Isle Of Palms Magazine April 2018

11 www.IsleOfPalmsMagazine.com | www.ILoveIOP.com | www.IOPmag.com A One-On-One Approach I n the world of architecture, John Crouch has taken the road less traveled. For most of his career, he has worked for himself and his clients rather than for a large firm, and his decision to go it alone – for the most part – has given him the opportunity to take on meaningful, fun and somewhat unusual projects. In the past four decades, he has helped build a cheese factory in rural Kentucky, remodel a Lowcountry campus that twice stood at the crossroads of American history and put his fingerprints on several innovative homes and businesses in the Charleston area. For the past 18 years, Crouch has been plying his trade from a cluttered office in his home in Isle of Palms. He and his wife, Janet, frequent visitors to the Charleston By Brian Sherman area, moved to the Lowcountry from Connecticut in 2000, fulfilling their plans to retire to coastal Carolina earlier than they originally anticipated. “We finally said, ‘Let’s get the hell out of here before we need a walker,’” he explained. Crouch decided that architecture would be his life’s work when was only 13 and living in Ossining, New York, 30 miles or so up the Hudson River from New York City and the home of the infamous Sing Sing Correctional Facility. He escaped to Troy, New York, and earned his degree in Architecture at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, moved to Richmond, Virginia, spent three months living in Florence, Italy, and completed his apprenticeship in Bowling Green, Kentucky. At the age of 26, he was on his Architect John Crouch Photo by Thomas Runion. Crouch designed this home in the Hobcaw subdivision around Molasses Creek and an ancient tree.