Low Country is one of those style names that gets used loosely enough to stop meaning anything. It turns up on listings for houses that have a porch and nothing else in common with the Carolina coast. The style is real though, and the reason it looks the way it does is almost entirely practical.
Here is what actually defines it, and ten plans we drew in Charleston that show the parts in place.
The style is a response to the lot
Low Country houses come from a strip of coast where the ground is low, the water table is high, the summers are long and humid, and the lots in the older towns are narrow and deep. Every feature people recognise as Low Country is an answer to one of those four conditions.
The house sits up off the ground, historically on brick piers and now usually on piers or pilings, because the ground floods and because air moving underneath keeps the floor dry. The porch is deep enough to be a room, because shade on the wall does more for an un-airconditioned house than anything else available. The roof is metal and steeply pitched so rain leaves fast. And the footprint runs long and narrow, turning its short side to the street, because that is the shape the lots are.
Put those together and you get the look. Take the lot away and you get a house with a porch stuck on it.
Narrow and deep is the part people miss
The proportion is the giveaway, and it is the thing that decides whether a plan will actually fit a coastal lot.
Three of ours are drawn to that older pattern. Little Maple is 30 feet 6 inches wide and 64 feet deep. Cloudy Bay is 34 by 65. Skipper's Den is 39 by 70. Each one is close to twice as deep as it is wide, which is what lets a 3,438 square foot house sit on a lot that would not take a wide plan at all.
The others are drawn wider, for lots that allow it. The Cypress is 60 feet 6 inches across. The Heron is 50. If you are shopping with a survey in hand, the width number matters more than the square footage, and it is on every plan page.
Elevated or at grade
This is the decision that changes the most, and it is not a style question. It is a flood map question.
Six of the ten are elevated on a pier or piling foundation, which is what a flood zone lot usually requires and what puts parking underneath the house. Three sit on a slab and one on a crawlspace, which is what you want when the lot does not flood and you would rather not climb a flight of stairs to your own front door.
Ask your building department which flood zone the parcel is in and what finished floor elevation they require before you choose. That answer rules out half this list in about five minutes, which is a good thing to know early. Most plans can be converted the other way, so a plan that suits you in every respect except the foundation is worth asking us about rather than ruling out.
The ten plans
Elevated, on piers or pilings
The Gray House
1,144 sq ft · 2 bed, 2.5 bath · 28 x 28 ft · pier or piling · 1-car attached
The smallest of them and the only square footprint in the group. An open living floor over parking, on a 28 foot by 28 foot footprint, which makes it the one that fits a lot the others will not. People build it as a primary house on a small coastal lot and as a guest house behind a larger one.
The Addie
2,814 sq ft · 4 bed, 3.5 bath · 49.5 x 65 ft · pier or piling · 2-car drive-under
Screened porch and a separate grill deck, so the covered outdoor room and the one you cook on are not the same space. Coffered ceiling over the kitchen and a freestanding tub in the primary bath.
The Chestnut
2,855 sq ft · 4 bed, 4.5 bath · 47 x 56 ft · pier or piling · 2-car drive-under · elevator
Bi-fold glass doors onto the screened porch, which opens the living space to the full width of it rather than through a single door. A bath for every bedroom plus a powder room, and an elevator, which on an elevated house is the difference between a plan you can stay in and one you move out of.
The Cypress
3,115 sq ft · 4 bed, 3.5 bath · 60.5 x 56.5 ft · pier or piling · 2-car drive-under · elevator
The widest plan here at 60 feet 6 inches, so it wants a lot that can take it. Vaulted kitchen with a walk-in pantry, three separate outdoor spaces, and an elevator.
The Lowell
3,125 sq ft · 3-4 bed, 3.5 bath · 47.3 x 54.8 ft · pier or piling · 3-car drive-under
The only wraparound porch in the group, and a screened porch with a fireplace in it, which extends the season at both ends. Primary suite on the main floor, a loft upstairs, and three bays underneath instead of two.
The Heron
3,214 sq ft · 4 bed, 3.5 bath · 50 x 55 ft · pier or piling · 2-car drive-under · elevator
Main floor primary suite, a U-shaped staircase rather than a straight run, a screened porch and an elevator. The most conventionally Low Country of the elevated ones in how it reads from the street.
At grade, on slab or crawlspace
Penny Lane
1,815 sq ft · 3 bed, 2.5 bath · 49.7 x 38 ft · crawlspace · no garage
Porches front and back, with the primary bedroom opening onto one of them. The only plan here with no garage, which keeps the footprint down and suits a lot where parking sits to the side.
Little Maple
2,500 sq ft · 3-4 bed, 3 bath · 30.5 x 64 ft · slab on grade · 2-car attached
The narrowest full size house in the group at 30 feet 6 inches, drawn to the long narrow pattern. Home office on the main floor, gas fireplace, and a loft upstairs with a built-in desk.
Cloudy Bay
2,730 sq ft · 4 bed, 4 bath · 34 x 65 ft · slab on grade · 2-car detached
Timber framed gables and a metal roof, with exposed beams inside, so the structure is part of what you see. Primary suite opens onto its own sun deck. Detached garage, which is the traditional arrangement on a deep lot.
Skipper's Den
3,438 sq ft · 4-5 bed, 5 bath · 39 x 70 ft · slab on grade · 2-car detached
The largest here, and still only 39 feet wide. Guest suite on the main floor, a morning room off the kitchen, and every upstairs bedroom en-suite, which is what makes it work for two families sharing a house.
What to do with this
Get the flood zone and the required finished floor elevation from your building department, then measure the buildable width of your lot. Those two answers narrow ten plans to two or three, and they cost nothing.
Every plan above is drawn in house and licensed to your build address, and a $75 study set credits in full toward the construction set if you want to check the footprint against your lot before committing. Modification quotes are free.
See all ten Low Country house plans, or write to us if you want help working out which ones your lot will take.