How else to celebrate on our final night—other than, of course, dropping the kids off at an inventive playspace-meets-childcare operation, Paintbox, located on the second floor of the Inn. I assumed they were going to make some art, maybe watch a movie; I didn’t know they’d be exploring the property in the dark with their chaperone, making yet more s’mores, identifying more birds (and a few bugs), and otherwise having the time of their lives.
My wife and I, meanwhile, were dining on caviar and potato chips, crab cakes, strawberries and burrata salad, and rainbow trout (did I say something earlier about a food coma?), finishing with a rhubarb cheesecake, at the resort’s flagship restaurant, River House, before sneaking down below to Hush, that speakeasy, for a nightcap.
The grace note, before departing the next day, began with all of us standup paddleboarding, back on the May River. I mean the paddleboarding was great, for sure: epic views of glassy waters and distant forest, perfect weather, perfect conditions. But that was when a handful of dolphins decided to surface just a few feet out in front of us, playing and rolling around forever as we stood back, utterly in awe.
And so, on to Stan Smith—or, as his operation in nearby Hilton Head is known, the Smith Stearns Tennis Academy which, since 2002, has been working with talented junior players from around the world every day while they pursue studies and are housed elsewhere on the island. But we weren’t being housed elsewhere on the island. We stayed just around the corner from Stan’s academy, within the massive (and historic) Sea Pines Resort, in a large three-story house (even grading on the curve that comes from New York-sized apartments, the sheer scale of this was hilarious—there were entire wings of the house that we barely ventured into) on the back nine of a golf course, mere feet away from the coast.
Sea Pines has its origins in the late 1950s, when a man named Charles Fraser—inspired by the harbor of Portofino, Italy—set about attracting a new kind of tourism that prioritized environmental concerns and focused on active recreation, both novel concepts at the time. (Fraser also encouraged his employees to picnic with their families and play tennis in the middle of the day, among many other forward-thinking qualities.) When Fraser caught the 1970s golf and tennis boom earlier than almost anyone else, Sea Pines quickly became known as a pioneer in development, influencing the design and management of resorts around the world.
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Publish date : 2024-09-18 11:16:00
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