"I need to know I'm not going to have the rug pulled out from under me."

Kirkman Finlay said that to Pawleys Island's Board of Zoning Appeals while explaining why he had already pulled a demolition permit on a beach house he says he does not want to tear down. Finlay and his sister bought the Gibbes Cottage in 2020, a 2,300-square-foot house sitting on 1.75 acres in the middle of the island. Caroline Gibbes bought the land in 1938 for $3,600, back when it was three separate lots. Erosion in the late 1940s and early 1950s forced an earlier owner to move the house back from the beach to where it sits today, according to Coastal Observer's account of the case.

Finlay wants to keep the cottage standing. He also wants a demolition permit in his back pocket, because on Pawleys Island, the difference between a preserved historic cottage and a cleared lot often comes down to a single number: how much you plan to spend fixing the place up.

The Number That Decides Everything

Pawleys Island's flood ordinance, required for the town to stay in the National Flood Insurance Program, contains a threshold familiar to coastal towns everywhere. Once the cost of improvements to a structure passes 50 percent of its appraised value, the whole building has to come into compliance with current flood rules, not just the specific work being done. For an older cottage sitting close to grade, that usually means a full lift.

The town adds a wrinkle of its own. New construction and any renovation that crosses that 50 percent line must be built three feet above the federal minimum flood elevation, a requirement Pawleys Island adopted so property owners could qualify for a discount on flood insurance premiums. Planning Commission chair John Hildreth has pushed back on the side effect. "Raising houses just doesn't make sense to me," he told town officials weighing the tradeoff, warning that the rule risks turning the island into "a skyscraper beach community."

Put those two rules together and the math tends to run one direction.

For a cottage built in the 1930s or 40s, a kitchen renovation, a new roof, and storm repairs can add up past that line faster than an owner expects. Once they do, bringing an old, low house up to modern elevation standards frequently costs more than clearing the lot and starting over. The town's own Architectural Review Board, created in 2021 specifically to preserve what officials call the "Pawleys look," has reviewed 20 sets of house plans since then. Many replaced older homes that had already been torn down.

Two Houses, Two Different Outcomes

The pattern shows up in specific addresses, not just aggregate numbers.

In 2024, Brian and Staci Inskeep received a variance to remove Port Arthur, a 1940s beach house sharing a lot with the 19th-century Liberty Lodge, a National Register property. The deal preserved the older house's facade and trees in exchange for approval to replace the newer one. When the design came before the Architectural Review Board that September, members rejected it, the board's first denial since the 2021 guidelines took effect, because they felt the new house did not read as compatible with its historic neighbor. A revised version later won approval, though some officials still felt it brought too modern a look into the historic district.

The Gibbes Cottage is still working through its own version of that negotiation. Finlay is seeking a variance that would let the property sit on two lots instead of one, so his daughters can each inherit a usable beachfront parcel rather than a fractional interest in a single lot he calls an "illiquid asset." In exchange, the Board of Zoning Appeals has floated a condition: preserve the cottage for at least ten years, unless a storm destroys it first. Board member Jerry Lieberman raised the idea of a facade easement, similar to the Liberty Lodge deal. Finlay said his family trust likely cannot grant one, since a permanent easement would strip him of the option to demolish if he ever needed it.

Neither case is unusual. Both show the same fact: preserving one of these houses currently requires a custom-negotiated variance, not a standing rule that protects it automatically.

The Fix Exists Only on Paper

Town officials know the incentive runs backward, and they are trying to fix it. Pawleys Island's Planning Commission opened a formal historic preservation push in 2024 after an undesignated historic home was torn down, according to the town's own historic preservation timeline. A workshop followed in December 2025. This year, Town Council created a Historic Preservation Special Committee to pursue Certified Local Government status, a state designation that would let owners of designated historic properties skip some flood ordinance requirements when they renovate, potentially including the very elevation trigger that currently pushes owners toward demolition.

Committee member Paul Groce says the ordinance is about 95 percent drafted, and a June 2026 version is posted on the town's site. The committee has also settled on a rough working cutoff for what counts as historic: structures built before Hurricane Hazel struck in 1954. But the process a town normally needs to reach Certified Local Government status takes two to three years, and Pawleys Island is only months into it.

Brad Sauls, who runs local government assistance for the State Historic Preservation Office, has been direct with the town about what its current tools can and cannot do. A listing on the National Register, he told the Planning Commission, is "only honorific." There are no preservation police attached to it. The demolition protections officials hope to build only take effect once the town adopts its own ordinance and formally designates individual properties, a step that has not happened yet for the vast majority of vintage cottages on the island, including many that visually define the "Pawleys look."

Not everyone is fully at ease with where this is headed, even among people who want the houses saved. Planning Commission member Bert Mills has voiced the property owner's version of the tension out loud: "Am I the steward of my property now or am I still the owner?"

What This Means If You're Looking at an Older Cottage

As of September 2026, none of this is settled. The Certified Local Government ordinance is drafted but not adopted. No elevation exemption exists yet for any Pawleys Island property, historic-looking or not. If you are evaluating a vintage cottage on the island, a few questions matter more than curb appeal:

• What would a realistic renovation budget cost relative to the current appraised value of the structure? If it is likely to land near or above 50 percent, plan for full flood-ordinance compliance, including the town's 3-foot freeboard requirement, not just the specific repairs you had in mind.
• Has a demolition permit already been pulled on the property? Owners sometimes secure one as insurance, the way Finlay did, even while actively working to save the house. A live permit tells you which way the numbers are currently pointing.
• Is the house one of the National Register properties, or does it simply reflect the historic look without formal listing? The two can be visually indistinguishable and carry very different levels of protection today.
• Would the property likely qualify under the town's working definition of historic, meaning built before 1954? That will not matter for flood compliance until the Certified Local Government ordinance passes, but it shapes whether the house could eventually gain protection.

None of these questions have simple answers from the street. They come from pulling permit history, appraisal records, and the town's own planning files, groundwork worth doing before falling for a porch and a good roofline.

A House Worth the Homework

Pawleys Island's oldest cottages are not disappearing because nobody cares. They are disappearing partly because the rules meant to protect them have not caught up to the rules that make renovating them expensive. That gap is closing, slowly, through a preservation ordinance still in draft form. Until it closes, the smartest move for a buyer is treating the renovation math as seriously as the water view.

The Perry Peace team tracks these local rule changes on Pawleys Island as they move through committee, not just after they take effect. If you are weighing a historic cottage against a newer build on the island, get your free market report and we will walk through what a specific property's numbers actually look like before you write an offer.