Betting The Ranch
Coastal Living|March 2017

How One Young Family (With the Help of a Mighty Design Duo) Turned a Low-profile 1950s Home Into a Wide-open Waterfront Gem.

Ellen Mcgauley
Betting The Ranch

COASTAL RANCHOLOGY: THE STUDY OF AN OFTEN UNDERRATED STYLE OF ARCHITECTURE THAT PEAKED IN THE MID-20TH CENTURY AND IS MARKED BY ITS BROAD, ONE-STORY LAYOUTS, ITS LOW-PROFILE FACADES, AND ITS POTENTIAL FOR WATERFRONT GREATNESS

HOMEOWNER CYNTHIA BROWN had a gut feeling about this—the hidden promise of a house built low to the ground, with reasonable square footage and that air of simplicity that comes with single story living. In fact, she banked on it when she and her husband, Gene, bought a modest, 1950s ranch house along the Wando River outside of Charleston, South Carolina. The lot was always the draw. It had a huge yawn of watery views and was set in an old-school neighborhood where their three kids could ride bikes under the arms of old oak trees and stretch off the ends of docks to hoist crab traps from the riverbed.

The house? Well, it needed work. The Browns liked it, but the rooms were small and without much light, the ceilings were low, and the windows offered up only narrow glimpses of that big tidal river. Plus, there was the dark brick facade that seemed to hide beneath the shadows of towering trees, like a shy school kid who keeps his head down in the halls.

They moved into the 3,000-square foot house as-is, and set their sights on building a dock first. “We definitely had our priorities straight,” says Cynthia with a laugh, recalling the parties out there that followed. Meanwhile, they made plans for renovating the little ranch house. New ideas formed, and living space expanded. These changes triggered new flood regulations, so stilts were also sketched in.

This story is from the March 2017 edition of Coastal Living.

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This story is from the March 2017 edition of Coastal Living.

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