The Breeze Magazine of the Lowcountry, JULY 2018

A Shingle Home on Lady Slipper Island
Reflecting a Respect for Nature
By: Randolph Stewart
Photo Credits: Jason Adams
The Lowcountry has an abundance of history
and natural beauty. There is no better example
than on a small salt marsh island, shaped like
a lady’s shoe, several miles inland from the
Atlantic within the private Belfair Community,
in the Bluffton, S.C. Township. For hundreds of
years, Indians paddled to it to walk across the
marsh to the mainland to hunt. The French,
Spanish, and English Colonists certainly rowed
by or camped for safe haven. Confederate and
Northern troops knew the Island, as well as
oystermen and fishermen who passed by.
With its expansive views of coastal marshes,
the Colleton River and saltwater estuaries, Lady
Slipper Island is indeed a very special place. The
island’s sensitive ecology with wetlands on all
sides, and the developers strong desire to have
the homes connected with the environment
were primary design determinates that the style
of the homes should feel as if they have long
been there, and that the materials and colors
should reflect a respect for nature.
The “Shingle Style” first emerged in the 1870’s. At the
turn of century this uniquely American style reached its
highest expression in seaside resorts of the northeastern
states.
Shingle architecture is an adaptation of other styles:
Colonial Revival, with elaborate front doors, decorative
crown pediments, fanlights, and sidelights, symmetrical
windows, and columned porches - Victorian, where
it borrowed wide porches, heavily textured surfaces,
and asymmetrical forms - Richardsonian Romanesque
where it borrows an emphasis on masculine proportions
with irregular, sculpted shapes, arches, and heavy rustic
lower stories.
The “Shingle Style” is an unusually free-form of
architecture with variable style. One reason for
popularity is that it remained primarily a “high-fashion”
form for the American affluent who wanted unique
seaside vacation cottages. Unlike the formal and
restrictive urban counterparts, the “Shingle House” was
light and airy and was able to allow the owners to relax
and enjoy the wonderful climate and vistas on the coast.
As a result, the Shingle Style was the first to develop a
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