Vannessa Carter is one of our historic Charleston office agents and she has such poetic love for Charleston we had to let her share her story here:
Vannessa Carter, dunes properties
Where do I begin to describe one of the greatest love stories of my life???
My first visit to Charleston was in 1984 during a college course, studying Civil War history. I can remember walking around the city with my classmates after a trip to Fort Sumter and promising myself that I would live here one day. It took a while but I made good on that promise.
For me, Charleston has been the place of family vacations, a favorite college class, girls’ getaways and falling in love…with both the city and the “Sweet Boy.’ Meeting Kim probably put my plans on a fast track but the city had me at hello, way back in 1984.
You don’t have to take my word for it, Conde Nast says that we are the planet’s best city for 2012. I am not going to argue with that! Charleston offers two very distinct lifestyles that mix and mingle beautifully. On the one hand we have the beach life. Lazy, sun filled days on the beaches, paddling a kayak or SUP, oyster roasts, bike riding and sunsets. On the other hand we have a historical urban life. Downtown has some of the best of food and dining in the United States, it is one of the best shopping cities according to USNews & World Report, The Daily Beast sobers us by naming us the fourth drunkest city and Travel & Leisure says that we are the fourth best looking bunch of people in the US.
We seem to be on the radar of every major publication these days. I am very proud to call Charleston my home and was thrilled when my daughter, Warner, recently said that she was going “home” for the holidays. She was talking about Charleston. One of my motives for moving here was that my daughters, family and friends would always want to visit without too much coercion. So far, it seems to be working.
Despite all of the current press about Charleston, it is still a small southern town with only about two degrees of separation between people you meet and people you know. After a year here, I am always shocked at how easy it is to connect the dots among friends. Everyone is very happy these days with all of the attention shining on our hamlet of happy and there are lots of reasons to be so happy.
Charleston is way too diverse to describe it all in one place. Instead of trying to do it here, in other sections of this site I am going to give you descriptions of the different areas of Charleston and what they each offer to make Charleston the sum that is greater than all of her parts.