Even as the thrills of the RBC Heritage Classic still resound across America’s favorite vacation island, people in the know begin to turn their attention back to nature. After all, the miracle of Hilton Head Island is how the founders’ vision blended the amenities of a world-class resort with the natural beauty that was here before we came.

The harmony is so fundamental to what we enjoy here in Swallowtail at Sea Pines, that sometimes it takes a reminder to recall how much vision and effort it took to make both worlds work together.

A Place Apart

Just one year after our first RBC Heritage Classic, 600 acres within Sea Pines were set aside to stay undeveloped, to become our Sea Pines Forest Preserve. It remains the largest tract of undeveloped land on Hilton Head Island. The wisdom and courage it took to claim it for nature, to dedicate it to quiet enjoyment, is staggering, particularly in light of the value it might represent for other uses, now that the island that surrounds it has been named “America’s Favorite” for several years, and by more than one publication.

The trails that weave through the Forest Preserve take the form of dirt roads, natural surfaces, and boardwalks such as the one alongside Old Lawton Rice Field and through the Vanishing Swamp. The special character of maritime forest and marshland, the backdrop of towering pines and wise, old oaks, festooned with Spanish moss, the shade and glade that occurs so uniquely here – this is a setting to be enjoyed again and again.

Serenades and Bouquets

The serenade of beautiful birds is among the voices of the Sea Pines Forest Preserve. A meadow of wildflowers awaits, along with freshwater lakes. Though undisturbed, drinking water, restrooms, and a picnic area can be found on Fish Island. Hiking, fishing, and wildlife viewing are just a few of the possibilities. Guided tours can be arranged on boat, horseback, or by wagon.

From deep within the forest preserve, too, other voices echo across the ages. They whisper that people have come here to celebrate and enjoy, not just as long as we can remember, but even beyond the reach of recorded history.

Gathering Here for Good

A thousand years before the Pyramids, people were shucking oysters along the lagoons of the Sea Pines Forest Preserve. Archaeologists and scholars concur. The Sea Pines Shell Ring is a living reminder that here is a spot where people have found fellowship, communed with nature, with family, with community, and with their most treasured beliefs, for longer than most of us can even imagine.

What makes the Shell Ring a living thing? Few such finds are as undisturbed as this one, and none is this nearby. People who study ancient civilizations and societies have to travel to remote islands, difficult to reach, for a shell ring that shares its secrets the way this one does. Short of outright expeditions, other shell rings have been damaged by erosion, rising sea levels, or development. The one that lies within the Sea Pines Forest Preserve speaks readily to those who know the study. And yet here, too, there is a measure of mystery.

New Discoveries of Ancient Ways

About 150 feet across, and still rising one to two feet tall, the Sea Pines Shell Ring encloses a wide “plaza” where no shells are found. Scholars seek there to discover what form of feasts or religious gatherings took place within the circle. Old ideas that shell rings were perhaps fish traps, or the remains of defensive perimeters have largely been discredited, thanks in part to the study that the Sea Pines Shell Ring makes possible. Research that continues here seeks to discover what kinds of feasts or community functions or religious gatherings took place.

Whatever the answer, it appears that the people who originated it extend back even farther in time than the Catawba, Guale, Timucua, Sewee, or Edisto cultures that preceded us on our beautiful sea islands and coastal Carolina plain.

The Right Idea to Start With

The reason the Sea Pines Shell Ring is still around to speak to scholars who know how to interpret it, is that our recent forbears here on Hilton Head Island – the visionaries who set the scene for Sea Pines, and sited Swallowtail at the center of it – started out with an uncommonly good idea. Blending a world-class resort with nature might seem to us to be just what you do nowadays. But then it was revolutionary.

Setting out to do it differently, Sea Pines founder Charles Fraser studied a wide array of places where people went to feel good. All up and down the East Coast, and beyond to Europe, Charles looked carefully at the places where people gathered, relaxed, had fun, and came back again and again. Where others saw boats and beaches, Charles saw boats and beaches – and trees. Where others saw village squares, Charles saw the windows of Portofino on the Italian Riviera. Where others saw exclusive access, Charles saw a marriage of luxury and convenience. His voice is still here in the way these visions became real all around us.

So the unique character of the Harbour Town Golf Links, the friendly embrace of the Yacht Basin, the meandering pace of the walking and bike trails – and the convenience of the vacation villas in Swallowtail at Sea Pines – came from an inspiration so considered, so fitting, that we often take it for granted. It’s just the world as we know it, here in Swallowtail.

Come and join us! You’ll find it’s easy to rent a vacation villa, and far easier than you might imagine to own a piece of this paradise, a vacation you can count on, discovering new thrills year after year.