Tree Trimming in Sullivan's Island

Today’s column was going to be about earmarks and pork-barrel spending. Or why the governor decided to go against the legislature and veto a bunch of spending that lawmakers wanted. And how when any South Carolina governor picks a battle with the General Assembly, particularly over how it wants to spend money, the governor generally loses because we live in a legislative state where intransigence and stubbornness continually catapult us to the bottom of lists.

But you’ve probably heard that kind of blather before.

So instead, consider this: What we really need to be doing this weekend as we celebrate the country’s declaration against tyranny is to find a quiet spot to read and then seriously consider the 1,339 words of our Declaration of Independence.

Better yet: Sit down as a family and read it out loud together.

Just six months ago, a bloodthirsty mob misused and misappropriated the fundamental principles enshrouded in American freedom by trying to rip apart our democracy in favor of the very tyranny which our forefathers fought in the fields of Camden and King’s Mountain, the swamps of the Lowcountry and forts from Ninety Six to Sullivan’s Island.

You may know by heart the opening words of the document penned by Thomas Jefferson and others that espouses the values of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” You may remember the part that follows and discusses how it’s the people’s right to alter or abolish a government that fails, which is oft-cited by those who threw the destructive tantrum and bludgeoned the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

But they conveniently forget the cautious words that followed. Perhaps they missed that day in civics class. Or maybe they were so hellbent on getting their own way that they were blinded by the wisdom of colonial leaders who first focused not on a violent overthrow of power, but on reason and intellect to devise a new system to create a safe nation where all could pursue happiness:

“Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.”

The Declaration continued by offering a list of abuses by the King of England. As you read of compounding restrictions that denied liberty to colonists, it should dawn on you how our forefathers eventually corrected those abuses with a constitution that created a representative democracy that became the world’s beacon of freedom, a continuing experiment in liberty that changed the course of humankind.

Furthermore, the Declaration is remarkable in another way. It frames the patience of colonists who wanted better lives for their families. Compare their years of endurance to get redress of their grievances to the volcanic violence that erupted in the halls of freedom over a few hours in January.

Charleston’s innovative-driven real estate firm, The Cassina Group, finished the first half of 2021 as the #1 boutique firm in all of Charleston. The company has over $406 million* in closed and pending sales so far this year, which outpaces their total sales volume for the previous year.

“Throughout the years, The Cassina Group continues to set the tone for attainable luxury, focusing on our clients wants and needs and the unique properties that complement their lifestyles,” said Owen Tyler, Partner and Managing Broker of the company. “We are so grateful to have REALTORS® that are invested in the client experience, and wonderful customers and clients who return year after year.”

In a market where inventory is at historic lows, The Cassina Group has managed to achieve these results by leveraging their impressive network. Nearly 20% of their transactions this year have been handled in-house, with no other brokerages involved.

The boutique firm, with only 39 REALTORS®, has participated in the sale of 82 properties over a million dollars throughout the Lowcountry so far this year. Cassina currently ranks as the number one company by sales volume on Sullivan’s Island. Significant sales on the island include 2411 Atlantic Avenue ($6,850,000; Robertson Allen representing both the buyers and sellers), 1750 Ion Avenue ($4,000,000; Jimmy Dye representing the buyers), 2525 Atlantic Avenue ($3,500,000; Robertson Allen representing the buyers) and 3021 Middle Street ($3,305,001; Robertson Allen representing the buyers).

Other notable transactions handled by Cassina include:
106 Charleston Boulevard, Isle of Palms: 8 beds, 11 full & 2 half baths, 7,164 sq. ft., $4,350,000 (Meghan Webster represented the seller)
7 Dunecrest Lane, Isle of Palms: 7 beds, 8 full & 2 half baths, 4,991 sq. ft., $3,890,000 (Robertson Allen represented the seller & Meghan Webster represented the buyer)
2200 Palm Boulevard, Isle of Palms: 6 beds, 4 baths, 3,000 sq. ft., $3,000,000 (Chris Eller represented the buyers)
121 Live Oak Drive, Old Village: 5 beds, 3.5 baths, 3,369 sq. ft., $3,050,000 (Will Prendergast represented the sellers)
34 New Street, South of Broad: 5 beds, 5.5 baths, 4,280 sq. ft., $3,839,560 (Charles Baarcke represented the sellers)
6 New Town Lane, The Crescent: 5 beds, 5.5 baths, 4,200 sq. ft., $3,695,000 (Robertson Allen represented both the buyers and sellers)

The firm forecasts the second half of the year to be equally strong for Charleston real estate as more and more people relocate to the area, taking advantage of remote work options and the advantageous lifestyle afforded by the Lowcountry.

The innovation-driven real estate firm has a proven reputation for delivering stronger results through leading-edge technology and building lasting relationships. They recently launched a new website, CassinaGroup.com, to showcase their beautiful Lowcountry listings. The company has two offices in Charleston, including downtown Charleston and Mount Pleasant.

For more information on The Cassina Group, please visit their website at CassinaGroup.com.

*Statistics pulled on 7.12.2021

About The Cassina Group
The Cassina Group is a boutique real estate brokerage with offices in Mount Pleasant, SC and Charleston, SC. The firm is managed by Owen Tyler, partner and managing broker, and founding partners Jimmy Dye and Robertson Allen. Recent awards include top honors from Charleston Magazine, Inc. 5000, T3 Sixty and SC Biz News. For more information, visit http://www.CassinaGroup.com or call 843-628-0008.

Pdf Print

Top juniors Ryan Colby (17; Alexandria, Va.) and Amelia Honer (18; Newtown, Pa.) each won singles titles at last week’s USTA Boys’ and Girls’ 18s National Clay Court Championships to earn wild card entries into the 2021 US Open Junior Championships.

The USTA National Clay Court Championships, one of five junior USTA National Championship events in 2021 that make up the USTA adidas Junior Championship Series, were held last week at seven locations across the country with singles and doubles competition across the 18s, 16s, 14s and 12s age groups.

Colby, a Junior Tennis Champions Center product, was seeded No. 17 in the boys’ 18s draw and knocked off No. 9 seed Nicholas Heng (Madison, Ala.) in a straight-sets final win. The rising senior is a verbal commit to play college tennis at USC.

Meanwhile, the seventh-seeded duo of Lucas Brown (Plano, Texas) and Sebastian Sec (New York) brought home the boys’ 18s doubles title, defeating Alex Michelsen (Aliso Viejo, Calif.) and Conrad Brown (Irvine, Calif.) in the championship match.

In the girls’ 18s final, the ninth-seeded Honer cruised to a straight-sets victory over No. 8 seed Ariana Pursoo (Bay Shore, N.Y.), 6-4, 6-0. Honer, a recent high school graduate, will play college tennis next season at UC Santa Barbara. Pursoo also made the girls’ 18s doubles final alongside partner Seren Agar (Chatham, N.J.), as the duo fell to the sixth-seeded pair of Vivian Miller (Sullivan’s Island, S.C.) and Maddy Zampardo (Grosse Pointe Farms, Mich.).

Both 16s singles finals pitted Floridians against New Yorkers as Felipe Pinzon (Sunrise, Fla.) defeated No. 12 seed Ari Cotoulas (Brooklyn, N.Y.), 5-7, 6-2, 6-3, in the boys’ 16s final, while Kaitlin Quevedo (Naples, Fla.) knocked off No. 10 seed Tola Glowacka (Glen Head, N.Y.) in the final of the girls’ 16s draw, 2-6, 6-2, 6-3.

Darwin Blanch (Deerfield Beach, Fla.) continued the winning ways for Floridians by claiming the boys’ 14s singles title, defeating top-seeded Braeden Gelletich (Goshen, N.Y.), while fourth-seeded Tianmei Wang (San Marino, Calif.) defeated No. 6 seed Claire Hill (Cary, N.C.) to win the girls’ 14s singles title.

Jack Secord (Lake Forest, Ill.) and Ciara Harding (Boca Raton, Fla.) wrapped up the prestigious list of singles champions, winning the boys’ and girls’ 12s titles, respectively. Harding was also a doubles finalist.

Finals results from the USTA National Clay Court Championships are below. The complete draws are available here.

Each year, more than 120,000 players compete in USTA junior tournaments. Players compete in levels of competition through earned advancement in the 10s, 12s, 14s, 16s and 18s age divisions. USTA junior tournaments help kids take their game as far as they want—high school, college or the pros—or just have fun competing.

USTA National Clay Court Championships – Boys’ 18s

Delray Beach, Fla., July 11-18

Singles: (17) Ryan Colby (Alexandria, Va.) d. (9) Nicholas Heng (Madison, Ala.), 7-6(4), 6-3

Doubles: (7) Lucas Brown (Plano, Texas) / Sebastian Sec (New York) d. (17) Alex Michelsen (Aliso Viejo, Calif.) / Conrad Brown (Irvine, Calif.), 6-3, 7-5

USTA National Clay Court Championships – Girls’ 18s

Mount Pleasant, S.C., July 11-18

Singles: (9) Amelia Honer (Newtown, Pa.) d. (8) Ariana Pursoo (Bay Shore, N.Y.), 6-4, 6-0

Doubles: (6) Vivian Miller (Sullivan’s Island, S.C.) / Maddy Zampardo (Grosse Pointe Farms, Mich.) d. (11) Seren Agar (Chatham, N.J.) / Pursoo, 7-6(2), 6-2

USTA National Clay Court Championships – Boys’ 16s

Delray Beach, Fla., July 11-18

Singles: (17) Felipe Pinzon (Sunrise, Fla.) d. (12) Ari Cotoulas (Brooklyn, N.Y.), 5-7, 6-2, 6-3

Doubles: (10) Caden Hasler (American Fork, Utah) / Dylan Tsoi (Dorado Hills, Calif.) d. (1) Cooper Woestendick (Olathe, Kan.) / Stefan Regalia (Arlington, Va.), 4-6, 6-3 [10-2]

USTA National Clay Court Championships – Girls’ 16s

Huntsville, Ala., July 11-18

Singles: (33) Kaitlin Quevedo (Naples, Fla.) d. (10) Tola Glowacka (Glen Head, N.Y.), 2-6, 6-2, 6-4

Doubles: Stephanie Yakoff (Fort Lee, N.J.) / Natalia Perez (Guaynabo, Puerto Rico) d. Maren Urata (La Canada Flintridge, Calif.) / Sophia Webster (El Segundo, Calif.), 6-2, 6-4

USTA National Clay Court Championships – Boys’ 14s

Miami Beach, Fla., July 11-18

Singles: (9) Darwin Blanch (Deerfield Beach, Fla.) d. (1) Braeden Gelletich (Goshen, N.Y.), 6-3, 6-3

Doubles: (14)Maximus Dussault (Stuart, Fla.) / Maxwell Exsted (Savage, Minn.) d. (4) Ian Mayew (Cary, N.C.) / Oliver Narbut (Chapel Hill, N.C.), 6-3, 7-6(4)

USTA National Clay Court Championships – Girls’ 14s

Plantation, Fla., July 11-18

Singles: (4) Tianmei Wang (San Marino, Calif.) d. (6) Claire Hill (Cary, N.C.), 7-5, 6-3

Doubles: (1) Katie Rolls (Plymouth, Mich.) / Claire An (New York) d. (17) Alanis Hamilton (Bentonville, Ark.) / Hadley Appling (Crestwood, Ky.), 6-1, 7-5

USTA National Clay Court Championships – Boys’ 12s

Orlando, Fla., July 11-18

Singles: (1) Jack Secord (Lake Forest, Ill.) d. (13) Teodor Davidov (Denver), 6-4, 6-1

Doubles: (2) Ryan Cozad (Alpharetta, Ga.) / Yannik Alvarez (Cumming, Ga.) d. (1) Colin McPeek (Carmel, Ind.) / Navneet Raghuram (Fenton, Mo.), 6-4, 6-2

USTA National Clay Court Championships – Girls’ 12s

Fort Lauderdale, Fla., July 11-18

Singles: (3) Ciara Harding (Boca Raton, Fla.) d. (17) Kristina Penickova (Campbell, Calif.), 6-4, 7-5

Doubles: (3) Bela Martinez (San Juan, Puerto Rico) / Anita Tu (Jacksonville, Fla.) d. (2) Harding / Abigail Gordon (Boca Raton, Fla.), 6-3, 6-3

ISLE OF PALMS — A group of Isle of Palms beachgoers were spotted shining lights on a nesting loggerhead sea turtle on July 24, scaring the mother back into the water before she could lay a clutch of eggs.

The leader of a volunteer group that patrols the beach for new nests said it’s likely the same turtle returned to shore and laid a nest anyway just a few blocks away, but warned that members of the public should steer clear of mothers if they encounter them on the sand.

Mary Pringle, of the Island Turtle Team, said the group got a report of a crowd with phone lights trained on the female loggerhead over the weekend. The watchers didn’t touch the turtle or get closer than 10 feet to it, Pringle said, but the light and commotion was enough to scare the massive reptile and send her back to the ocean.

“If a turtle is not settled in and laying the eggs, she will definitely go back around and enter the water,” Pringle said. “People don’t know. In their defense, they’re just excited to see a turtle and don’t think.”

She thinks the same turtle laid a nest not far away because Pringle’s group measured the distance between flipper marks on the turtle’s tracks in the sand at the two locations, and they were the same.

Most turtle nests are protected by the volunteers who mark them on the beaches across South Carolina or move them to higher ground, if laid in a vulnerable spot. Bothering loggerhead sea turtles is a federal offense under the Endangered Species Act that can result in civil fines up to $25,000 and a year in jail, said Erin Weeks, a spokeswoman for the S.C. Department of Natural Resources.

But Charlotte Hope, a biologist with SCDNR’s marine turtle conservation program, said it’s uncommon for these cases to make it to trial. And, usually, people are just curious.

“It’s certainly very rare that we get people that are doing anything malicious. They just don’t know what they’re doing, and they walk up with a bright light, that kind of thing,” Hope said.

The more typical form of harassment is poaching of eggs from nests, she said. But it’s hard to track encounters with mothers, because turtles have “false crawls” all the time, where they scramble up on the beach and turn around without laying a nest, Hope said, often for no clear reason.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Fisheries section recommends removing beach equipment, picking up trash, filling in holes on the beach and not letting light shine on the sand at night, including from houses nearby. Beachgoers should never attempt to feed or touch a nesting turtle or hatchling and keep their distance.

Nesting season runs from May through October. As of June 26, there had been 32 nests on IOP and 13 on adjacent Sullivan’s Island, numbers Pringle called “a good season but not a bumper crop.” Across the state, 4,964 loggerhead nests have been laid so far.

Reach Chloe Johnson at 843-735-9985. Follow her on Twitter @_ChloeAJ.

By Andy Brack, editor and publisher: Now that the fireworks and festivities from the Fourth of July are a new memory, how about taking a bolder, more reflective step to celebrate the true spirit of America? Find a quiet spot and seriously consider the 1,339 words of our country’s declaration against tyranny, our Declaration of Independence.

Better yet: Sit down as a family and read it out loud together.

Just six months ago, a bloodthirsty mob misused and misappropriated the fundamental principles enshrouded in American freedom by trying to rip apart our democracy in favor of the very tyranny which our forefathers fought in the fields of Camden and King’s Mountain, the swamps of the Lowcountry and forts from Ninety Six to Sullivan’s Island.

You may know by heart the opening words of the document penned by Thomas Jefferson and others that espouses the values of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” You may remember the part that follows and discusses how it’s the people’s right to alter or abolish a government that fails, which is oft-cited by those who threw the destructive tantrum and bludgeoned the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

But they conveniently forget the cautious words that followed. Perhaps they missed that day in civics class. Or maybe they were so hellbent on getting their own way that they were blinded by the wisdom of colonial leaders who first focused not on a violent overthrow of power, but on reason and intellect to devise a new system to create a safe nation where all could pursue happiness:

“Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.”

The Declaration continued by offering a list of abuses by the King of England. As you read of compounding restrictions that denied liberty to colonists, it should dawn on you how our forefathers eventually corrected those abuses with a constitution that created a representative democracy that became the world’s beacon of freedom, a continuing experiment in liberty that changed the course of humankind.

Furthermore, the Declaration is remarkable in another way. It frames the patience of colonists who wanted better lives for their families. Compare their years of endurance to get redress of their grievances to the volcanic violence that erupted in the halls of freedom over a few hours in January.

And so in 1776, 56 men from 13 colonies signed the Declaration of Independence. The oldest was Benjamin Franklin, then 70, of Pennsylvania The youngest was Edward Rutledge, 26, of South Carolina.

The document ends like this: “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

That’s the difference between what happened back then and this year: One was bound with honor, community, faith, goodwill and justice. The other had none.

Andy Brack is editor and publisher of Charleston Currents, and publisher of the Charleston City Paper. Have a comment? Send to: editor@charlestoncurrents.com.