Doug Corkern brought heart to new Hilton Head and old Bluffton, by design

Doug Corkern, who as an architect helped create the “Hilton Head Island look” and as an artist helped Bluffton find its soul, died at 88 on New Year’s Eve at Hilton Head Hospital.

“He enjoyed a remarkable life and told us a few days ago that he had ‘done it all — I have no regrets,’ ” his two surviving children posted on Facebook.

“We know you will miss his sketches and his biking around Old Town Bluffton. He loved his town and all its people so very much.”

Corkern’s last pen and ink sketch was of a baby sea turtle flapping toward the sea.

His earliest Lowcountry sketches were on a drawing board, where the Georgetown native and Clemson University graduate helped fulfil dreams Charles Fraser had for the development of a barren island.

In 1961, Corkern became Hilton Head’s third architect, behind Richard A. “Pete McGinty” and John Wade.

That followed his chance meeting with Sea Pines founder Charles Fraser in a geodesic dome Fraser had erected in the woods near what is now Sea Pines Circle to display his unconventional dream.

Corkern and Clemson classmate Ed Pinckney later filled in the details for the Sasaki and Associates master plan for Sea Pines.

His firm designed the Plantation Club in Sea Pines, and its award-winning Turtle Lane Cabanas.

He designed the 10th home in Sea Pines and countless others to follow, including Fraser’s home, and homes for American military heroes Gen. Ted Timberlake, Gen. Nathan F. Twining, who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Col. Ben Vandervoort, whose role on D-Day was played by John Wayne in the movie, “The Longest Day.”

In the book, “My Life With Charles Fraser” by Charlie Ryan, Corkern wrote, “Inspired by Charles Fraser’s success with development, Stuart Smith and I bought Hog Bluff Plantation from Pete Bostwick’s estate and developed Moss Creek.”

That spread inland the subdued look of island development whose early champions included architects McGinty, Ed Wiggins, Tom Stanley, Jake Lee, and landscape architects Pinckney and Walterboro native Robert Marvin.

But in 1977, Corkern told island journalist Jim Littlejohn, “I wouldn’t say that we have any particular architectural style on the island. And the ‘look,’ if that’s what it is, is almost the absence of a look. In many parts of the island, it is difficult to tell that a house is there. That’s what many of us aim for.”

THE ART OF HILTON HEAD

Willis Douglas Corkern was a child of the Lowcountry in old Georgetown, where his father worked at the paper mill.

As a boy, he rode his horse to be with Jean Misroon, a neighbor girl he would invite on a date to the movie house downtown when he could drive at age 14.

They were married while Corkern was studying at Clemson and in 63 years of marriage, and raising three kids, they helped set a tone for life on Hilton Head.

“She was adventuresome, brave and maybe a little bit crazy bringing a tiny baby and a 2-year-old to Hilton Head when you had to go to Savannah to see a doctor,” her daughter, Coby Mozingo, said when her mother passed away in 2019.

Scott, Coby and Chris were reared barefooted on an island that seemed like a jungle.

Their parents loved to sail. And Doug Corkern was part of a Wednesday golf group of men enjoying a few hours away from the tedious tasks that came with their big gamble on a small town with high hopes.

Jean opened an art gallery in her husband’s architectural studio on Fox Grape Road. It was called the Fox Grape Gallery, and it was one of the island’s first art galleries, run by artist Mary Edna Fraser. It specialized in unusual sculpture and the work of South Carolina artists.

And it was art that gave Corkern fulfillment in retirement, and endeared him to Bluffton.

THE ART OF BLUFFTON

The Corkerns built a home hugging Huger Cove on Bluffton’s Lawrence Street in 2002, with his-and-her art studios by the pool in the back.

Doug Corkern had been a sketcher all his life.

And in retirement, he began filling stacks of Moleskine sketch books with drawings of children, old women, tractors, alligators, barns, churches, dogs, neighbors, chickens, country stores, cars and birds – publishing a book of drawings in 2017, and once again helping a community see its heart.

His artwork is used by the town in kiosks around Old Town.

And Corkern served on committees pushing historic preservation and architectural standards.

“If he wasn’t on the board, the was in the audience shouting, telling them what they ought to do,” said his best friend, Ed Pinckney.

But Corkern’s gift to the community are his sketches showing beauty in the simplest of buildings, subtlest nature, and common activities of the people.

Charlene Gardner, owner of Four Corners Fine Art & Framing in Old Town convinced Corkern to produce the book, “Bluffton Sketches,” which she sells in addition to his prints.

“He just made it his job to document the historical significance on the simplest structures,” she said. “He knew the history of the building and why it was made the way it was.”

Corkern had only one formal lesson in art but traveled the globe observing art and artists.

In Bluffton, he started “sketch crawls” open to all to do plein air drawings. He did it for years before it became part of a national “urban sketchers” group.

He taught children the basics in regular sketching classes at the Heyward House.

“He always had a sketch pad,” Gardner said.

His art speaks to the history of a place, and what the peoples’ desires are and what their cultures are, Gardner said.

“You could see the joy his art brought to the people,” she said.

“It was his willingness to listen to people and their ideas, to what you had to say, to what you thought about things, and not be so beholden to one idea that made him so special,” Gardner said.

The people honored Corkern as grand marshal of the Bluffton Christmas Parade, and as the person of honor at the Bluffton State of Mind Supper Soiree.

When his book came out, Corkern said, “I feel very lucky to have been here for what I call the golden age of architecture and now to be in Bluffton for its regeneration as an arts community.”

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