Opinion / It’s over: Sweet Hilton Head song of the Old Fort Pub is now history

The Old Fort Pub turned out to be a pile of mere wood and glass when it was demolished over the past two weeks on Hilton Head Island.

But the restaurant on the banks of Skull Creek was so much more at its inception in 1973. It was more like a heart that could give a strange place soul.

The Old Fort Pub was a tool to spread the gospel of Sea Pines founder Charles Fraser into the hinterlands.

David Ames, who was a Sea Pines officer at the time, explains that gospel.

“The restaurant was quintessential Charles and therefore, was ladened with historical overtones and was nature-blending, understated but upscale with white table cloths, and unique outside and in — all this intended to make the experience of eating or just visiting memorable.”

The Old Fort Pub was to give the small flock of Sea Pines residents a reason to drive way out into the boondocks of the company’s new venture called Hilton Head Plantation. At the time, it was mostly tomato fields and thick forests.

At the Old Fort Pub, newcomers were brought together at Friday night oyster roasts — with the local delicacies hissing under hosed-down burlap bags on sheets of metal sizzling from oak embers below.

And the widow’s walk atop the restaurant — high above the front porch where people in rocking chairs sipped bloody Marys or oohed at the sunsets — was a de facto Realtors office because so many potential property buyers were taken there.

“It was a wonderful destination that brought people to a beautiful place that would show the water and the historical significance of the land,” said Andy Twisdale, who was the restaurant manager when it opened.

And, yes, the people came.

Today, that stretch along Skull Creek is lined with multi-story condominium complexes. The tomato fields are filled with homes and golf courses. And the Old Fort Pub will be replaced by a six-story, 22-unit luxury condominium complex called The Charles.

Its developers say that’s a tip of the hat to Charles Fraser, and the 17th century English king who sent explorer William Hilton this way in search of a place that would attract settlers.

HARBOUR TOWN

The Old Fort Pub was Hilton Head to the bone.

The late Ralph Ballantine designed the building, next to Fort Mitchel of the Civil War. He was not an architect, but an artist in the group that in the 1960s and 1970s gave Hilton Head the panache Fraser sought.

As an illustrator for the top ad agencies of Chicago, Ballantine gave the world the Schlitz Malt Liquor bull, and fashioned the Jolly Green Giant into a friendlier sort. He sculpted a bust of his friend and fellow illustrator Coby Whitmore that they said made them both cry. He did the bust of Fraser that is on his grave beneath the Liberty Oak in Harbour Town.

And he helped bring Harbour Town to life when he designed the building that now houses CQ’s restaurant, after studying Lowcountry rice barns.

Ballantine also gave the island his son Todd, whose “Tideland Treasures” book has helped generations of islanders appreciate its nature.

When Ballantine shucked the dog-eat-dog world of Chicago for Hilton Head, Fraser hired him without knowing what he would do.

“He was willing to gamble on me without a thought,” Ballantine told me.

He asked Ballantine to design the Old Fort Pub, but told him not to tell anyone else in the company he was doing it.

“He said he wanted something that looked like it belonged there,” Ballantine said.

GEORGE WASHINGTON

Opening night was explosive.

Twisdale recalls the cadets from The Citadel were to do a reenactment of a battle that never happened at the fort next door.

“They were setting off black powder charges that kept getting louder and louder,” he said.

Island native Annie Mae Holmes was running the tiny kitchen. She is credited with the early mainstays of okra gumbo and cornbread. And, at about 5-foot-3, she ruled with an iron fist — or, more accurately, a broom she’d use on anyone who cussed in her kitchen.

Twisdale said other early hits at the restaurant included she-crab soup and Daufuskie Baked Fish. That recipe came over from the Burn family on Daufuskie.

The Flaming Irish Coffee, with flaming liquor poured into cups at tableside, was a big hit until some flames got poured on a table.

The operation was supported by many members of the Aiken family, Twisdale recalls.

And he can laugh now at the night they had a George Washington Slept Here Party for a Sea Pines man who shared our first president’s birthday.

It featured the “first-ever Hilton Head Island snowball fight” with marshmallows. The furniture was moved out and brass beds were used as a buffet. Guests in period costumes did a number on the heart of pine floors with the mixture of alcohol and marshmallows.

And there was the memorable night that island icon Benny Hudson showed up in his tank-top shirt and white shrimper boots.

The native islander had come downshore by boat from his docks on Squire Pope Road, mad as a hornet that Hilton Head Plantation had placed a metal fence across its rear entrance on Squire Pope Road.

“He said he was going to shut the place down, and we were just starting dinner,” Twisdale recalled.

They called Charles Fraser’s brother Joe, who came up and had a long and sometimes heated discussion with Benny Hudson at the bar. As usual, Joe never showed any emotions. Whatever was said, Benny left peacefully.

AAA FOUR-DIAMOND

The Old Fort Pub’s heyday came later.

Under the ownership of successful restaurateurs Bonnie and the late Pierce Lowrey, it was Beaufort County’s only restaurant to hold a four-diamond honor from AAA.

When it closed in May, it was still known for its top chefs, menu, distinctive service — and great setting.

The waterfront porch had long been closed in. The deck outside the bar had been expanded. There were no community oyster roasts, but it still pulled the community in on special occasions, like anniversaries.

But the restaurant business has been hit hard in recent years.

And in 2016, Bonnie Lowrey told a town commission as she was exploring redevelopment possibilities that her children were not interested in running the restaurant.

It is fitting that Fraser Construction, owned by the family of Charles’ brother Joe, will build The Charles for Charleston-based Hancock Development Corp.

Units are selling fast, priced originally from $999,000 to $1.6 million. “Welcome each day overlooking a magnificent setting!” its website says. “Relax and luxuriate in the modern comforts of a subtropical lifestyle that abounds in natural beauty.”

That’s a lot like the report to the world from that early explorer, William Hilton.

And it matches Charles Fraser’s siren call as well. It’s just not as subtle as the sweet song of the Old Fort Pub.

David Lauderdale may be reached at LauderdaleColumn@gmail.com.