Mount Pleasant Magazine 6.3

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a congressional page in the nation’s capital. When Strom
Thurmond’s driver was feeling under the weather, the job
of transporting the longtime U.S. senator around Wash-
ington went to a teenager from Mount Pleasant, South
Carolina. Limehouse would wake up early to attend classes
at the Library of Congress and stay out late driving the
legendary lawmaker wherever he wanted to go. The experi-
ence, he said, was priceless.
“I got an education like no other,” said Limehouse,
who graduated from College Preparatory School in
Charleston and later from the University of South
Carolina.
Limehouse put his political experience to good use
during the 1984 presidential campaign, making phone
calls and knocking on
doors for Ronald Reagan
and also for Thurmond
and Carroll A. Campbell
Jr., the congressman who
later served as governor
of South Carolina.
“I was a foot soldier
in the Reagan Revolu-
tion,” Limehouse said
with obvious pride.
He threw his own hat
into the political ring in
1992 at the age of 26,
losing his bid for a seat in
the state Senate. He also
ran an unsuccessful cam-
paign for the U.S. House
when Tim Scott was appointed to the U.S. Senate in 2013.
He came out on top 11 other times, however. In 1994,
he earned the distinction of being the first Republican to
represent District 110 in more than a century, and voters in
Mount Pleasant and Charleston returned him to office with
great regularity – every two years from 1996 through 2014.
When 2016 comes to an end, he’ll be spending his
time as a commercial real estate broker rather than doing
double duty as a public servant.
“Twenty-two years is enough,” he commented. “I’ve
been thinking about it the last several terms. It’s time for
someone new and younger to take over.”
Limehouse, one of five members of the House who
currently represents at least a part of Mount Pleasant,
can look back on an array of legislative accomplishments
during the past 22 years. Most important, in his opinion,
is that he was the prime sponsor of the South Carolina
Infrastructure Bank Act, which was passed in 1997. The
Infrastructure Bank provided much of the funding for the
Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge and also helped pay for work on
Hungryneck Boulevard, Bowman Road and Highway 17.
“The Infrastructure Bank has had a major role in fund-
ing most of the new roads in Mount Pleasant in the past
15 years,” he said. “We’ve done an outstanding job of mak-
ing transportation work in Mount Pleasant.”
Limehouse, currently a member of the board of direc-
tors of the South Carolina Transportation Infrastructure
Bank, pointed out that during his time in the House, he
has worked closely with Mount Pleasant’s Town Council
and Mayors Cheryll Woods-Flowers, Harry Hallman, Billy
Swails and Linda Page. He added that the idea for the Infra-
structure Bank came from his father, one-time chair of the
South Carolina Depart-
ment of Transportation
Commission.
“We do it by bond-
ing, rather than pay as
you go,” Limehouse
explained. “The bridge
cost $635 million. If
we had waited, it would
have cost $1.2 billion.
We wouldn’t have had
the money to build it.”
Though helping to
build the bridge between
Mount Pleasant and
Charleston might be
Limehouse’s most lasting
legacy, he helped pass
several other pieces of legislation affecting Mount Pleasant
and the Lowcountry. For example, he played a key role in
the state appropriating $4 million for the Medal of Honor
Museum at Patriots Point, he obtained the seed money for
the construction of the Kruger Smith Building at Memo-
rial Waterfront Park and he was instrumental in getting $6
million from the state to reconfigure the once-dangerous
intersection of Highways 41 and 17.
Statewide, Limehouse helped pass Megan’s Law, which
makes information on sex offenders available to the public,
the Sexually Violent Predator Act and legislation protect-
ing eagles, turtles, dolphins and various species of fish.
In addition, Limehouse served as chairman of the
Charleston County Aviation Authority and played a role in
convincing Boeing and Volvo to locate facilities in South
Carolina. He helped choose the contractor, the architect
and the design for the soon-to-be-completed renovation of
Charleston International Airport.
After 22 years in the South Carolina House of Representatives, Chip
Limehouse is retiring from politics and returning to work as a full-time
commercial real estate broker.