The recent death of Sandy West, the onetime owner and lifelong advocate for the preservation of Ossabaw Island, raises questions about what’s in store for Georgia’s third-largest barrier isle.
Could development be coming for the 26,000-acre, mostly wild island that’s currently accessible only to invited guests by boat? Could the state, which manages Ossabaw, open the site to thousands of campers and day trippers interested in exploring the saltwater marsh, old slave cabins and 4,000-year-old middens left by Native Americans?
Not going to happen, say the Department of Natural Resources and the Ossabaw Island Foundation.
“There are no plans to manage the island any differently than what has been in the years past,” said DNR spokesman Josh Hildebrandt.
The department is bound by the terms of the 1978 agreement under which West sold Ossabaw, located about 20 miles south of Savannah, to the state for half of its appraised value. Only activities related to scientific and cultural study, research and education, preservation and conservation are allowed.
Credit: AJC
Credit: AJC
But all that could change with an act of the Legislature, as Ossabaw’s advocates are keenly aware.
They scrambled last summer to kill a bill in the General Assembly that would have allowed the state to sell up to 15 acres of land at state heritage preserve sites like Ossabaw to private companies or nonprofits.
Supporters of the bill, which included DNR, said it would have helped attract private dollars to preserve historic sites. DNR spent slightly more than $300,000 on expenses related to the management of Ossabaw Island in the most recent fiscal year.
The Ossabaw Island Foundation, former President Jimmy Carter and others launched an aggressive campaign to stop the measure because of concerns that it could have opened the door to repeated sales of up to 15 acres of land, allowing developers to eventually gobble up heritage preserve sites.
Credit: Photo by Curtis Compton/staff
Credit: Photo by Curtis Compton/staff
“We certainly don’t want anything like that coming up again,” said Elizabeth DuBose, the foundation’s executive director.
The biggest change coming to Ossabaw now that West is gone is related to oversight of the 20,000-foot pink-stuccoed Spanish revival mansion that the heiress lived in until 2016, according to DuBose.
West’s deal with the state allowed her to live there after she sold Ossabaw and to enjoy exclusive use of 23 acres of land on the north end of the island. That property, which is owned by the state, will now be overseen by the foundation. It plans to renovate the house and to continue using the surrounding land for programming.
Credit: Photo by Curtis Compton/staff
Credit: Photo by Curtis Compton/staff
There are two main ways the public can visit the island. One is through educational, cultural and scientific programs supervised by the foundation. About 2,000 people visit Ossabaw each year that way, though the pandemic has shrunk those numbers by roughly half. The second is via the deer and feral hog hunts overseen by DNR.
Moving forward, the challenge for the island’s boosters will be to share Ossabaw without destroying the very nature of it, said DuBose.
The usage restrictions, she said, make the island feel untouched, unlike anything else on the Georgia coast. “It allows the island and its magic to work,” DuBose said.
She added, “I am nervous that the outside pressures will continue to try to chip away” at that.
About the Author
