fbpx
Paul Costello

Tour a Serene Weekend Oasis on South Carolina’s Wadmalaw Island

Ibu Movement founder Susan Hull Walker brings a global point of view to this airy retreat.

May 31, 2023

For Susan Hull Walker, handmade textiles are more than beautiful fabrics. They’re also sacred texts; the places where, throughout human history, women—many of them deprived of education—have spun, woven, and embroidered their life stories into permanence. It was this realization that motivated Walker to found Ibu Movement, an apparel and home-decor nonprofit based in Charleston, South Carolina.

Tucked onto bustling King Street, the Ibu showroom and shop is a luxurious kaleidoscope of bright colors and patterns from every corner of the world. Here, Walker and her small team collaborate with 100 cooperatives in 50 countries to provide grants, work spaces, training, and design help to female artisans around the world, while also bringing their handcrafted wares to an expanded fashion and interiors marketplace. Full of the textiles she cherishes, Walker’s workdays are a visual feast.

During the renovation of their weekend home on Wadmalaw Island, South Carolina, Ibu Movement founder Susan Hull Walker and her husband, Trenholm Walker, worked with designer Gil Evans to reimagine the layout, including adding windows in several rooms and removing walls to bring in more light. In the living room, they painted the original wood ceiling a shiny white, which further amplifies the reflection of the water outside; limestone plaster walls by decorative painter Stephanie Poe offer a soft counterpart. The coffee table is from Fritz Porter in Charleston. Sconces, Palecek. Stools, Noir Furniture.

Paul Costello
  • Walker perches on the wraparound deck, which overlooks Ole Bess Creek and is a prime spot for entertaining. The teak table and chairs are from Summer Classics, with a hand-embroidered tablecloth from Hidalago, Mexico.

    Paul Costello
  • A berry-hued canvas covers vintage French seating on the screened-in porch. The fuchsia creates “a great foil to nature’s green,” says Walker.

    Paul Costello

But in 2020, when Walker and her husband, trial attorney Trenholm Walker, decided to renovate their weekend house, she had another realization: “I longed to create a rinse for the eyes at the week’s end,” she says. “I needed a respite of natural textures and white where the natural environment would be the inspiring envelope that held us.”

The couple’s weekend retreat is on Wadmalaw Island, one of 34 tidal and barrier Sea Islands strung along the South Carolina coast. The former 19th-century cotton gin house, with two stories, four bedrooms, and two-and-a-half bathrooms, provided plenty of space for Walker to turn her dream into reality. And the natural beauty is boundless. Only thirty minutes from downtown Charleston, Wadmalaw is lush with tropical palmetto trees and magnificent live oaks, and water everywhere you look. The house’s wide wraparound porch is a front-row seat to the tidal marsh and Ole Bess Creek, with views of barges and snowbirds traveling north and south, and the “twice daily show of rising and ebbing tides,” says Walker.

A pair of slipcovered sofas flank the fireplace, which is finished in tadelakt—a combination of lime plaster and black olive soap. Walker found the antique urns and Berber wedding shawl (used as a throw) in Morocco. Moresby floor lamp by Aerin for Visual Comfort.

Paul Costello
  • For the kitchen, Walker designed a custom hutch with arched compartments to hold dishes, ceramics, and other treasures. The lamp is from Dear Keaton.

    Paul Costello
  • Plush banquettes line either side of the entry hall, where a vintage Moroccan wedding shawl was repurposed as a valance. Sconce by Fortuny.

    Paul Costello

A vintage Saarinen table, surrounded by vintage McGuire chairs, brings a modern touch to the dining room; a light fixture from Tucker Robbins hangs above. A vibrant purple shade on a Chris Kellogg Antiques floor lamp and a painting by Kat Hastie, which hangs over a Michael Trapp console, bring a jolt of color. Curtains are trimmed in Samuel & Sons tassel fringe.

Paul Costello

To help realize their vision, Walker enlisted friend and designer Gil Evans. Along with updating the kitchen and baths, they reimagined the layout of the rooms to allow for one-floor living. The primary bedroom was moved down to the first floor; they raised the ceiling and cut through walls to replace the adjoining mudroom with a new bath. Upstairs, guest bedroom floors were painted white. They also added more windows and removed several walls to “allow the light off the water to dance through the whole space,” Walker says.

For the decor, Walker’s first objective was to remove the existing color and replace it with texture. On the kitchen counters and fireplace walls, Walker chose to employ a finish called tadelakt that she had fallen in love with years earlier on a trip to Morocco. Made by combining lime plaster with black olive soap, it creates an all-natural waterproof, mold- and mildew-resistant surface with a seamless, glossy sheen. To contrast it, the walls were covered in limestone plaster, which adds depth while also cooling and dehumidifying the damp Southern air.

Texture abounds in the kitchen, with its fumed white-oak cabinet fronts and tadelakt counters and shelves that hold finds from Turkey, Colombia, and Israel. Woven window shade by Conrad.

Paul Costello
  • On the screened porch, an Ethiopian woven textile creates a breezy backdrop for cocktails.

    Paul Costello
  • Oak trees shade a picnic table by the creek.

    Paul Costello

As the renovation process went on, Walker found that she couldn’t live without at least a splash of color. So, here and there, she and Evans introduced small pops of rich jewel tones via the occasional lampshade, blanket, and pillow. “Fuchsia-leaning purple is a great foil to nature’s green,” Walker notes of the vibrant hue she chose for seat cushions and throw pillows on the screened porch and deck.

Whenever possible, Walker opted for handcrafted artisanal pieces. “Because I work with women artisans from all over the world designing fashion and accessories for Ibu, and before that dealt in vintage textiles, I value the handmade above all,” says Walker, who is also a weaver herself. For window valances and throws, she used rustic Moroccan Berber wedding shawls. Vintage Indonesian tube skirts and embroidered Chinese pants became pillows. A custom-designed Moroccan-inspired hutch with arched compartments acts as both storage for dishware and as a focal point uniting the living area, dining room, and kitchen.

The Lowcountry sun filters through curtains in Kyrgyzstan Wool Silk Panels by Ibu for Schumacher. It can take several days for a group of artisans in the Kyrgyz city of Bishkek to create a single panel; each appliqué is hand-felted using the technique once employed by the region’s nomadic tribes to build their heavy wool yurts. The console was passed down from Trenholm’s great-grandfather and refinished in white, while the lumbar pillow on the Indian charpai bench is made from a Chinese wedding blanket.

Paul Costello
  • In the primary bedroom, bed curtains hang from a custom Moucharabi wood carving from Morocco. Walker purchased the carnation-print fabric at the Calico Museum in Ahmedabad, India. The front pillow is made from a vintage embroidered fabric from Pakistan’s Swat Valley.

    Paul Costello
  • Walker transformed a Damachiya cabinet from India into a powder room vanity. Textiles from her travels—including a Moroccan wool vest, vintage Ethiopian towel, and cuffs from an antique Chinese jacket—decorate the walls.

    Paul Costello

If you squint, those hand-carved arches in the kitchen—along with the bare wood floors and blank white walls throughout the house—call to mind the simple, streamlined nave of a classic New England church. As it happens, before studying traditional textiles at the Savannah College of Art and Design, Walker spent 18 years as a Harvard-trained Congregational minister in Maine, then California, and finally, South Carolina. Perhaps her vision of an airy, whitewashed weekend retreat was also an unconscious longing for the serenity found in such simplicity. “Trenholm and I both savor a deep exhale at the end of the week,” Walker says. “The openness, the visual silence, the light.”


See More of Susan Hull Walker’s Home

  • The pathway to the house is enveloped in lush greenery.

    Paul Costello
  • Antique Moroccan urns by the fireplace hold greenery.

    Paul Costello
  • Vibrant hues create a welcoming environment.

    Paul Costello
  • The primary bedroom is inspired by the 300-year-old oak that surrounds this side of the house. Draped over the ottoman is a Swat Valley Pakistani phulkari.

    Paul Costello
  • The bath is awash in light, with mirrors strategically placed to avoid blocking windows.

    Paul Costello
  • Plenty of seating makes entertaining a breeze.

    Paul Costello

    The pathway to the house is enveloped in lush greenery.

    Paul Costello

    Antique Moroccan urns by the fireplace hold greenery.

    Paul Costello

    Vibrant hues create a welcoming environment.

    Paul Costello

    The primary bedroom is inspired by the 300-year-old oak that surrounds this side of the house. Draped over the ottoman is a Swat Valley Pakistani phulkari.

    Paul Costello

    The bath is awash in light, with mirrors strategically placed to avoid blocking windows.

    Paul Costello

    Plenty of seating makes entertaining a breeze.

    Paul Costello

This story originally appeared in volume 8 of FREDERIC. Click here to subscribe!