" The story here is about Lowcountry architecture which is a style of building that developed in the 18th and 19th centuries and it really came from the mixing and mingling of cultures that were here as well as circumstances. The Lowcountry is found along the South Carolina coast inland, for a couple of miles and it's called that because the land actually is almost always at sea level. Now, one of the advantages of this is that they were able to develop rice plantations in the 18th and 19th centuries up until the civil war. It was the source of a lot of wealth in this part of the country."

" With the rice plantations, you'd got stagnant water, you got mosquitoes, you got malaria and back then, this development of this Lowcountry style of building was brought along by all of these different factors. Here in Old Mount Pleasant Village, houses with long graceful porches or piatsas' as they were called were a must for people who thought that malaria was airborne and the better the ventilation, the better the chances of avoiding it. It also helps to keep the heat down during the sultry days of summer. These houses were simple, Functional, even democratic 'cause after the revolution, rich planters didn't want to build ostentatious houses. They also didn't want to stay on the plantations were it was hot and unhealthy. So, here at the shore, they built houses reminiscent of those they'd seen on their trading missions down in the Caribbean and even in New England. It's a terrific mix and it's a great place to start when you're designing this new community called I'On. Let's go take a look. I'm with Vince Graham now, who's one of the founders of the I'On Community or neighborhood"

" here just 15 minutes outside of Charleston and I don't want to take up too much of your time, 'cause I know your very busy with what, 70 houses that you're building? But let me just ask you a few basic questions Vince like, what does I'On mean, first of all, where does this name I'On come from?"

" Well Jacob Bond I'On was a prominent South Carolina citizen. He was president for the South Carolina Senate here, hero of the war of 1812."

" Uh uh."

" And his buried on little cemetery."

" This is Highland, a high ground here on this barrier island and I heard that these little lake was dug out as part of a rock pit or barrow"

" Barrow pit."

" Yeah."

" They used the material to build roads in Mile Plaza."

" Okay and what, what you're creating here is really, kinda a community that harkens back to the 19th century but you're doing it from scratch, tell us a little bit about the philosophy."

" Well, basically we're inspired by these traditional towns like the old village in down town Charleston and we combined the lessons learned"

" from those places with modern advances to build new neighborhoods."

" So, what we're trying to avoid is, the type of neighborhood that you see in developments across the country post World War 2, where you can drive down the street, all the houses look the same and you can get lost and they all have double garage doors."

" Well, that's true. The roads are, the public realm if you will, the places we share,"

" Uh uh."

" like roads and parks, we pay a lot of attention to."

" Uh uh."

" We want those places to be more than just a means for automobiles to get back and forth but to reflect positively on the private realm,"

" of the houses and the houses to reflect positively on the public realm of the streets and parks. In that way, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts."

" Now, there's a man named Andres Duany, whose played a role in here, isn't he one of a kind of originators of the concept."

" Andres is the founder of the Congress for the new urbanism and his firm played a significant role in the initial planning [unk]."

" Uh uh. So, I know that he, he was one of the developers of Seaside down in Pensacola or one of the.."

" He was a planner, he and his wife were the planner for Seaside."

" So, there's a lot of thought that's gone in to this. Thanks a lot. We gonna meet with Joe Barnes right now, whose the general manager of the community of I'On."

" So, Joe this is so exciting, its, its a new community that you're creating here and you've already got a percentage of it built out and occupied, right?"

" Yeah. We've been really fortunate to be well-received by the market place here,"

" we provide people with an opportunity of something that you really can't get anywhere else except in some place like the Old Village of Mount Pleasant or downtown Charleston."

" Right. We were just talking with Vince a minute ago about the infrastructure, the fact that you've got streets and cul-de-sacs and you know, play areas like that, the proximity of the houses."

" Yeah."

" How big is the place gonna be?"

" Uh, we'll probably have about 760 families living here, in total were about 243 acres. So, probably 2200-2300 people will probably be living here when it's all built out."

" And what about the prices?"

" Ah, they range. We have fair of a good mixed of ranges. One of the things we don't have is minimum square footage's, so we have houses ranging from, you know, probably 179 thousand dollars and houses that are appraised for over a million dollars. So, there's a good mix that you'll find it here and that leads to good mix of different people."

" Right and there's a mix of locations as well."

" Yeah."

" You can be practically water front on one of the two lakes,"

" Right."

" Or you can be practically in the woods where we're building."

" Right and what's nice about that too, is we publicize all the amenities."

" So, that even if you live on a lot that's not near the lake you have the ability to take your evening stroll around the lake and run into your neighbors and have those casual introductions that you might have and place it has, you know, great urban realm like summer places we're following."

" Right. The houses behind you really demonstrate the proximity to the street, to the sidewalk, the porches, you can be on a rock or you can meet somebody that walks by."

" Uh uh."

" They're all close to each other. While we gonna take a closer look at the architecture here in just a minute."

" Great. Thanks."