Membership has its PERX!

Haig Point PERX was created to reward Members for helping us build our Membership stronger and better. We all know a referral is the greatest compliment you can give to your community. With PERX, you also have the opportunity for amazing rewards:

• For each new Net Signature Membership sold, the referring Member will receive $5,000

• For each new Non-Property Membership sold, the referring Member will receive $1,000

• For each Existing Property with a Membership sold, the referring Member will receive a $1,000 Club Credit

• For each National Membership sold, the referring Member will receive a $500 Club Credit

Online Extra

To learn more or to refer a Member, scan this code with your smart device

When you become a Haig Point Member, you become part of a wonderful circle of Affiliate Clubs. With select privileges such as dining, golf, fitness, business centers and more, your membership is even better than you imagined.

LOCAL AFFILIATE CLUBS

Our agreement with each club gives you access and you’ll be eligible for the member-guest rates at each of the clubs.

South Carolina Yacht Club

Learn to sail, join a cruising fleet, enjoy dining and special events with a decidedly nautical flair.

NATIONAL AFFILIATE CLUBS

Harbour Town Yacht Club

Take a quick water taxi trip for a change of scenery and enjoy cocktails and weekly dinners overlooking the marina.

Palmetto Bluff

Book a spa appointment, play golf, enjoy several dining options or join the Shooting Club.

Savannah Yacht Club - NEW!

Variety of recreational activities including sailing, boating, tennis, swimming and fine dining

The agreement with each club gives our members full access for 10 days no more than 2 visits each calendar year. You’ll be eligible for the member-guest rates at each of the clubs. Before traveling, please contact Adam Martin, VP of Sales and Marketing. He may be contacted at amartin@haigpoint.com and will provide a letter of introduction to the affiliate club of your choice

ALABAMA

The Club of Birmingham, Alabama

CANADA

Derrick Golf & Winter Club

Donalda Club

Granite Club

Toronto Cricket, Skating & Curling Club

Toronto Lawn Tennis Club

DELAWARE

Greenville Country Club

FLORIDA

The River Club

GEORGIA

Idle Hour Country Club

MARYLAND

Kenwood Golf and Country Club

MASSACHUSETTS

The University Club of Boston

MICHIGAN

Detroit Athletic Club

MISSOURI

Missouri Athletic Club

NEW JERSEY

Park Avenue Club

NEW YORK

The Belvedere Club

Huntington Yacht Club

Long Island Yacht Club

INVITED ALLIANCE (formerly ClubCorp) - NEW!

The New York Athletic Club

Scarsdale Golf Club

Westchester Country Club

NORTH CAROLINA

Charlotte City Club

North Hills Club

OHIO

Maketewah Country Club

PENNSYLVANIA

Union League Club of Philadelphia

UNITED KINGDOM

University Club, London

ClubBenefits is included with your Signature Membership, no action is required to enjoy these tremendous privileges. When you travel, you will enjoy complimentary golf and dining.

BNG CLUBS

BNG Hospitality owns a group of City Clubs around the country that are premier Business and Social Clubs. Members may book their visit to any of these Clubs by contacting the Front Desk of the respective Club.

MEMBERS CAN LEARN MORE by visiting haigpoint.com and clicking My Club > Affiliate Clubs

Local Makers

IRON FISH GALLERY Making a Mark in Metal

Many metal artists did not pursue metal as their original path. They more likely stumbled upon the art form while trying other mediums, yet for these four South Carolina metal artists, fascination with the unique craft has taken hold.

Daufuskie Island’s Chase Allen, the artist whose sheet metal fish, mermaids, crabs, stingrays, and other Coastal art has put him in the milestone “two-million dollar club,” frequently receives national media attention. He sells his work through his website as well as the honor system at the Iron Fish Art outdoor gallery on his property, where people pick out what they want and either leave money or their phone number so that he can call them to get their credit card information. Sometimes he forgets to call them, and people send checks with interest added. This at-times untended gallery allows him to work without interruption.

During his last semester at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, Chase says he took a ceramics class as his final elective. “That’s when a light bulb went off. For the first time, that’s when my creative and artistic side started up.” However, Chase had already secured a job with a developer on Daufuskie Island, so he went to work. “I was conflicted because I knew I was not supposed to be in the traditional business world. I was a fish out of water.”

However, a few more developments had to happen before he began to create his own best-selling fish.

“I started plotting on what I was going to do next,” he says. “Daufuskie is a great place. It’s remote, and I thought I could start an artistic venture out here. But the only thing I knew how to do was pottery, and that seemed like a rude thing to do when there was already a pottery studio here. So I thought to myself, ‘I need to find another medium.’ I went on vacation in Asheville and saw a metal artist. I asked him how he put his pieces together, and he said that he welded them, so I knew that’s what I had to learn how to do.”

When Chase got back to Daufuskie, he started visiting the on-site mechanic shop and asked if there were any welders. There were, and they agreed to let him weld together scrap metal on his lunch breaks. “That is the whole origin,” he says. “Welding came naturally to me.

The second I stuck two pieces of steel together, my brain started to formulate a plan for how I was going to do this for a living … how I was going to quit real estate.”

Then 2001 came. Two of his young friends passed away, his mother became ill, and then there was Sept. 11. After these events, Chase was fully aware that life is too short. He decided to go for it, maxing out a credit card for $10,000, which ended up being the same as a business loan since at the time credit card companies were not charging interest. This allowed him to buy all of his equipment interest free.

“I don’t recommend using a credit card to start a business if you aren’t disciplined,” says Chase. “A lot of people assume that since I was briefly in real estate I had money, but at that time, I was completely broke. All I had was good credit and an unused credit card. There were also a lot of rumors on Daufuskie. Tour guides often tell their clients that I got rich in the stock market and came out here to be an artist. I’ve also heard that I’m a trust fund child. I think these stories spring up because people have a really tough time imagining making a good living only from art. These rumors are mostly funny, but the true story is that my business was 100 percent built on a 0 percent interest credit card. I’m proud to say that I started small, and I never paid a nickel of interest on my credit cards as I repaid my debt. You don’t have to have a lot of money to get started if you start small.”

Chase’s plan was to make Iron Fish Art a destination gallery. He found a house for rent, put up a tent, and called that his workshop for making yard art. “It worked. I was making a very modest living, but it wasn’t amazingly successful.”

Then he combined another passion of his — fishing — with his art. If he hadn’t been an artist, he said he would have liked to be a marine biologist. Everything changed. He made a few fish sculptures and realized that he needed to have a Coastal emphasis and to make wall art. “I got a clear focus, and that is what differentiates me from many other artists. Creative people’s attention can get scattered. It’s important to focus if you want to be a professional artist,” he says. “I’m an artist. I wanted to make a million things — plants, trees, other things. But if I want to get known as a specialist in a certain area, then I must stay focused, and that has served me well.”

The focus also helped him power through the lean years of his start up. “The sacrifice was that even though I was having a good time and getting a lot of positive feedback, when you are watching your friends making money and having fun, you can’t help but question what you are doing. I’m getting rewarded now, but it took a while.”

Some misadventures happened along the way. When welding in the workshop tent one day, he suddenly realized that his pants were on fire from the sparks. After he got that out, he saw that the sparks had also lit the pine straw littered on the ground and the fire was burning towards an ancient live oak in the back yard. “I ran after the fire with a rake and raked like a mad man for 20 minutes,” he says. He saved the oak — and himself. “I’ve set myself on fire at least 20 times,” he adds. “I’ve gotten a lot smarter about things. It’s survival of the fittest.”

A brief history of our lighthouse as it turns 150 years old this year. Join us all year at various events as we celebrate this milestone.

Congress appropriated funds for the beacons on March 3, 1871, and an aggregate of five acres on Haig Point was acquired from the Pope family for $745. The five acres consisted of a triangular, three-acre parcel on the extreme northern end of the island and a triangular, two-acre tract 750 yards to the south. The Popes also granted certain privileges to the government: "a right of way sufficiently wide for the convenient passage of vehicles, wagons, carts, etc., over and across the land lying between the two pieces or parcels of land" and the right "to cut down any shrubbery bushes or tress that may obstruct the view of the light houses to be erected upon said pieces of land."

In December of 1872, James H. Reed of Washington D.C. was contracted to acquire all the material for the two range lights and dwelling, transport the material to the island, and supply the necessary labor to erect the structures all for $7,681. A two-story wooden keeper's dwelling, with a tower extending from the eastern end of its pitched roof, was constructed on the foundation of Blodgett's plantation mansion. To the south, the front range light was also built of wood. Ships would align the two range lights to safely enter Calibogue Sound. The entrance to the sound would move due to shifting sand, so the front range light was placed atop a pair of wooden rails along which it could be moved to track the sound's entrance.

Patrick Comer was appointed first caretaker of the lights on August 29, 1873, with his wife Bridgett serving as his assistant. A fifth-order Fresnel lens produced a steady white light over an arc of 270 degrees from the rear tower's focal plane of sixtyfive feet, while a steamer lens illuminated an arc of 90 degrees from the front light. The Comers activated the lights for the first time on October 1, 1873, after the completion of the Haig Point Lighthouse had been delayed for several months. The government built a boathouse and ramp for the station in 1875, and in 1883 a dock was added so the boat could be used independent of the tide.

In 1886, the earthquake that caused such extensive damage in Charleston shook the Haig Point Lighthouse. Plaster rained down from the interior walls, which were subsequently covered with bead board that still remains in the lighthouse. Patrick Comer passed away in an upstairs bedroom in 1891 after eighteen years at the lighthouse. Richard Stonebridge served as keeper of the Haig Point Lighthouse for 32 years, beginning his service in 1891 and retiring on July 1, 1923.

A fireproof oil house was constructed just east of the lighthouse in 1892, likely to store the volatile kerosene that was used in lighthouses during this period. Also, around 1895, a 6,000-gallon cistern was built just west lighthouse, replacing an earlier 4000-gallon cistern. Rather than collecting water from the metal gutters attached to the eves of the roof, the new cistern was filled with well water. Perhaps the increased capacity of the cistern was what led to the installation of a bathtub in 1914.

Following Stonebridge's retirement, Charles L. Sisson was appointed keeper, but a year later the station was discontinued. In 1925, the government sold the Haig Point Lighthouse and the surrounding five acres through sealed bids to M. V. Haas of Savannah for $1,499.99. The lighthouse passed through the hands of several owners in quick succession, and then was used in the 1930s as a hunting lodge. Several wild parties were held at the lodge until an intoxicated member made his way to the top of the tower one evening. As he leaned against the wooden railing surrounding the lantern room's walkway, the structure suddenly gave way. The tipsy hunter plummeted onto the roof of the lighthouse, bringing an end not only to his life, but the life of the parties as well.

Uninhabited during the following years, the lighthouse slowly deteriorated. Shutters and doors sagged from their hinges, the roof leaked, and all of the glass was broken out of the windows and lantern room. Since the government had disposed of the lighthouse, the Haig Point Plantation and Lighthouse were never owned by the same person until George H. Bostwick purchased Haig Point Plantation in 1961 and the Haig Point Lighthouse in 1965. Bostwick set out to repair the neglected lighthouse as recorded in this 1967 account from a Beaufort County newspaper: "Once a desolate ruin that gazed from the tip of Daufuskie Island through shattered windows, the structure now boasts fresh white paint, a new roof, refinished floors, modern electrical wiring, screened windows, and other refinements. The glasses in the lamp house have been replaced and the tower is capped with red roof paint."

On October 23, 1984, International Paper Realty Corporation purchased Haig Point with plans to develop a low-key, resort community. One of their first projects was to hire archaeologist Larry Lepinoka and historical architect Colin Brooker to date the tabby slave ruins and find the foundation of the Haig Point Mansion. Digging around the lighthouse, they discovered the lighthouse's foundation was actually part of the mansion's tabby walls, and a fireplace from the original mansion was located underneath the lighthouse's kitchen. The massive foundations discovered at the lighthouse supported one of the largest tabby houses ever built. Rather than bury the foundations, the tops of the walls were capped with a cement similar to tabby, leaving an outline of the mansion tracing through the ground around the lighthouse.

Using the original plans for the dwelling, the lighthouse was meticulously restored under the direction of Bill Phillips. On October 18, 1986, the Haig Point Lighthouse was re-lit in a festive ceremony that included a fireworks display and members of the Savannah Symphony playing Stars and Stripes Forever. Today, the lighthouse is used to accommodate guests of the Haig Point community. A Plexiglas panel near the fireplace in the kitchen permits visitors to view the brick fireplace from the old tabby mansion.

-Unknown author, shared by Jenny Hersch

Event Photos

Clockwise from Top Left: Easter Kids Village Fun, St. Patrick's Day Parade in Savannah, Ladies Who Eat, Play, Discover: Sunset Toast, Boogieing Down at the Memorial Day Weekend White Party, Derby Day on the Deck, Oyster Reef Build with SC DNR, Late Spring Ride 'n Wine, Men's Golf Invitational Dinner, Taking a Break at the RBC Heritage Tournament, 2023 Picklemasters, Haig Point Foundation Golf Tournament Winners

Current Listings

10

$1,590,000

4 bedrooms | 4 bathrooms | 4,070 sqft

$149,000

0.4746 acre | Golf & Sound Views

4

$95,000

1.0004 acres | Golf & Landscape Views

ONLINE EXTRA

View all our listings at https://haigpoint.com/real-estate Email info@haigpoint.com if you are interested in buying or selling

JANUARY

1 - Continental Breakfast

8 AM | Grill Room

Tennis + Pickleball: New Year's Round Robin

10 AM | Tennis Center

2 - Golf: Tee Times Available

8:30 AM - 11 AM | Golf Shop

9 - College Football Championships

5 PM | Grill Room

13 - Daufuskie Island

Marathon Pasta Dinner

5 PM | Clubhouse Ballroom

14 - Daufuskie Island Marathon

8:15 AM | Tabby Lawn

15 - Daufuskie Island Marathon Mimosa Brunch

9 AM | Grill Room

21 - Golf: Two-Person Scramble Golf Shop

FEBRUARY 11 – Golf: Tee It Forward

Tennis: Super Bowl Round Robin 10 AM | Tennis Center

12 – Egly Superbowl Party

5 PM | Tent on the Beach

14 – Valentine's Day Dinner

5 PM | Calibogue Club

14 – Pickleball: Cupid's Doubles

3 PM | Tennis Center

When love and friendship is in the air, what better night to take a friend or spouse out and play some pickleball. Enjoy a nice evening of doubles before dinner