their nighttime work.

Eighteen months into construction, they moved in to begin work on the interior. A step up from living in the garage, it was still primitive living, and many months passed before they declared themselves finished.

Even now, surrounded by the details of the beautifully appointed rooms, the word “finished” is a relative term for the creative couple.

Most of us with decorating aspirations have dog-eared photographs of things we’ve cut from design catalogs, but in her laundry room, Beth points out a unique, contemporary light fixture they have just hung. “I showed Russ a photo of this from a magazine. It was ridiculously expensive, and I just couldn’t justify it. He thought about it for a little while, and then just built it.”

Every nook and cranny of the cottage bears the warm and inviting signature look the two have created from raw materials and garage sale finds. There is pride and joy in the details that come together in their home, and in the knowledge that each piece has come to life beneath their own hands.

There is no end in sight for their creative efforts, which now extend to a mountain home they are restoring in North Carolina. Regardless of whether or not Hollywood ever comes calling to share their talents with the world, Beth and Russell Hilton will undoubtedly continue to explore projects that are as limitless as their imaginations—and marvel at what the seeds they have planted will produce in the peanut field where they are growing home. AM Fall 2017 AZALEAMAG.COM

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A Z A L E A

M A G A Z I N E

F E AT U R E S HUMBLE PIE p g. 5 6

POSTER BOY p g. 6 6

HISTORIC F O U N D AT I O N p g. 7 2

Humble

Pie Less is more when serving up rustic pies that need no embellishments to bring the flavor home

by S U S A N F R A M P T O N photos by D O T T I E R I Z Z O

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Chocolate Marble Pumpkin Pie

While it has not been scientifically proven that one cannot be unhappy, angry, mean, or pessimistic in the presence of pie, we know in our hearts that the odds are in favor of the theory. There is a goodness to pie that has nothing to do with its flavor.

Show me a man that doesn't like pie, and I'll show you a man that is telling a lie. What's not to love? It can be sweet or savory, filled with fruit or nuts, chocolate or vanilla, vegetables or meat; latticed, double-crusted, cinnamon-dusted; embellished and ornate, or unadorned and unpretentious in its simple goodness.

Any way you slice it, for most of us, pie is love, and the crimped edges of flaky pastry are fingerprints left behind by someone who took the time to do something special just for us. Any time of day, any way you like it; be it ever so humble. . .there's nothing like pie.

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Sweet Potato Praline Pie

Apple Cranberry Galette

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Curry Chicken Pot Pie

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Pot Roast Shepherds Pie

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Humble Pie: Recipes CHOCOLATE MARBLE PUMPKIN PIE Ingredients Chocolate Cookie Crust 9 oz chocolate Nabisco Famous Chocolate Wafers ¼ cup sugar 1 tsp kosher salt ½ cup melted butter

Pumpkin Pie Filling: 1 15 oz can pumpkin puree 1 cup white sugar 1 tsp cinnamon ½ tsp ginger ½ tsp salt 2 eggs 1 cup heavy cream plus 2 tbsp 2 tbsp dark cocoa powder Preparation

Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Place a 9” pie plate on a sheet pan. In a food processor, pulse together the chocolate cookies, sugar, and salt until you have fine crumbs. Add the melted butter and pulse until the crumbs are moist. Transfer to a 9” pie pan.

Press the crumbs down in the pie pan and around the edges to make a pie shell. The bottom of a metal measuring cup helps for pressing the shell firm. In the food processor, combine all of the ingredients for the filling except the cocoa powder and pulse until combined well. Reserve one cup of the pumpkin filling in a small bowl, and pour the rest of filling into the chocolate cookie crust.

Add the cocoa powder to the one cup of pumpkin pie filling and mix well. Drop spoonfuls of the cup of chocolate pumpkin filling

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onto pie. Use a wooden skewer to gently drag the chocolate through the pumpkin, making a swirling effect with the batter. Bake the pie for 50 minutes. Remove from oven and let sit to cool to allow pie to set. Slice and serve with fresh whipped cream.

SWEET POTATO PRALINE PIE Ingredients (Filling) For Filling and Crust: 1 large 40 oz can Bruce’s Yams 1 cup sugar 1/4 cup milk 1/2 cup melted butter 1 cup coconut 1 tbsp vanilla extract 3 eggs For Topping and Crust: Ready made crust 1 1/2 cup chopped pecans 1 1/2 cup brown sugar 1/3 cup melted butter 1/3 cup self rising flour Preparation

Filling: Preheat oven to 350ºF. Drain sweet potatoes and pour into large bowl. Mash until smooth.

Add remaining ingredients for filling and mix with hand mixer until well blended. Pour into ready made crust.

Topping: In a large bowl, combine all ingredients and stir until blended well using a fork to mash ingredients together. Topping will be crumbly. Spread evenly on top of prepared sweet potato filling.

Heat in oven for 40-45 minutes

or until topping begins to brown and filling is heated through.

CRANBERRY APPLE GALETTE Ingredients For the Crust: 1 1/4 cups all purpose flour 2 tsp sugar 1/2 tsp salt 8 tbsp cold unsalted butter, cubed 2-3 tbsp ice water For the Filling: 24 oz (4-5 medium) baking apples, cored and sliced into 1/2 in wedges 1/2 cup fresh cranberries 1/4 cup sugar 1 tbsp all purpose flour 1/4 tsp cinnamon 1 tbsp unsalted butter Ice-cream for topping Preparation For the Crust: Combine flour, sugar, and salt in large bowl. Cut butter into flour using a pastry cutter until no visible pieces of butter remain. Add 2 tbsp ice water and fold in with rubber spatula until just moistened, pressing dough on side of bowl to form a mass of dough. If too dry, add 1 more tbsp water. Do not over mix. Press dough into a 5 inch disk and wrap in plastic wrap and chill 1 hour.

Roll dough on parchment paper into a 13 inch circle using a lightly floured rolling pin. Transfer parchment paper and dough to baking sheet and refrigerate until ready to use.

For the Filling: Preheat oven to 400ºF.Combine apples, cranberries, sugar, flour, and

cinnamon in a bowl and toss to combine. Pour onto center of dough leaving a 3 inch perimeter. Fold dough up and around the filling, Making sure dough does not crack.

Dot the fruit with butter and bake at 400ยบF until crust is golden and fruit has softened, 45-60 mininutes.

Let cool and serve warm and top with ice-cream.

and salt to combine. Add cubed cold butter and pulse 4-5 times.

Turn on processor and add coconut milk and process for approximately 10 seconds until mixture thickens.

Remove dough, place on clean surface, and gather into a ball. Cut in half and shape each half into a disk. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill in refrigerator for 2 hours.

CURRY CHICKEN POT PIE

For the Filling: Add butter, salt, pepper, and onions to skillet and cook on medium heat until softened. Add garlic and cook for 1 minute. Add tomato paste, curry powder, and flour. Gradually add the coconut milk while whisking. Add chicken stock and cook, stirring frequently 7-10 minutes until thickened.

Add pulled chicken, potatoes, and carrots, and cook 20 minutes or until vegetables are slightly tender.

Add an additional 1/2 cup of water if needed while cooking if mixture becomes too dry. Stir in peas, cilantro, and garlic salt. Continue cooking 5 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste. Remove from heat and prepare the crust.

Ingredients For the crust: 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour 1 tsp salt 1/2 cup unsalted butter, cold and cubed 1/2 cup cold coconut milk 1 egg + 1 tbsp water for egg wash For the Filling: Pulled meat from 1 rotisserie chicken 1 tbsp butter 1 tsp salt 1/2 tsp pepper 1 cup onion, chopped 2 cloves of garlic, minced 2 tbsp tomato paste 1 tbsp curry powder 2 tbsp all-purpose flour 1 15oz can unsweetened coconut milk 1 cup chicken stock 2 cups cubed potatoes 1 cup carrots, sliced 1/2 cup water 1 cup peas, fresh or frozen 1/2 tsp garlic salt salt and pepper to taste 2 tbsp fresh chopped cilantro Preparation For the Crust: In a food processor, pulse the flour

Assemble the Pie: Preheat oven to 400ยบF. On a floured surface, roll out one of the disks to a rough 13 in circle.

Transfer dough to a 9 in pie dish.

Roll out the second disk into a large circle. Pour the filling into the bottom crust and top with the other crust. Trim edges to 1 inch overhand and pinch ends together and tuck into pie dish. Brush with egg wash and cut vents in top crust.

Bake until crust is golden and filling is bubbling. 45-60 minutes.

If crust browns too quickly, cover with foil for the remainder of baking time.

POT ROAST SHEPHERDS PIE Ingredients 2 cans French onion soup 1 can cream of mushroom soup 1 cup water 5 Russet Potatoes, peeled 1 1/2 cup sliced carrots 2 lb pot roast 2 tbsp olive oil 1/2 cup milk 2 tbsp butter 1 cup mild shredded cheddar cheese salt pepper Preparation Mix cans French onion soup, cream of mushroom soup, and 1 cup of water in a bowl and pour into roaster oven or large crock pot. Turn roaster to 350ยบF. Cut potatoes into 1 inch slices and add to roaster oven along with carrots. Cut excess fat from roast and discard. Season both sides of roast with salt and pepper. Heat 2 tbsp olive oil in a skillet on medium.

When hot, sear all sides of the roast 10 seconds each to lightly brown.

Place roast in roaster oven with vegetables. Cover and cook 2 1/2 to 3 hours or until roast is tender, stirring occasionally and turning roast every hour. Remove potatoes and place in a large bowl. Add 1/2 cup milk 2 tbsp butter, and 1/2 tsp salt. Mash together until potatoes are a uniform texture. Add pepper to taste. Heat oven to 300ยบF. Pull apart roast into small pieces and place in large pie plate or oven safe skillet.

Cover with carrots and remaining soup mixture from roaster oven. Top with mashed potatoes and shredded cheese and bake for 10 minutes or until cheese is melted. AM

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Ink Master Artist Seth Deitch

From a humble studio in Summerville, South Carolina, Seth Deitch creates artwork for some of the most famous artists in the world

by J A N A R I L E Y photography by D O T T I E R I Z Z O

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s

Full Screen Some finished work in Deitch's studio

Seth Deitch is in a constant state of personal evolution.

At 33, the artist and current Summerville resident has undergone his fair share of changes in the past decade and a half: from screen printing t-shirts at his dad’s gymnastics business as a teenager to attending college in Nashville, from living as a single man for years to finally marrying the love of his life, from being a husband and newlywed to becoming a father of one, and then, after twins, a father of three. His path took him across multiple state lines as he found himself switching career objectives and trajectories, moving into and out of houses, and constantly growing as a person and individual. Throughout it all, one thing remained constant: Seth Deitch is a creator, a real do-it-himself kind of guy.

Standing in his Summerville studio, Deitch is surrounded by items built, sketched, screen printed, or otherwise fashioned by his own hand: a self-made man in a room of self-made products, all extensions of his creative mind. On the wall, a screen for printing shirts is displayed importantly, its worn PVC frame and heavy duct tape application evidence of its age and amount of usage. This was one of the first screens he ever made with his father back in Pennsylvania, and it hangs as a reminder of his humble beginnings. A large workbench takes up much of the room, where a homemade vacuum table­— sort of a reverse air hockey table used for holding paper in place for printing—waits for Deitch’s next work of art, a mason jar full of water on a string serving as a counterweight for the whole contraption. In the closet, Deitch has created a full darkroom, complete with a sort of “tanning bed” of UV lights used to expose his screen printing screens.

A wooden rack takes up one corner of the studio, a sturdy creation of Deitch’s used for drying and storing prints. And of course, there are the prints. Stacks and stacks of them, each completely unique, each its own individual work of art. This is what Deitch creates most these days, and sometimes, to have a career focused solely on making artwork still seems a bit surreal to him.

“I can’t believe people pay me to do this,” laughs Deitch. “I mean, it’s very labor intensive, so I am glad they do. But to be able to create art while making a living from it is pretty cool.”

After graduating from Harding University with a degree in Graphic

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Design, Deitch moved with his wife, Ivy, to the Charleston area and found work at a local screen printing company. After a while, he began to crave a better outlet for his creative skills, and he started designing posters for free to further his abilities and experience while expanding his portfolio. Eventually, he felt bold enough to reach out to potential clients, and the reception was exceptionally positive. One by one, the contracts rolled in, and Seth Deitch once again began to create.

These days, Deitch works mostly with music venues, concert promoters, and musical artists all over the country to create oneof-a-kind custom concert poster designs for shows and tours. After receiving a commission for his work, Deitch spends days researching the artist, venue, and locale, as well as any consistent themes present in the artist’s most recent work or marketing materials.

He’ll check out other concert posters advertising the artist, making sure he doesn’t accidentally create anything similar to art that they have used in shows past. Then, he will sketch out an idea and work with the artist’s team to make sure everyone is on board with the design. After approval, he creates the digital file on his computer, then transfers the design to screens, one for each color used, which he exposes in his darkroom. After the screen is prepared with his design, he puts heavy stock paper onto his homemade vacuum board, places the first screen on top, and rolls ink over the whole thing. Because of the preparation of the screen, only the place where the design was exposed will allow ink through, and as he switches

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screens and colors, the design builds on itself, blending colors together into new ones as the artist works. In between each screen, he dries his prints on his custom-made wooden rack, and when he is finished, the whole rack (and often, the room around it) brims with prints. Sometimes, he will be commissioned to make 50 prints, and for others, he is asked to make up to 400. Each gets the same level of attention, the same dedicated focus.

When he is finished with an order, Deitch will package the posters up and ship them out, where the artwork will typically be sold as tour merchandise and/or included in VIP packages. Then, Deitch is on to the next one, researching, sketching, designing, printing, drying, and shipping—it’s all in a day’s work.

After ten years designing concert posters, Deitch has found himself working for some of the biggest names in music. Through his work, he has designed posters for Bob Dylan, Billy Joel, Rush, Beyonce, Journey, Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers, Bon Jovi, Drake, Future, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Aretha Franklin, James Taylor, and more. His prints are exclusive, and once the screens have been washed and reused, he rarely prints any more runs of any particular design. For this reason, collectors and die-hard fans often go wild for his work, and his art hangs in houses, apartments, shops, and venues all over the country—and perhaps the world.

As he plans out a Paul McCartney poster that will likely sell out within an hour at its intended venue, Deitch still speaks about himself as if he is simply a small-town guy printing a few posters in his little DIY studio.

Immensely humble, Deitch maintains a simple rhythm in his work, focusing intently on each order and giving it his very best, no matter how large or small. Yet with every new screen exposure, every ink color applied, and every piece of stock paper slid onto its drying rack, Deitch reaches past the borders of his community and distributes beauty and creativity into the world, often inspiring others to do the same. With this domino effect, Deitch’s reach is great: beautifying the world and encouraging artistic expression, once concert poster at a time. AM

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In Concert A sample of Deitch's work

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Master's Class A restored plaster ceiling medallion; James Meadors inspects a project

H I S T O R I C F O U N D A T I O N S What began as a simple Charleston-based construction company has evolved to become one of the city’s greatest resources for a multitude of disciplines

by S U S A N F R A M P T O N

by J A N A R I L E Y photography by D O T T I E R I Z Z O

Green Space A naturally lush entrance

Dr. and Mrs. Dwight Beavers’ country home is an unexpected gem in a setting designed by nature

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A

s a city full of historical significance and impressive architecture from centuries past, Charleston holds the distinction of being fairly well-preserved. A sense of connection with the individuals who built this treasured place can be felt during a quiet walk down a cobblestone street, a hand running along a smooth-worn brick facade, or a study of any of the intricate architectural details hiding in plain sight within the Holy City. There are scores of people and organizations within Charleston working diligently to preserve the historical aspects of the city’s buildings, but it is quite likely that none is as well equipped to handle the tasks—large or small—as Meadors, Inc. Meadors, Inc. began in 1984, when James Meadors decided to combine the education he received from Wofford College, the engineering skills he gained from the military, and the construction experience he acquired from working on his own historic home.

As a man who has always appreciated historic structures, Meadors opted to focus his company in a direction that would allow myriad opportunities for preservation, restoration, and conservation work, a mission which stands to this day. As a construction company, Meadors, Inc. was and is a company capable of building new, modern structures, repairing and renovating existing ones, and working with customers to give them the desired product each time, regardless of architectural style or age. Where Meadors, Inc. really excels, though, is in the details: in the 33 years since James Meadors founded his company, he has assembled a team of the best and the brightest conservators, artisans, and designers, all of whom make up six specific workshops within the Meadors, Inc. organization. The idea for the

workshops came after a young James Meadors, newly appointed to the Charleston City Board of Appeals, was tasked by former mayor Joe Riley to travel to Salisbury, NC to look at possible manufactured home options for low-income housing. Watching a steel bed slowly enter via train tracks on one side of the enormous warehouse, he witnessed a collaborative team come together quickly to install the subfloor, walls, heating, air conditioning, electrical, plumbing, and everything else needed to build the home, and by the time it arrived on the other side of the building, it was complete.

“The whole way home, I kept turning it all over in my head,” remembers Meadors. “I was inspired by the process. I thought, ‘What if we did all of our work under one roof ?’ So we started working toward that. Over the years, we’ve gone through pretty much every discipline, and the six workshops we have now are the ones we know we can do well.”

Encompassing Architecture, Construction, Cabinetry and Millwork, Design Services, Conservation and Preservation Planning, and Estate Management and Maintenance, the six workshops at Meadors, Inc. are comprised of highly skilled craftspeople who all work together on common projects and goals. Each workshop is equipped with everything they need to get the job done exceptionally, including impressive advanced technology and tools. From the CNC routing machine used throughout the company to create custom cabinetry, products, and even art installations to the 3D printer and laser cutter used in the Design Services workshop to make product prototypes, architectural models, and one-of-a-kind architectural details, every sector of the company is bolstered by technological advancements.

Historic Proportions This page: James Meadors and Christine Lumans Bozigar touring a current project; inside the cabinetry and millwork workshop. Opposite: Row one: A model of a new project; a custom table; sand samples. Row two: Renovations on an historic church; architectural renderings on site; a custom home. Row three: A colonial drawing uncovered during a renovation; at work in the millwork workshop; molding samples

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Most notable is the Conservation and Preservation Planning Services workshop, which includes an in-house architectural conservation laboratory. In the lab, the team is able to conduct in-depth scientific analyses of materials used in historic properties. By taking samples of mortar, wood, plaster, paint, and other materials and examining them using specialized equipment, the team is able to come up with technical plans for treatment or replication. On any given day in the conservation laboratory, you may find a team member hard at work applying cleaning solutions to a sample of a century-old piece of stone in an effort to understand how to best remove a stain, another utilizing the workshop’s extensive sand library to determine the makeup of aged mortar or plaster, or yet another immersed in paint microscopy and colorimetry work, viewing slivers of paint suspended in resin under a microscope to ascertain the original paint color of a nearby plantation.

The conservation team also offers their assessment services to architecture firms and individual clients in Carolina and beyond, taking great care to understand historic structures before drafting plans and recommendations for the sites. Quite often, they will work in tandem with other teams at Meadors, Inc. such as the Architectural workshop, lending their extensive knowledge base to their projects while ensuring that conservation and preservation remain in focus when applicable.

This spirit of working as individual teams, together, is one that carries on throughout the Meadors, Inc. company: projects can often take a turn at many, if not all, workshops within the organization, bringing a real sense of camaraderie to all involved.

identify causes with which to become involved. Once, picking up on a need for happy news within the area, they simply Team Building built an electronic billboard and shared Members of the Meadors team take a break for quick positive messages on it, viewable to all photo outside of the cabinetry who passed on the interstate above their and millwork workshop parking lot. Another time, after taking note of the number of homeless people within the city of Charleston, members of the Meadors, Inc. team used the CNC router to create a Homelessness Awareness art installation.

After cutting out 432 life-size figures representing the most recent count of homeless people in the area, they applied QR codes and a website containing information on where to donate time or money to help combat homelessness. Then, the team installed them around the city, including 232 in front of the Gaillard Auditorium for the month of July 2016. Later, they mailed one to every mayor of every capital city in the country, and included the homeless organizations in each city on their resource list. Mayor John Tecklenburg wrote an accompanying letter, urging his fellow mayors to join Charleston in showcasing the figures in a bid to raise homelessness awareness, and many obliged. Now, the Meadors, Inc. crew is working on designing low-income housing units, using their combined knowledge to create thoughtful plans that reduce maintenance costs and maximize storage space, all for a comparable cost per square foot to other low-income housing plans.

For James Meadors, the way everyone at his company works together, as well as the scope of the opportunities the jobs provide, consistently have him feeling grateful for his current station in life. “I can’t believe I get to work here,” he says. “The sheer diversity of what we do astounds me sometimes. In the span of a few hours, I can be faced with numerous things that make my brain work in vastly different areas. There are no textbooks or guidebooks to show us the way for much of it; we have to figure it out together.”

For all of the varied work Meadors, Inc. does, it is a bit of a surprise to learn that over three decades since James Meadors founded it, the company is still technically categorized as a construction business. With a passionate team of experts, a vast pool of knowledge between them all, and every tool they could ever need to tackle any of the wildly varied tasks they encounter daily, the Meadors, Inc. team is one to watch as they continually advance the building and design professions. AM

Indeed, the team at Meadors, Inc. takes on some unique challenges.

One of the most memorable was a building downtown Charleston that, because of the way it was sandwiched between other structures, required a 40-foot masonry perimeter wall to be rebuilt from the top down. Then there was the former Navy Degaussing station, a complete renovation of a building set atop the Charleston harbor into a spectacular, energy-efficient home, that had the issue of major water collection on the driveway. The team designed a new form of permeable concrete tabby, a 3000 PSI mix of oyster shells and other materials that allowed water to run straight through with virtually no collection whatsoever. Another time, a client approached Meadors, Inc. with a very interesting antique door, inquiring if they would be able to create 25 of them for the interior of their home. The team ran an analysis on the construction, gained an understanding of the unique way the door was put together, and reproduced it twenty five times over using their CNC machine. Still another time, at McLeod Plantation, there was a ceiling medallion in disrepair that the client wanted to be made whole again. The Design Services workshop recreated the missing parts using a latex mold, using exactly the same materials to reproduce it as were used initially while maintaining the exact level of paint buildup as the original. Now, even the team members who worked on the piece cannot tell which parts are original at a glance. For every story the employees at Meadors, Inc. can recall, there are a hundred others, and each day brings new challenges.

While the employees at Meadors, Inc. are truly invested in their work, they are even moreso invested in their community. With a collective ear tuned in to the heartbeat of the city, the team members regularly 78 AZALEAMAG.COM Fall 2017

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A BEAU T I F UL NEW WEDDI NG AND EVENT VENUE ON T H E ASH LEY RIVER

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TH E SOCIAL

SOCIALS, CAUSES, AND COMMUNIT Y

Piccolo Spoleto at Nexton For the third consecutive year, Nexton community partnered with Piccolo Spoleto to host Summerville’s only affair during the festival. Piccolo Spoleto at Nexton returned June 3, with an evening of high-energy music at Brown Family Park. The concert combined performances by extremely talented musical performers with delicious local food trucks and was free to the public. photos by P A T R I C K B A I R D

VILLAGE P OET

When Autumn Comes

by Ellen E. Hyatt

Travel begins. The flight—miles, miles, and miles—away from all places where we see sunsmile-days fewer and too short.

The Danaidae feel the urge, know the must to move South. Of course, South to follow their ancestral trail and merge with millions.

Arrival is 3000 miles and 30 days later— after the monarch family’s journeyed high above hills and low in valleys where north winds allow wings to flap glide flap flap flap glide flap glide flap flap.

Like the rhythm of Sinatra that maestro and his music: Come fly with me, come fly, let’s fly away— After crossing highways and deserts, after roosting in trees for rest and alongside hundreds of bedfellows for warmth, monarchs—mapped in mystery—joyland in the Sierra Madre.

They’ll cluster there on spruce and oak.

They’ll make the mountain kaleidoscopic, a monarchial wonder in orange and black.

The butterflies will dream winter dreams (something is in the wing) as they winter all winter . . . their first, only, and last.

82 AZALEAMAG.COM Fall 2017

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