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Stock Farm offers old town charm

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Alongside a famous 300-year-old oak tree, on land owned by a former mayor of Bluffton, a new development called Stock Farm is taking shape on the last large undeveloped property in the Old Town.

Emmett McCracken Jr., also a former member of Beaufort County Council and Bluffton Town Council, is developing a neighborhood to have 25 houses and 52,000 square feet of commercial space near his own home on the banks of the May River.

McCracken, his wife Teddy and sons are putting in the street system, sidewalks, two parks and other infrastructure, and selling the lots to buyers who will build homes and businesses following detailed architectural and landscaping covenants.

The sprawling Secession Oak is one of many trees which will remain on the property. On July 31, 1844, a crowd of up to 500 from Bluffton’s most prominent families met beneath the branches to listen to a speech by congressman Robert Barnwell Rhett, who represented the Beaufort District. This meeting is credited with initiating the call for secession which later spread through the state.

McCracken, who graciously allows history buffs to visit the Secession Oak, grew up in Bluffton. In 1959, his family bought the land where Stock Farm is under construction, and he also owns Stock Farm Antiques, founded by his late mother, Naomi.

The family’s first real estate venture, the 15-acre Stock Farm neighborhood is designed around about an acre of open space called “The Ramble,” a minimally groomed central park with saw palmettos, pines and hardwoods. Throughout the neighborhood, sidewalks jog to skirt significant trees. A Stock Farm pocket park will take up almost a city block of prime real estate on May River Road.

“Everything was designed around the trees,” said designer Randolph Stewart. He created the architectural, landscaping and stormwater management guidelines for Stock Farm in keeping with Bluffton’s new code, which was developed with input from the town’s Historical Preservation Commission.

Homes in Stock Farm will be classic Lowountry two story houses with porches, working shutters, rear loading garages and alleys. Additions such as carriage houses, separate wings and dormer windows are encouraged, and homes can’t be entirely brick or stucco. The largest home in Stock Farm will be about 4,500 square feet, Stewart said.

“We wanted to prevent the McMansions,” he said. Lots in the residential section start at $152,000.

Streets in the development are paved with asphalt mixed with oyster shells and alleys in the residential section are gravel. Each lot also includes an underground rock bed which will filter stormwater before it leaves the site.

The entire development uses natural gas for heating and cooking, and gas lamps in the alleys provide ambiance in the commercial section. The landscape plan includes native plants, which are more drought resistant than introduced species.

McCracken, who is a member of Bluffton’s Planning Commission, believes that a future beautification project aimed at upgrading town roads will give May River Road the feel of a village Main Street. The streetscape beautification effort calls for sidewalks to be built in front of Stock Farm, which will allow people to walk to the businesses there.

Unlike other new mixed use developments in the Old Town, the residential section of Stock Farm is separated from the commercial area, said Phyllis Spearman of Charter I Realty & Marketing, who is marketing the homesites with Maureen O’Brien. Barry Connor of Seaboard Commercial Properties is handling the commercial section. They will have a booth about Stock Farm on May 10 at the Bluffton Village Festival, locally known as May Fest.

In the neighborhood’s commercial section, which the developers are calling mixed use, the buildings on May River Road will be limited to two-and-a-half stories.

To enter them, customers will open gates in white picket fences and walk through courtyards off Guilford Place, Stock Farm’s “main drag.” The street is named for Emmett’s great-grandfather, the first mayor of Bluffton, and his wife, a midwife and homespun doctor.

McCracken said the buildings on Guilford Place are for specialty boutiques, professional offices, real estate companies or perhaps a small deli.

They can include residential space on the top floor, and each property owner must build a separate small commercial shop about the size of a carriage house, for a small business. Owners of these lots don’t have to live on site.

These lots start at $200,000.

The second row of lots leading back from May River Road are “truly live-work,” McCracken said. These buildings will look like houses and face the residential section situated at the back of the neighborhood. In the rear of the live-work lots, owners will build a mandatory small structure for art galleries or boutiques.

Lots in the live-work section start at $237,000.

Emmett McCracken said he and Teddy first proposed developing the Stock Farm land several years ago to their three sons — who are partial owners of the property — after considering the costs of college for seven grandchildren.

“This is a way to provide for their future,” McCracken said.

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