Rehab project to turn dilapidated house into welcome center

Special thanks to the Town’s sponsors and partners:

• Palmetto Running Company • Kevin Sevier/State Farm Insurance

• The Bluffton Sun • HHI-Bluffton Chamber of Commerce

• Burn Boot Camp• Collins Group Realty • Carson Realty

• Lowcountry Alliance for Healthy Youth & Teens for Healthy Youth

• Miss Hilton Head Island Allie Bryant

In-Kind Sponsors include:

• Accurate Lithograph • Hargray & all Town Christmas Parade entrants who supported this cause in lieu of a parade fee.

The Bluffton Lutzie 5K proceeds go to the Lutzie 43 Scholarship Fund. The Town annually awards (4) $1000 scholarships to students who are safe driving ambassadors.

The Town is accepting applications now through March 31.

For information & application: www.townofbluffton.sc.gov/639/Bluffton-Lutzie-43-Scholarship

By Lynne Cope Hummell EDITOR

Though it stood worn and tattered as a backdrop for the day’s event, the Squire Pope Carriage House at the May River end of Calhoun Street was celebrated Feb. 2.

That day, the Town of Bluffton kicked off a rehabilitation project for the 150-year-old structure, with family members present who once lived in the two-story house overlooking the river. Members of the community, staff of the Hilton Head Island-Bluffton Chamber of Commerce, Town staff and partners in the project joined in the celebration.

In her opening remarks, Mayor Lisa Sulka said, “This is not just a kickoff (of this project), but also a chance to celebrate this park that opened a couple of years ago, but we didn’t have a chance to say ‘yay.’”

This rehab project is the last part of the park project, she said.

She referred to the Wright Family Park, located on the waterfront and including a public dock, named for the last family to live in the house. Family members present were acknowledged and applauded.

Sulka noted that the house had survived the Burning of Bluffton in 1863 and continues to stand strong and to hold “lots of stories.”

Some of those stories were then told by Augustine “Gus” Wright III, affectionately known as Pastor Gus, now of Colorado.

Wright said the thought of preserving the house started with Joannie Heyward, a neighbor of the family in Bluffton, who said “I’ve got an idea,” which sparked numerous long-distance conversations.

He said his father, who had died just 11 months prior, was excited about the Town’s plans. “In his memory and in his honor, I want to say thank you and well done,” Wright said.

Wright shared memories of playing video games in his bedroom on the second floor, family dinners in the kitchen, and the fact that the original house didn’t have plumbing or electricity.

“Homes become part of a family’s life forever. This house is magnetic in its personality. This house has evolved with the times,” Wright said. “I hope it will be fixed up as it deserves.”

Sulka then read part of a letter Wright had given the Town after closing on the sale. “Our hope is that this property will be a beautiful park. One in which the birds sing their melodies, which have been sung for hundreds of years, the true song of the South. Our hope is that this park will inform the locals as well as guests of the way things were, the beauty that is present, and dreamers will dream dreams of the world to come.”

Sulka said the letter has guided the Town designers and engineers in their plans for the house.