Wellness Center Water & Fire

Mount Pleasant, SC

Two solid concrete basins, one running with water and one where gas rises through the water and burns on the surface, at the entrance to Synchronicity in Mount Pleasant.

Synchronicity, a wellness center in Mount Pleasant, asked us for something their clients would feel before they reached the front door: a quiet place to arrive. Doug designed the answer in-house, and our own crew built all of it, from the concrete to the plumbing to the gas.

The fire feature on the terrace is a solid concrete basin filled with water. Gas is fed up through the basin, bubbles to the surface and is lit there, so the flame burns on the water itself. Fire and water in one piece, with no visible burner and nothing to hide. It is the kind of thing people stop in front of without meaning to, which is what the center wanted.

Along the walk to the entrance runs the second piece, a tabby-faced fountain with a channel of water and tabby-clad blocks spilling into it, poured as another solid concrete basin so it holds water without liners or membranes to fail. Its sound follows you up the bluestone walkway to the door, and tabby, the old Lowcountry mix of lime and oyster shell, gives it a rough coastal texture against the white building.

We laid the bluestone walk and terrace ourselves and did the planting around them, in large slabs set between the palms and out across the lawn, so the whole approach reads as one calm, considered space.

What we built

• Fire-and-water feature: solid concrete basin, gas lit on the water surface
• Tabby-faced fountain in a solid concrete basin
• Bluestone walkway and terrace
• Planting
• Designed in-house by Doug; concrete, plumbing and gas by our own crew

Designed and built by Doug and Zach Cramer, with our own crew.