Pawleys Island"Arrogantly Shabby" since the 1700s — a four-mile Lowcountry barrier island of weathered grey-shingle cottages, the True Blue Golf Resort, and the original Pawleys Island Rope Hammock

Pawleys Island is the oldest continuously-operating summer resort in the United States — Lowcountry rice planters built the first cottages here in the 1730s as malaria escapes from the inland Waccamaw River plantations, and the same handful of cypress-and-grey-shingle houses still stand on the island today (the Pelican Inn dates to 1858; Liberty Lodge to the 1860s). The four-mile barrier island sits between the Atlantic and a four-creek tidal estuary; you reach it via the North or South Causeway bridges from US-17. The town's marketing slogan since the 1970s — "Arrogantly Shabby" — is municipal-code as much as branding: no high-rises, no big-box stores, and no condominium complexes on the island itself.

Most of our Pawleys Island rentals sit at True Blue Golf Resort just inland of the South Causeway — a Mike Strantz-designed 7,033-yard course with the True Blue Clubhouse, a community pool, and condos that include a complimentary day-pass to Huntington Beach State Park (across the inlet at the northern Pawleys boundary). The standalone homes are split between the island itself (the iconic 1950s-and-newer beach houses on Atlantic Avenue and Springs Avenue) and the Litchfield Beach pocket just north — Magnolia, Beach Cruiser Cottage, Higher Porpoise, and Seaside Serenity are the larger oceanfront family homes.