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Consultant: Survey documents 82 properties and identifies 14 National Register‑eligible resources in Old Town Bluffton
Summary
Stantec presented a historic‑resources survey to the Bluffton Historic Preservation Commission on Feb. 4, reporting documentation of 82 properties (106 resources), seven newly state‑determined National Register‑eligible properties and recommendations to ease local criteria to add roughly 52 more potential contributing resources; final action moves next to town council in March.
Stantec told the Bluffton Historic Preservation Commission on Feb. 4 that an updated historic‑resources survey of Old Town Bluffton documented 82 properties comprising 106 individual resources and produced recommendations the town can use for local designation and historic‑preservation planning.
"Just as a reminder, survey is data. That's all it is," said Glenn Onberger, the town's historic preservationist, introducing the consultant team. Sandy Shannon, senior architectural historian and Stantec project manager, said the effort followed National Park Service guidance and included community outreach, archival research, and field documentation of properties visible from the road right‑of‑way.
Althea Wunderler Selby, the consultant’s lead architectural historian, said the team documented 82 properties encompassing 106 resources; 84 resources had been previously documented and 22 were newly recorded. She told the commission that 13 properties along the May River were not accessible from the road and recommended the town obtain right‑of‑entry to complete documentation of those parcels.
The state review of the report determined seven properties in the survey area are individually eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places and confirmed two previously determined eligible properties remain eligible. Three consultant recommendations are pending the state’s request for additional information.
Stantec identified notable resources among those recommended or found eligible, including the circa‑1840 John A. Seabrook House, the John J. Cole House (and its enslaved quarters), the Elizabeth Sanders Boarding House (known as 7 Oaks), the Jane H. and George S. Guilford House (associated with Dr. Jane Guilford, a rural physician), the circa‑1890 Planters Mercantile, the Cyrus Garvin Garvey House (an extant freedman dwelling), and the Bluffton Oyster Company (the town’s historic principal industry and later cooperative ownership that sustained local employment).
The consultants recommended that, because local designation criteria currently mirror the National Register’s relatively strict standards, the town consider adopting less stringent local criteria. Under the consultant’s recommended alternative criteria, they identified about 52 additional properties in Old Town that could potentially be considered contributing to the local historic district; resurveying properties not visible from public rights‑of‑way could increase the total closer to the current number of contributing resources.
Stantec will revise its deliverables to reflect comments from the town and the South Carolina Department of Archives and History and will submit a final report; the consultants told the commission that the state, acting through its archives and history staff, makes National Register determinations and that local designation under the town UDO is a town‑council decision. The consultant team said the final report will be taken to town council for possible adoption in March and encouraged members of the public to submit additional information or documentation for properties they believe were overlooked.
Commissioners asked for a copy of the list of 52 properties that would be eligible under less stringent local criteria; staff said they would provide that list to the commission.
Next steps: Stantec will incorporate town and state comments and submit a final report; National Register eligibility determinations will be made by the South Carolina Department of Archives and History and any local designation changes would require town‑council action.
