During the mid-60s, my family enjoyed vacations on Hilton Head Island, a beautiful, sub-tropical paradise. Back then, the only way onto the island was via ferry and there was only one traffic light. The second-largest barrier island on the East Coast, Hilton Head has some of the most beautiful beaches on the Eastern seaboard and is one of the last nesting habitats for endangered species such as the whooping crane and giant sea turtle, and is home to innumerable other gems of nature.
When my parents retired in the mid-70s, they chose Hilton Head Island for their retirement home. Initially, enormous strides were taken to try to preserve this veritable Eden. Sea Pines Plantation, the first gated community on the island, became our home—where the delicious scent of pine wafted in with the salty onshore breezes and the warm water lapped gently under golden sunrises. You could walk the beach and not see a living thing other than the birds whirling overhead and dolphin following the thud of one’s footsteps in the shallows.
Sea Pines Plantation founder Charles Fraser tried to set the standard for the island by limiting the amount of development and home sites per acreage. The bare minimum of trees were felled, houses were wood-stained to blend in with the surrounding foliage, and strict controls on signage and commerce were mandated. But sadly, all was in vain.
Since then, developmental control went south with the prevailing winds, and 30 years hence, the island has turned into one long bumper-to-bumper strip mall … so saturated with box stores, condos, hotels, malls and gated communities that it can take nigh on half a day simply to get on or off the island’s 12 miles of fumes, concrete and cars—a tourist trap of Orlando proportions.
So when my parents passed on, we gave up what was once our beloved island home to move to the relatively unscathed beauty of the mountains of WNC. In the five years we have lived here, we have witnessed the onslaught of unregulated development with box stores and gated communities emerging like weeds, and we fear the same demise as that of Hilton Head. To arrest this travesty, we must join together before it is too late.
This is why we have invested heart and soul into preserving our beloved home by contributing to the upcoming Fresh Air benefit for the environment by Tribe Management and sponsored by the Canary Coalition, WNC Green Building Council, Environmental Defense, Earth First, French Broad Brewing Co., Smart HomeOwner and ourselves [New Age Gardens]—at the Grey Eagle on June 10th.
It may be too late for Hilton Head Island, but it’s not too late for Asheville and the beautiful mountains of WNC. Act now, safeguard our home and donate to this extremely important cause to preserve WNC and send the juggernaut of developers and polluters elsewhere!
— Julia Brooke Childs
Swannanoa
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