Slice of Paradise

Why has it been a month since i've published anything new?
1) I will no longer be accepting freelance assignments with limited exceptions.
2) We are moving to the Aiken, Edgefield, Augusta Area.
3) I am going to work with Morris Communications.

Here's the scoop... I have lived in Charleston for fifteen years and McClellanville for over six years now with exception of the place we had on Franklin Street downtown for a couple years.... about six months ago we got rid of our house downtown and began living entirely in McClellanville mostly due to the slowdown in freelance assignments from real estate agents who I built a lot of websites for....and I began working with several local web development firms to pick up the slack. That turned out to be a waste of my energy so I put out three resumes looking to work with more established companies for a long run. I am proud to say that I got three job offers and strangely enough freelance jobs started pouring in.. I had two phone calls today and two yesterday for new jobs, but I am looking forward to letting someone else handle the business aspects while I just worry about building and designing awesome websites. The Evening News Co (post and courier) wanted a programmer but I'm pretty sure that it was going to be relatively limiting for me... but I do like how they are actively marketing Home Tours now :) I actually vied for Apple over them because they offered me a full time position training folks to use Apple software. I love Apple.. the offer was solid and the benefits were tremendous including the training in Cupertino... I am so sorry to have to pass up that offer, but the offer from Morris was too perfect for me. I went and met my future co-workers and I will be a member of a programming team. What I liked most about it is that Morris has a long and award winning history with online publishing and my bosses are well respected nationwide for their involvement with media convergence (online stuff). It will give me a chance to be a member of a great team that has a solid future. They have been building and hosting (they have their own data center) applications for newspapers since the mid nineties and they seem to want to grow that division which will give me a long run scenario and not a turn and burn give me your code setup. They host and serve more than 40 million page views per month from a data center in the building. Let's just say that I was thoroughly impressed with Morris Digital Works, it's a good opportunity and I am excited to be working with them.

Now.. how could I possibly want to go to Augusta vs Charleston or McClellanville? I have lived in Charleston for 15 years.. arriving here via Savannah via Chapin SC.. and yes.. I love it. I spent most of my time downtown and I have actually lived in about seven eight different homes downtown (some nice.. some not so nice), two years on Folly Beach (beachfront one of them), a year in the Old Village in Mt Pleasant and now six here. I particularly love McClellanville.. the people, the land, the lifestyle, the overall ambiance. We may try to keep our home provided that we can rent it, but as it stands now.. we are going to put it on the market because I also happen to be a real estate agent in order to have access to the mls data for websites. This will hopefully be the first and last house I ever list and a prerequisite to buying it will be that you have to absolutely love it which won't be hard.

The Bamboo House

10450 Old Georgetown Rd - McClellanville, SC 29458

So here it is.. the pros and cons of our house depending on how you see it. I'll get a gallery of images with maps and specs up soon.

The Town

the pros -
1)No close neighbors - surrounded by the National Forest - called Waterhorn Wildlife Management Area five boat landings all within several miles both the intracoastal the santee river and the black water swamps surrounding the area. They are pristine.. I kayak.
2)Very cool in the Summer - when you turn off of Hwy 17 onto 45 and begin to enter the "swamp" as they say... the temp immediately drops 5 to 10 degrees. The house is surrounded by a very established patch (acre) of bamboo which rises 45 to 50 feet in the air. This keeps it cool around the house and we theorize that it's absolutely great protection against a hurricane as the prevailing winds will be shielded by the bamboo laying into the house.
3)The neighbors and people of McClellanville are very friendly (although they will run off out of town-ers that they don't like) and very often I have the opportunity to trade bamboo for fresh seafood.
4)The Beaches on the islands just up the creek (although I probably shouldn't mention it because next thing you know.. all the idiots with new boats living in Mt Pleasant will start putting their boats in up here) and running out to the "beach" which is some pristine land and delta with the Cape Romain Island Lighthouse and the Santee Rivers Delta.
5) Charleston County has purchased 600 acres in McClellanville for a future county park.
6) The nature conservancy owns a large tract near our house and actively pursues property all around the area.
7) Ted Turner and some other rich folks have property all along the Santee rivers with an expressed interest in preserving the area.
8) The flooding of the delta that drove settlers from the area is no longer because of the diversion canals and Santee Cooper Dams on Lake Moultrie and Marion.
9) The fishing and hunting is excellent and varied.

the cons -
1) Location. there is no bank or supermarket nearby although the four restaurants, pharmacy and hardware store seems to have everything we need. The drive into Mt Pleasant is exactly 35 minutes (super walmart and all that crap) . The drive to Daniel Island is 35 minutes using back roads. The drive to Georgetown is 35 minutes. The drive to downtown Charleston can be up to an hour depending on traffic.. although the DOT is planning on extending the six lane setup entirely through Mt Pleasant almost to the awendaw side to accommodate the incoming Carolina Park (a uber big pre planned community.. they say it will have more commercial space than the towne center near the Isle of Palms connector)
2) Mosquitoes - nuff said.. but while some people say they're bad here.. I know for a fact that they are just as bad near the Marsh in Mt Pleasant.. and the county mosquito truck runs down our road about once a month during the summer.
3) The schools are not very good here, but this house doesn't have enough room for kids anyway and there is a private school in town.

The House:

(built in 1996, 1000sq/ft, 1 acre)
the pros
1) It has nine 6x4 Anderson Windows so that you almost feel like you're outdoors.
2) It has an 18' Barrel Vaulted Ceiling
3) Baldwin brass hardware throughout... on solid wood doors.
4) Brazilian Cherry Hardwood floors throughout with tile in the bath and foyer.
5) Solid Construction - Bill Youngman built it.. ask around he's known for being good. He built the Haiku House in Awendaw which won a bunch of architectural and building awards.
6) It is super energy efficient with Geo-thermal heating and cooling and special insulation. It actually qualifies for a tax discount. Not to mention that with the ceiling heights it stays cool in the summer. The Geo thermal runs on a closed cell that comes from a second well.
7)If you're into that equity thing... then you'll be glad to know that there are four acre lots being sold a mile down the road for $350,000 at the Oaks Preserve on Old Georgetown Road
8)the road itself is pre-revolutionary.. George Washington traveled it to get to Hampton Plantation, which is now a state park. Down the road a bit is St James Santee Parish (also referred to as the Old Brick Church - whiskypalian) built in 1758 and was a founding Parish for the Charleston. Both are national historic landmarks so they're is an expressed interest in preserving the road and area. You occassionally get guys carrying metal detectors walking the road and on or around easter sunday every year a bunch of cars go by to have a service there... but that's some of the few cars that pass by.
9)the landscaping is awesome... confederate jasmine, a ton of roses everywhere, daylilies, about six or seven dogwoods, and grand old magnolia, a fully mature Japanese maple, gardenias (one of the largest you've ever seen), honeysuckle vines, irises, blackberries, old oaks, gums, a couple white pines, about seven bald cypress trees, a cedar tree...
10)we have a fire pit in the yard where we roast oysters and clams.
11) the driveway is made of old brick and laid on sand for drainage.
12) the 3 car garage stays cool in the summer.
13) the geothermal unit pumps water into the pond so it never goes low in the summer or winter.
14) the house has a ton of built in storage with shelving.
15) we'll leave the washer, dryer and refrigerator.
16) extremely high speed internet via tds telecom dsl.. I get 3MB second download and 1MB/sec upload speeds because there is a fibre optic line on the end of the road and your not fighting much traffic on it.
17) Satelite TV - we'll make arrangements with Direct Tv so that you don't have to re-install.
18) the towel racks in the bath sit over vents so that they are cool in the summer and hot in the winter.
19) the layout of the house is perfectly east/west so that it has abundant sunlight in the winter and plenty of shade in the summer.
20) five ceiling fans
21) recessed lighting
22) custom built wooden spiral staircase

the cons
1) It only has one bedroom and one bath (a really nice one with a urinal and a picture frame window overlooking the pond.)
2) yardwork with abundant wisteria and bamboo which spreads like wildfire. if you don't keep up with it...
3) if you're the impress your neighbor type.. then the homes that border the entrance to the road aren't really of your most impressive.. but they are nice people none the less.
4) The well water has a bit of iron in it. I put a fresh water heater and water filtration system on the house a year ago... but when the salt runs low or out.. it will stain and we still drink bottled water (even though our plumber neighbor insist that they tested the water here against a dasani bottled water and it came out cleaner). The pump is a submersible and the water samples have tested excellent.
5) It's on the end of the line for power outages so a good storm will knock it out everytime... which also resets the oven and it doesn't want to restart.
6) With a serious rain and some traffic on the road it can become messy but never unpassable.. a honda civic has no problems with it.
7) The roof has begun to rust and needs a coat of ospho so that doesn't spread.
8) I almost forgot... Mosquitoes are terrible in the dead of summer after a rain and at dusk.

The bonuses:
1) Wild animals.. this area has one of the largest and most diverse bird populations on the east coast. Woodpeckers, fox, deer, tons of wild turkeys, snakes (some poisonous) , a black bear (that i've seen twice), some pigs, rabbits, an owl that sits on the window, a red tailed hawk that sits in the cedar tree and eats voles from the yard, a cardinal that taps the window, and a set of otters that find their way to the pond every so often.
2) I have soil test from Clemson and the soil is excellent for a garden. I have a compost pile that is six years old with worms which will help out with the gardening.
3) I have an established yard of coastal bermuda that seems to expand every year.

Who would be ideal for this house?
I am an artist and I have used the basement as a studio and often paint outside in the driveway. I imagine that someone who really admires nature or needs the quiet to study, recuperate, write books, or pursue any other artistic endeavor would find it ideal.
Maybe a second home as a weekend retreat... A hunting cabin... A fishing camp?

***this image is a quicktime VR - you can click your mouse and move it around

***this map is embedded so you may take a look around