Can a grandma save a 350-year-old tree in Port Royal? ‘It’s one little thing I can do’

Grandma Hope Cunningham, 65, didn’t want to get into a fight to save a tree but, she says, it’s her calling now.

She and her Port Royal neighbors went to a meeting last fall to protest a variance a developer needed to build a 3-story apartment building.

The town denied the variance, but Cunningham left the meeting worried about the fate of the 350-year-old live oak tree that towers over the Oakview Drive property. Sooner or later, she figured, the land would be developed.

Six months later, Cunningham — an artist, master gardener and grandmother — has become the unlikely voice and face of a group of dedicated residents who are “working their butts off” to save what’s been documented as the oldest and largest live oak tree in Beaufort County.

“I’m just an old lady trying to save a tree,” Cunningham says.

The effort of Cunningham and others is paying off.

On March 13, the Beaufort County Community Services and Land Use Committee signaled the county’s interest in buying the 12-acre property, using Rural and Critical Lands Preservation Program funds, which would ensure protection and proper care for the ancient oak, which is unkempt and needs maintenance.

That came after Tennent Houston of Merry Land Investments, LLC, the landowner, applied for the county conservation funding resulting from a letter Cunningham sent him explaining how important she thought it was to preserve the property. She included an application for the Rural and Critical Lands funding. The Beaufort County Open Land Trust also notified Merry Land about the program.

“Lo and behold,” Cunningham said, “he signed it.”

Tree has survived war and hurricanes

The 60-foot tall tree, whose girth is as large as the celebrated Angel Tree on Johns Island in Charleston, has seen the Revolutionary War, slavery, the War of 1812, the Civil War, Reconstruction and countless hurricanes.

The gravestone of Mary Pope, an enslaved woman who died in 1818, is still visible under its massive canopy.

“Its DNA is the history of Beaufort,” Cunningham says with passion. “It is a witness tree.”

The land, part of the Cherry Hill Plantation, remains a wild and woolly enclave abutting Battery Creek despite being located immediately off of busy Parris Island Gateway.

It’s a great candidate for a passive park, Cunningham says, because parks are scarce in that area of Port Royal. And with land surrounded by development or plans for it, Cunningham adds, it’s critical to protect it.

Port Royal pledges support

On Wednesday, Cunningham was before the Port Royal Town Council, seeking its support for the county buying the land. Beaufort County seeks municipal partners in maintaining land once the county acquires them for parks.

“I understand that this is the corridor to Port Royal and that it’s going to be slated for a lot of development,” Cunningham said, “and it would be really smart of us right now to think about the future and protect this property.”

Port Royal Mayor Joe DeVito told Cunningham that the town was on board with the proposal and would pass a proclamation in support at a future meeting. He also pointed out that Port Royal recently approved the toughest tree ordinance in Beaufort County — and perhaps the state.

Money raised for maintenance

Cunningham already has spearheaded the formation of Friends of the Cherry Hill Oak, a not-for-profit whose aim is to raise $200,000 for an endowment that will be used to assist the public entities with ongoing maintenance of the live oak and other significant trees on the property — if the land is purchased.

“Beaufort county residents want this park and we are ready to work for it,” Cunningham told members of the Community Services in Land Use Committee in March.

The County Council, which will have the final say in the purchase, will vote next, sometime this summer. The property sold for $1.1 million in 2007, according to county records.

Cunningham did not know anything about the iconic live oak when she went to the Port Royal meeting last fall.

“We realized we dodged that bullet,” Cunningham said of the denial of a height variance for the apartment complex by the Port Royal Design Review Board, “but someone else is going to come along and develop that property.”

Getting involved was outside of her comfort zone. She had no interest in creating a Facebook page or a foundation. And she did not want to ask people for money or talk to politicians. But she had a feeling if she didn’t step forward, the property was “going to get plowed down.” The Cherry Hill oak, she said, became sort of a calling.

When she decided to form the not-for-profit, Cunningham looked to Paul Butare of Friends of Whitehall Park for help. That group formed a few years ago to preserve land on Lady’s Island across the Beaufort River from Beaufort.

“I even wrote a damn business plan,” Cunningham said. “It had to be done.”

Samantha Siegel, who started a movement in 2008 to save the Angel Oak and its surrounding land from impending development, has become Cunningham’s “greatest cheerleader.”

Land would become a park

If approved by the County Council, funds to purchase the Port Royal land would come from the county’s Rural and Critical Land Preservation Program, and the property would be turned into a passive park and publicly accessible.

The land is sloping waterfront, including a sandy spit that extends to the marshy backwaters of Battery Creek.

Kate Schaefer of Beaufort County Open Land Trust, who advises the county on Rural and Critical Lands Program purchases, says an appraisal and survey of the land is being conducted now. The property, she said, would provide protections and public access to water in a growing area of Port Royal.

Cunningham, referring to the country’s problems and polarization over them, says we live in a world on fire. “Instead of being can-do, we’re fighting with and vilifying each other,” she said.

When she heard about the Cherry Hill tree, in her own backyard, she thought, “here’s one little thing that I can do.”

The way she sees things, if people would take on one challenge in their corner of the world, they can make a difference.

“There is this thing that happens when your turn 65,” Cunningham says. “You are confronted with your expiration date. It makes you want to leave something valuable behind.”