Cherry Grove holds the north end and the oldest habits. Futch Beach was joined to Nixon family land in 1950 by filling the inlet between them, and through the 1970s the marsh behind the beach was cut into channels so more lots could be sold. The houses along those finger canals sit low, on made ground, with water on two sides. Older cottages up there still stand on stilts, the way the simple frame houses along this oceanfront were built back in the 1940s.
Ocean Drive Beach and Crescent Beach were laid out by investors from Florence, on ground opened up by a large tract developed in 1948, and Main Street at Ocean Boulevard is still the middle of that town. Windy Hill, at the southern end nearest the Barefoot corridor, was built by Conway investors after World War II. Hurricane Hazel came ashore on 15 October 1954 and removed much of what stood, and by clearing older dwellings it sped the next round of development up. From the 1970s, multistory condominiums and hotels began replacing single-family housing on the oceanfront.
West of Highway 17 the stock is young. Barefoot Resort was presented to city council in December 1998 as a 2,345-acre plan, the area was annexed the following year in a move expected to double the city’s population, and four championship golf courses opened together in 2000. Tidewater, on the bluffs between the Waterway and Cherry Grove Inlet, opened in 1990. The median year built across the city is 1997, and 46.6% of units went up in 2000 or later. A new house is a tight house, and a tight house holds whatever water gets inside it. New construction here answers to the city’s floodplain rules, which in an AE zone ask for the lowest floor to sit at least twelve inches above base flood. That is one foot of freeboard, a third of what the county asks for, and the city’s Build Responsibly page covers the permit and the elevation certificate that proves it.
The 1950s and 1960s cottage layer is small now. It is where we find the most history inside a wall: bathrooms added twice, a kitchen moved, a crawl space nobody has opened since the last owner sold.
