Hidden Canopy Residence

On more than four acres in Briars Creek, the home covers less than six percent of the lot, which is another way of saying the pines and live oaks were the plan and the house was fit around them. The drive curves in through the woods and the roofline appears late, low and gabled under standing seam metal, painted a green that agrees with everything around it.

Inside, the main level stays open to the trees on every side. The living room runs to a wall of glass and out to the rear porch, where a second fireplace and an outdoor kitchen make that the room everyone actually uses. A screened porch sits off one end for the weeks when Johns Island insists on it, and the pool is set out past the porch with woods on all sides and no neighbor in sight.

The study is the room that stops people. Paneled and coffered floor to ceiling, painted deep green, with rods and reels on the walls and a fly-tying desk built into the millwork. Designed by Vinyet Architecture, the house also hides two doors in panel-trimmed walls, the kind of thing a guest walks past a dozen times before someone points it out.

Behind the calm is a house built for the Lowcountry rather than in spite of it. A conditioned crawl space above the flood line, roof and walls sealed in spray foam, cement board siding, mahogany doors, and a full ARB review before a single tree came down. The wetland buffers were left as found. In thirty years the woods will still be the first thing you see.