Hilton Head Island provides one of the world’s most beautiful living environments year round. Batson Brokerage, Inc. offers you 35 years of experience in successfully putting people and properties together on Hilton Head Island. P.O. Box 5577 • 7 Office Park Road, Suite 105 • Hilton Head Island, SC 29938 843-842-4080 • 1-800-401-4080 • Home 843-671-5153 • Fax 843-842-5080 e-mail: bbatson@hargray.com www.batsonbrokerage.com A Home For All Seasons Betty Batson has been nicknamed, “Charlie’s Bar & Grill” because he couldn’t seem to miss it. “About once a year, he would run aground,” Laura Lawton said. “Then we’d just have to wait out the tide. For those who don’t have an appreciation for sailing, it would seem as if Dad was a bad sailor, but that wasn’t the case at all.” Mike Lawrence conceded that Fraser sometimes had difficulty docking and that he once witnessed him make a ruckus while trying to dock the Compass Rose into the Harbour Town Yacht Basin in front of a crowd of about 200 onlookers. Lawrence just happened to be there for a Gregg Russell performance. “Gregg made a clever comment and everything went back to normal,” he said. As for traveling, Fraser’s approach was a little different. On most trips, Mary and the girls, Wyman and Laura Lawton, would accompany him. “We didn’t take the traditional family vacations,” Laura Lawton said. “We’d visit seven different European countries in 10 days. We’d see the key elements of each place, and then he would press us about what makes that city great and what could be done to make it better. It was exhausting.” For his visionary prowess, one thing Fraser was not well known for was his financial planning. “Money was never Charles’ primary motivation, said his brother, Joe Fraser. “It was to create something he could be proud of that others could be proud of, too.” Added Mary, “It’s not that he was naïve about money. He certainly knew that he could make a lot of it. It’s just that he was not driven by money. For him, Sea Pines was more of an academic challenge.” Speaking of academics, Laura Lawton said it was impossible for her father to make idle conversation. “We’d sit down to the dinner table and Dad would engage us in whatever subject matter was at hand – history, architecture, advances in modern medicine. Half the time we didn’t care. We just wanted to be little girls,” she said. “My father couldn’t do anything but academic conversation,” Laura Lawton continued. “The only time I saw him relax was when he was reading or sailing. Even then, he’d invite 20 or so people to go sailing and hold court, discussing some topic or another.” As an adult, Laura Lawton said her father’s passion for knowing all the facts is something she has inherited. About three years ago, she started writing a book for preteens about stories in the Bible from the animals’ point of view. About 100 pages into it, she stopped. “I was unsatisfied with it because I didn’t have enough information,” she explained. “I knew the story but not the whole context of the story. Now I have bookshelves lined with history books about the Roman Empire, the Greeks… so when I tell the story, they are correct politically, historically and culturally.” Norby recalled that during his last year, Fraser invited him over and said, “My clock’s ticking. You may be the only one to stick with this.” In doing so, he entrusted Norby with several pieces of historical documents, photographs and archive material. Norby, who had been doing some collecting of his own over the years, said he gladly accepted the invitation. 14 SeaPines50thAnniversary.com | SeaPinesHomesAndVillas.com
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