Barnwells want to develop land so it stays in the family

For seven generations, the Barnwell family has held on to the heart of their land on the north end of Hilton Head Island. They'd like to make sure it stays that way for the next seven and beyond.

Like other native islanders, the family has sold bits and pieces to capitalize on the wave of development that first hit the barrier island about 50 years ago. Led by family patriarch Thomas C. Barnwell Jr., the family has developed a string of well-kept, affordable neighborhoods.

Now they have a concept for holding on to the rest of their property -- an idea that could become a model for other Gullah-Geechee families facing the dilemma of keeping evermore expensive land that's been handed down, one generation to another, since slavery ended.

The family plans to develop the land, about 18 acres on the south side of Squire Pope Road that straddles Gumtree Road, into mixed-use buildings with retail on the lower floors and living space above, nine town homes and a cluster of 35 cottages. They would lease the buildings and homes to themselves and others, retaining ownership of the property.

An overarching theme of the development is to respect the environment and the character of Hilton Head natives while creating a close-knit community. Conceptual plans currently weaving through town planning boards up to the Town Council include an organic vegetable patch and a park.

At a meeting last week, Planning Commission members unanimously recommended granting a zoning change from residential to planned development.

Neighbors are generally supportive of the project, but do have some concerns about nearby roads not being equipped to handle more traffic.

The plan is for the family to build two mixed-use buildings around the ruins of an early 1800s tabby home that was once part of Cotton Hope Plantation. The ruins -- which might someday be listed on the National Register of Historic Places -- would be restored to their original condition in hopes they'll become the focal point for the public portion of Tabby Village.

Because the family wants some retail businesses in some buildings, it is asking the town to transfer those commercial rights from three other acres it owns along Skull Creek. That waterfront property would then remain vacant, preserved in its natural state.

"We're trying to do some advance planning," said Barnwell. "Before the bridge (connecting the island to the mainland), native people used to own and control over 2,500 acres of land on the island. That's not the case today."

Today, native islanders own fewer than 1,000 acres, according to Barnwell.

There's no firm timeline for when the development will occur, only that the mixed-use buildings and town homes would be built first in order to generate money for the rest of the project.

The proposed development has roots much deeper than most projects that make it to Town Hall. It touches on age-old issues of land use, land ownership and quality of life for the descendants of slaves left behind on Hilton Head, where the Civil War ended early. The island was the first place captured by Union troops who were searching for a strategic deep water port.

Barnwell has been outspoken on those issues, even testifying before Congress and serving on a civil rights committee during the Kennedy presidency.

He was born in 1935 to a midwife on the island, 21 years before the first swing-bridge over Skull Creek was built. He was educated in a two-room school house before attending classes at Penn School on St. Helena Island -- the first school built in 1862 for freed slaves -- and went on to university work.

As a young man, Barnwell drove Martin Luther King Jr. from the airport to Penn Center for a gathering of civil rights leaders. King called him "Brother Tom."

In the early 1970s, he and other native islanders helped win the fight against a $100 million chemical plant that politicians wanted to build near the bridge to Hilton Head. Islanders felt it would have precluded the island from ever becoming a tourist destination or a desirable place to live.

Barnwell was a leader in a native-islander commercial fishing cooperative on the island at the time, and was adamant about protecting the environment.

Barnwell has spent decades pushing for ways to improve the lives of the area's poorest residents. With coolers full of shrimp and oysters, he went to Washington seeking federal money when he founded the public-health service now known as Beaufort-Jasper-Hampton Comprehensive Health Services.

Friends call him a man of humility beneath his sometimes gruff and standoffish behavior.

He used to drive an old pickup truck until his family finally persuaded him to buy a new truck.

Barnwell is a lifelong entrepreneur and activist who has developed and maintained several successful housing tracts on the island. But he also drives a tractor and raises marsh tackies and goats, and grows collards and gourds on his land, all in the native island tradition.

"This project is not about my father or myself," said his son, Thomas Curtis Barnwell III. "It's about this young lady sitting here -- my daughter -- my niece and future generations. To let people know we're retaining our land. It has always been in our family and it will always be in our family.

"We're not just handing our property over to a developer," he continued. "We're retaining it."