We left the coastal area of South Carolina 21/2 weeks ago and we continue to visit places familiar to Andreas during his 9-5 working life. This is an area of the country completely new to me. The countryside is heavily wooded with pine that is clear cut from time to time. The modern houses have a very characteristic style where the roofline over the central section of the house is higher than the two side wings. This enables a covered front porch. The garage doors are not front and center. Often one of the side wings is in fact the garage and the car enters from the side. It makes a much more welcoming entrance to the house.
Not long after leaving the coastal area we drove through Lake City. A charming town with an ugly dark history of lynching. The first black post master was lynched 128 years ago because white folks didn’t want their mail delivered by black person! It is also the birthplace of Dr. Ronald McNair, a physicist and African-American astronaut who died in the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger disaster
The town now markets itself as an arts center. Every spring it host a massive arts festival. As we drove through I was struck by the compact red brick houses that looked like a variation of the American Bungalow. Turns out that I was thinking along the right lines. According to Google, the houses are in „a South Carolina distinct variation known as the Shandon-style brick bungalow. These homes combined the classic, low-slung shape of an American bungalow with solid red-brick exteriors and prominent gabled roofs“. If we ever come back this way, I’d love to take a closer look at this town.
It is clear why the Carolinas are considered the timber source for the USA. South Carolina harvests pine for the building industry while North Carolina harvests hardwood that contributed to its leadership in furniture design. We visited the magnificent Grove Park Inn featuring Roycraft furniture and the even more spectacular Grove Park village museum that housed a wide variety of contemporary furniture inspired by the Arts and Crafts movement. We were in woodworkers heaven!
One of Andreas‘s friends lives in Greenville. This is an old cotton town totally revitalized as a cosmopolitan city on a wonderful river (Reedy) with waterfalls cascading through the downtown area. It’s an iconic example of Urban renewal and long term strategic planning. Another place I’d like to come back and visit more thoroughly.
To be continued….
Life on my Own Terms 