COASTAL OBSERVER

April 24, 2022

It started as a challenge.

Some friends told Doc Lachicotte he would never make a living at Pawleys Island; it was too far from Myrtle Beach.

That was in the early 1950s, when he first started selling real estate. Oceanfront lots sold for $1,500. “And they couldn’t sell them,” he recalled.

But over a career that spanned nearly seven decades, he created businesses that came to define Pawleys Island by celebrating its past and making those who bought property from him want to protect it.

Lachicotte died Sunday at his home next door to one of those businesses, The Hammock Shops. He was 95.

Arthur Herbert Lachicotte Jr. was born Sept. 20, 1926, in Manning. His mother, the former Virginia Ingram Wilson, had gone there to be with her family because the ferries that provided the only transport between her home at Waverly Plantation were uncertain. His father, Arthur Herbert Sr., had various jobs, including leasing land at Willbrook for hunting parties.

The senior Lachicotte had been nicknamed “Little Doc” for his habit of following Dr. Ward Flagg around Brookgreen as a child. With the birth of his son, he became Big Doc.

Little Doc grew up at Waverly, which his great-grandfather bought in 1871, and Pawleys Island. He went to a two-room school at what is now the corner of Highway 17 and Waverly Road.

His father started making rope hammocks from a pattern learned from his brother-in-law.  The Lachicottes sold them at a store under their house on Pawleys Island.

Little Doc and his two sisters, Elizabeth and Alberta, made them, too.

Lachicotte recalled in a 2019 interview that he earned $1 a day, which was spending money when he was in school at Winyah High before heading to Clemson College at age 16.

His studies were interrupted when he joined the Army during World War II. He served in the occupation of Japan.

Lachicotte then returned to Clemson, where he was a student manager of the 1948 football team that went undefeated under coach Frank Howard. He graduated in 1949 with a degree in horticulture.

He started out selling real estate with the H.B. Springs Co.

His parents had moved their shop from Pawleys Island to the mainland when the Georgetown bridges were built and the highway was paved in 1938. 

Lachicotte opened a nursery and a garden store next to the Hammock Shop.

He had married the former Martha Louise McDonald in 1957 and together they shifted their business from garden items to gifts.

They took their hammocks to a garden show in New York the next year and got orders from major retailers.

A hammock factory was built, then relocated and the factory converted to shop space.

Lachicotte was inspired by shopping areas he saw while selling hammocks around the country.

“Why can’t we have a plantation village?” he wondered.

He brought buildings from Waverly to the Hammock Shops, including the one-room school that his father had attended.

Lachicotte sold the hammock company in 1983 to Phil Prince, who had been captain of the  1948 Clemson football team.

He had opened his own real estate company at the Hammock Shops in the 1960s. He was part of the group that bought Wachesaw Plantation in the 1980s. He recalled in a 2010 interview that the property was being considered for a mobile home park.

“It’s a mistake not to keep the quality of life we have here,” he said.

The result was the golf course community on the riverfront.

Lachicotte and some partners had bought property at Caledonia Plantation in the 1970s to use as a fish club. In the 1990s, two golf courses were developed at True Blue.

“I think, if anything, I’ve had a feel for the landscape,” Lachicotte said at the 50th anniversary of the Hammock Shops. “Otherwise, it would just be another thing in Myrtle Beach.”

In addition to his business interests, he was active in leadership roles at All Saints, Waccamaw, and The Abbey, serving as senior and junior warden, the vestry and stewardship. He represented the Diocese of South Carolina as a delegate to the national convention several times. He was transformed at a Cursillo weekend in 1979 and devoted himself to spreading the Gospel. 

He was a member of the Winyah Indigo Society, Georgetown Cotillion, Mayor of North Inlet, the Brookgreen Gardens board of trustees, Santee Cooper customer advisory council, Clemson University board of visitors, and served on the boards of the Georgetown County Water and Sewer District, Georgetown Marine Institute, and the Horry-Georgetown Technical College Foundation. 

He was named to the Myrtle Beach Golf Hall of Fame. He was S.C. Economic Development Ambassador for Georgetown County in 2007. He was awarded an honorary degree of doctor of public service from Coastal Carolina University in 2009 and the Georgetown County Chamber of Commerce Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010. 

In addition to his wife of 64 years, he is survived by his daughters, Cecile L. Spivey (Steve), Virginia L. Aimar (Charles) and Louise Lachicotte; his grandchildren, Daniel Spivey (Caroline), Lauren Spivey, Adam Paquette, Charles Aimar and Margaret Aimar; and his great-granddaughter, Gibson Spivey. 

In addition to his parents, his sisters, Elizabeth L. Middleton and Alberta L. Quattlebaum, died before him. 

The family will greet friends at The Abbey on May 4 from 5 to 7  p.m. 

A celebration of his life will be held at 2 p.m. May 5 at All Saints Church, followed by a reception in the ACTS building.

In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to The Abbey (theabbeypawleysisland.com); All Saints Church; AMI Kids (amikids.org); or Brookgreen Gardens (brookgreen.org). 

There is a guest book at mayerfuneralhome.com.