Building a custom home on the South Carolina coast is one of the most significant investments of your life — and the architect you choose shapes everything that follows. This guide from Frederick + Frederick Architects covers what to look for beyond the portfolio: climate expertise, construction administration, credentials that actually signal depth, and the questions worth asking in every interview. Written for those building or retiring to Beaufort, Bluffton, Hilton Head, or the Sea Islands. | Lowcountry architecture | custom home design | coastal South Carolina | retirement home planning

The conversation around rooftop solar has shifted. Without federal tax credits sweetening the deal, homeowners are asking a more fundamental question: why go solar? For us in coastal South Carolina, the answer has always been bigger than a tax break, it's about taking control of your own energy future.

According to the National Institute of Building Sciences, hazard mitigation is one of the highest-return investments a community can make. Their widely cited 2017 report found that federally funded mitigation grants save the nation an average of $6 in future disaster costs for every $1 spent. Similarly, designing buildings to exceed select code requirements yields a $4 return for every $1 invested. More recent analyses suggest that depending on the type of resilience measure, the benefit-cost ratio can be even greater—ranging from $4 up to $11 for every $1 spent—underscoring the long-term value of proactive hazard mitigation.

Beaufort, like many coastal cities, has been experiencing high levels of development in recent years. There are less deep water, beachfront, or marsh view lots available now than there were when we started our firm. As a result, there are many lots that realtors and neighbors have given the bad reputation as being “unbuildable.” Here are a few case studies demonstrating how we’ve put in some extra effort to change that.

In our book, Contemporary Southern Vernacular: Creating Sustainable Design for Hot, Humid Climates, we cover the importance of site design both from a sustainability viewpoint and connecting you to nature. The concept was a new one for many of our readers. One reader wrote, “Building a house to incorporate the surrounding landscape makes so much sense. I look out my window, and I am saddened that the builder did not position our house to catch a glimpse of the Pike’s Peak Mountain range, which is literally a few miles away. All I see out my window are houses. Some of the original landscapes would have been lovely to admire from my gigantic windows. Preserving Mother Nature and keeping it alive in our community would be a soothing and relaxing sight to awaken to every day.”

As we enter into hurricane season, many people ask, “How can I build to mitigate hurricane damage?” Historically, we have worried more about hurricanes with high winds but Hurricane Florence proved that category 1 storms can be just as disastrous. Eight people in South Carolina died, property damage was over $607 million, and more than 2,000 homes were lost to flooding.

When building a new house there are three critical concerns in the design and construction in hurricane prone areas that address the simultaneous impacts of wind, rain, and flooding.

Considering that 90% of waste is from demolition, it is imperative that we renovate and reuse buildings as opposed to tearing them down and starting from scratch. If a building must be taken down it should be deconstructed—meaning carefully dismantled to salvage materials for reuse and recycling.

As we work to make our buildings more sustainable, selecting environmentally responsible building products and materials is critical to reducing the carbon footprint and building healthy buildings.  To select materials wisely, we have to understand what is in them, how they were made, and if they can be recycled at the end of their usefulness.

Simply put, the building enclosure is the barrier between interior and exterior environments. Also referred to as the building envelope, it includes the walls, windows, doors, roof, and foundation. Comfort, natural lighting, ventilation, and energy use are all determined by the makeup of the building enclosure. It shouldn’t be a surprise that climate affects the optimal components, but a nuanced approach to building science was not adopted in our hot and humid south until the 21st Century! In a region where cooling is the primary concern over heating (though not exclusively), where significant rainfall events occur frequently, and where the humidity levels hover around steam room levels—specific building science must be applied.

Tom Rhodes becomes certified as a Fortified Home Professional, adding to the firms expertise in designing for resilience. The IBHS FORTIFIED Home™ identifies the roof as the most important component in protecting your house. The first of three levels of certification is the FORTIFIED Roof. 

“Home and business owners needn’t take their chances with lightning,” explains Bud VanSickle, executive director of the Lightning Protection Institute (LPI). “A professionally installed lightning protection system which meets U.S. Safety Standards … will prevent lightning damage by providing a safe electrical path into the earth for lightning’s destructive energy.”

How can my home be more sustainable? Southern vernacular building techniques are based on sustainable principles which we continue to use today.

The best management practice is to collect and store the rainwater for reuse or slow infiltration. There are two options for collecting rainwater; either a rain barrel or a cistern. Both are connected to your gutters and downspouts. A rainbarrel is used to collect water for use in your garden. Be sure that the rainbarrel has a cover so that it is not a mosquito nursery. A cistern is larger and is the storage tank portion in a complete rainwater harvesting system that filters and stores water for any normal household use. If the water is to be used for potable needs it must go through additional filtration and water purification.

Katherine Kokal of the Island Packet recently reported that Beaufort County ranks number one in the United States for climate change risks.

This assessment came from the data from the Rhodium Group and was analyzed by ProPublica and the New York Times Magazine. Beaufort County tops their chart of the risk caused by compounding calamities, including heat, wet bulb (how heat and humidity collide), farm crop yields, sea level rise, and economic damage.

Almost every month there are variance requests before the Beaufort County Zoning Board of Appeals for waterfront buffer setbacks. It seems that many of the applicants do not understand the intent and importance of riparian buffers.

A riparian buffer is the land bordering waterways characterized by a cover of naturally occurring vegetation consisting of trees, shrubs, and native grasses.

In the lowcountry, flooding is a major concern. New structures are required to be elevated above the base flood elevation if they are in a flood zone. Base flood elevations are reevaluated periodically, so an older home may be below the flood elevation and subject to FEMA’s 50% Rule. A surveyor can determine the flood zone the house is located in and provide an elevation certificate to verify that the building is properly elevated.