Built sometime before 1740, the Seegers’ home is one of the oldest surviving single houses on the peninsula.
Its green spaces were originally conceived by noted garden designer Loutrel Briggs in 1951 and 1961. While Briggs’s initial vision of a French parterre garden and adjacent horseshoe-shaped courtyard remains intact, Monica and landscape architect Sheila Wertimer refreshed the space in 2010, removing overgrown vegetation and swapping in more flowering plants, such as azaleas, agapanthus, and hydrangeas.
From the first-floor piazza, the eye is drawn down the center path of the parterre garden into the rear courtyard. Like much of Monica’s statuary, the Pan figure (the Greek god of nature and shepherds) came from her garden in California.
Hilton Head artist Joe Doolan painted the foyer with a mural reminiscent of the Lowcountry landscape
At one point, the original cypress paneling in this room was hidden under more than 20 layers of paint; upon moving in, the Seegers hired artisans to continue the previous owner’s restoration of the wood.
This family room and breakfast area are within what was once a separate kitchen house; a previous owner had the rear building connected to the main structure via a hyphen.
From Ethiopian carved wood candle holders to a Croatian honey pot, artifacts collected during Monica’s many travels lend a global aesthetic to the interiors.
A Croatian honey pot among other collected pieces in the kitchen
African masks and a watercolor painting by local artist Mary Whyte add warmth and personal meaning to the utilitarian, Bauhaus-style kitchen.
A previous owner filled in this fountain, which anchors the rear courtyard. Monica had it restored and rebuilt, returning the space’s signature water feature.
Each of the parterre’s quadrants is trimmed in boxwood with a boxwood globe at the core. Flowering plants, such as agapanthus, azaleas, and hydrangeas, pop against the green. Monica potted a non-invasive evergreen wisteria to train above the kitchen door.
A gate and an arbor covered in confederate jasmine lead the way to the rear courtyard garden.
A basket of maidenhair fern
A bay leaf tree topiary just outside the kitchen-house door
Monica at work in the garden
Mature oak, parrotia, Japanese maple, and fringe trees lend privacy and shade to the courtyard garden.
A climbing Sally Holmes rose frames a window into the family room.
