Meet the one-and only, Emmy-winning, crowd-pleasing, ever funny, never short-winded, trusted and beloved Sonny Dixon. A mild-mannered anchorman by day, Sonny Dixon trades in his buttoned-down persona when the occasion dictates, as it did one winter evening. Looking casually preppy in a navy blue long-sleeved polo shirt with his WTOC-TV logo, Dixon prowled the stage at the Alee Temple, talking a mile a minute in his trademark drawl, working harder than a circus barker to rouse the interest of his audience for the benefit of the Coastal Conservancy. Mostly he was hawking wholesome auction lots like fishing trips and golf getaways, but he did whatever it took to get folks to part with their hard-earned cash, at one point lavishing attention on a somewhat suggestive poster of less-than-totally-clad beauties promoting a Tybee Girls Weekend. If those ladies had been there in real life, they might well have blushed at the patter.

As social creatures, it’s human nature to share experiences, and long before there were arsenals of digital recording devices, the spoken word was the primary method. Stories contain lessons, histories, jokes and formulae. They can warn, inspire, entertain and educate—and they’re alive and well!

Most people spend the last few days of a job cleaning out a desk, saying goodbye to co-workers and making plans for the future. Brooke Anderson is not most people. She spent hers in London, reporting live on national television in front of millions of viewers from the most-covered wedding of the century.

Anyone living in the South knows there’s no shortage of characters, especially in Savannah. These are just a few that turned their larger-than-life personalities into paychecks. Stacy Keach is a performer of epic proportions. Over the years, the Savannah-born actor has perfected the art of playing dramatic Shakespearean roles such as King Lear. He’s dominated the silver screen as the iconic Mike Hammer. And he’s honed the comic genius of playing a villainous patriarch with the character of Papa Titus. He’s had a career that has spanned decades, but the actor, now 70 years old, continues to push himself and his talent. Continuing to hone his craft, these days he’s co-authoring Mary’s Magic Microscope, a trilogy of children’s books, is preparing to star in the Broadway play Other Desert Cities with Stockard Channing this fall and is filming The Bourne Legacy. He also recently lent his voice to the Disney animated movie Planes that will be released in 2013. And somehow he still found time to compose and write a little music. During a rare break, Keach talked with South all the way from Poland about his Southern roots.

Artist Matt Stromberg is literally creating a stir in the art world by using everything from explosives and rocket fuel to submachine guns in his volatile, nonobjective sculpture. He’s careful to stress, however, that his unique art form is not really about explosives but kinetic energy—more specifically, the release of it. The result is somewhat unpredictable. What is predictable, after he conducts trench warfare across his many canvasses, is his ability to produce interesting and spontaneous mark making—marks created through applied texture that create volume.

Tony Allen, Savannah native and front man for the punk rock band Dead Stays Alive, comes with all the accoutrements of a rock star: blue hair, studded and outrageous jewelry, tats, an entourage, and a killer voice that shakes whatever space, no matter the size, in which he wields a microphone. However, Google his name and more photos of Lindsay Lohan pop up than mention of his music, which, despite not being Jack Johnson catchy, has a decent fan base and, more importantly, is constantly evolving and improving.

Sitting on one of the most prized pieces of land at South Beach, The Setai is sexy, sleek and the perfect place for a quick trip to Miami. Notably, this sublime tropical hideaway has been a fixture on Conde Nast Traveler’s “Gold List” for the last five years running and Forbes Traveler has dubbed it one of the “sexiest hotels in America.”

The A-lister hot spot is situated in the art deco hub of South Beach, with modern nods to the era with its use of Shanghai brick and bronze, teak, stone and art. The rooms and suites feature in-room bathtubs for personal spa treatments, rain showers, teak floors, Lavazza espresso machines, personalized housekeeping service and a 24-hour concierge, among other luxury amenities.
It’s off-season during the hot, summer months, and deals are easy to find. The Setai’s Girls’ Getaway and Gentleman’s Retreat packages offer private shopping experiences, spa treatments, breakfast, complimentary spirits and VIP access to Miami’s nightlife. (Rates begin at $595 per night with a minimum two-night stay.)

To tone down on price, but not on style, stay at TownHouse Hotel. Smack dab in the middle of South Beach, flanked by high-end neighboring hotels, sits TownHouse. “It’s great because of the location,” says Colleen Graham, director of sales. “It’s nestled in with the big guns [and is a real] home away from home.”

Highly utilized for studio and magazine production shoots, TownHouse is as much appreciated for its creative, minimalist lines, and all-around fun and flirty decor as it is for its comfort and unassuming prices.
Brought to South Beach at the turn of the millennium by Jonathan Morr, who is well-known for his Manhattan eateries, Republic and BondST, this 69-room, two-suite, Parisian-designed boutique hotel is frankly a steal at $145 a night midweek, and $175 a night on the weekends, through August and September. A Parisian breakfast is included.
The rooms are clad in white, with striking pops of color, and hallways, specked with benches, comics and other good reads, are engulfed with cool soundtracks. The rooftop, fitted with various table settings and lounge chairs, transforms at night into one of South Beach’s hottest weekend hangouts, and the highlight is sushi sent up from the ground floor BondST Lounge. Zagat Miami has named its tuna “the best on the planet.”

Images by Sean Murdock
Written by Melanie Bowden Simón
Read more on our August/September Issue now!

Playing high school sports is about much more than scoring points and winning championships. Often times the real glory comes in bonding with teammates or reaching set goals. Similarly, coaching is about much more than winning or losing games. Often times the real fun comes in seeing a student sign scholarship papers. Coaches have the amazing ability to keep students on track, inspire them to do great things and make a lifelong impact. Here are a few of the MVPs when it comes to coaching in the Lowcountry.

Images by Shawn Heifert
Read more on our August/September Issue now!

It was the “pop” heard around the world: the collapse of the U.S. housing bubble that began as a slow leak in 2006 and had completely imploded by the summer of 2008. The domino effect from an out-of-control derivatives market that caused the collapse of the subprime market eventually impacted mortgage, credit, hedge fund and even foreign bank markets. For homebuilders, home supply retailers and real estate professionals who had profited for years on booming home valuations, the braking of the markets would result in a particularly long skid.
But as the saying goes, when the going gets tough, the tough get going. One of the toughest names in Savannah real estate has proven to be relative newcomer Judge Realty, which opened its doors in June 2005, at the height of the market.
Lori Judge, owner of Judge Realty, remembers fondly the easier days at the company’s outset. “Our first month in business we profited $5000,” she says. “The following months it was three and then ten times that. We were off to the races.”
But the salad days would not last long. In the summer of 2008, Judge, along with realtors across the region, began to feel the impact of the now widely publicized financial crisis. “It happened so fast,” says Judge. “It seemed as though everything came to a halt overnight.”
Savannah’s real estate landscape has noticeably transformed since. “The economy has affected our market in every way, from our neighborhoods to our values,” explains Judge. Countless brokers have found part-time jobs or new lines of work altogether. Housing-related businesses have been forced to close their doors or consolidate with other companies. Out of necessity, others have expanded their services to include aspects of the job that they used to farm out.
Judge Realty has been no different. To weather the storm, the company has had to cut costs, streamline systems, and work harder than ever for their clients. “This was like a near-death experience in business,” says Judge. “It forced us to understand the new conditions we were working in, to go beyond the conventional and get creative, and to implement survival tactics.”
“Like many people in this business, I had to face down my greatest fear: the fear of failing. But once you get past that fear, there is only opportunity. This challenge made me open my eyes to the possibilities that are out there.”
Adaptive approaches for Judge Realty have ranged from the expected to the highly progressive. Their brokers are now experts in foreclosures and short sales. And property management—once the “red-headed step-child” for many firms—has become one of the company’s foremost undertakings. “We now manage more than 200 properties,” says Judge. “And that makes sense to us in the overall picture of what we do, because tenants eventually become buyers and, likewise, buyers become landlords. So we’re really a soup-to-nuts real estate company.”
Providing the most current online technology for clients has helped Judge stay ahead of the property management competition. Their interactive website provides comprehensive, user-friendly access, so property owners stay abreast of tenant activity and screenings, billing and maintenance issues.
On the more progressive side, Judge is one of the only certified EcoBrokers in the area, a unique designation for brokers who are trained to educate clients on reducing their carbon footprints through energy efficient and environmentally sensitive design in properties.
“At the end of the day, it’s about personal relationships,” says Judge. “We’re all in this together—brokers, buyers, sellers, renters. So the crisis has gone a long way toward building camaraderie among industry professionals as well as longstanding relationships between brokers and clients.”

Written by Summer Teal Simpson
Photography by Tim Johnson
Read more on our August/September Issue now!

At 20 mph, barely a sound is audible save for the dirt road crunching beneath the tires and the good-natured voice from the driver’s seat. The voice belongs to Charles Davis, president of The Earth Comfort Company, and the tires to his Chevrolet Volt, which is one of two in the state of Georgia. As he drives slowly around his Guyton, Georgia, property, Davis explains the many perks of the electrically powered car: one of the catchiest being its incredibly low maintenance requirements, as in an oil-change-after-24,000-miles low maintenance. After parking beside his house, Davis removes a cord from the vehicle and connects it to a charging station on the exterior wall noting that it’s “the same charger Jay Leno installed in his garage.”

Davis’ house is far from typical of other homes in Southeast Georgia. It’s a customizable, prefab structure and, like his car, it exhibits his commitment to renewable energy. After purchasing it as a foreclosure in the Atlanta area, Davis had the house delivered to his one-and-a-half-acre property in Guyton. The property is one of nine and the first step toward the goal of creating a zero-energy community (a working organic farm already exists on site). The prefabricated, modular “i-house” is a model made by Clayton Homes, the largest manufacturer of modular homes in the United States. With clean lines and a modern sensibility, the i-home is advertised as being “built from the ground up to be environmentally friendly” without sacrificing aesthetics or comfort. From its specialized roof designed for the collection of rainwater and the installation of solar panels to energy efficient windows and insulation, the i-house is clearly geared toward efficiency aficionados. But that’s only the framework upon which Davis crafted a system that allows him to bring the first net-zero energy home to Savannah.

The Man Behind the Plan

Originally from the Macon area, Davis points to his college days as the beginning of his passion for renewable energy. “I was in college years ago and Jimmy Carter was going to have a war on energy; that got me fired up. This was going to be the future and the next thing you know it’s never mind.” While some of the social and governmental drive toward renewable energy may have lost some steam, since those days, Davis’ interest in putting the concept into action hasn’t flagged.
The Earth Comfort Company was born 18 years ago while Davis was working for a LaGrange based electric cooperative and travelled to Washington, D.C., to learn about geothermal heat pumps with the goal of returning to teach Georgia companies about the technology. Geothermal heat pumps are a renewable energy technology that have existed since the late 1940s and function by taking advantage of the fact that the earth’s underground temperature is constantly around 70 degrees Fahrenheit.
With several different variations, the pumps circulate water or fluid through a piping system placed a few feet underground, often in a series of loops, by means of an electric pump. Using 40 to 60 percent less energy than conventional systems, geothermal heat pumps pay for their installation within five to ten years and have an estimated 25-year service life, with the underground components extending to 50 plus years, according the U.S. Department of Energy. As an added bonus, enough hot water is produced as a free by-product to cover 60 percent of usage. Owners of geothermal heat pumps also receive a 30 percent federal energy tax credit, which Davis points out almost pays for the additional cost of installation.
After learning about geothermal technology, Davis put his passion for energy efficiency to work and began The Earth Comfort Company, basing it in Savannah. Today the company provides a variety of energy efficient installation services, including solar, wind and insulation, and prides itself on being “the go-to source” for geothermal heat loop systems. Focusing primarily on larger scale commercial projects, The Earth Comfort Company has completed numerous projects including the installation of a geothermal system for Florida State University’s Sustainable Energy Science and Engineering Center, one of 14 off-grid zero emissions buildings in the country.
In 2008, Davis joined The University of Georgia’s Marine Extension Service in Brunswick in an ongoing effort to provide a tangible example of efficient energy use through various renewable energy equipment. He helped get geothermal, solar, and energy efficient lighting technologies on a 16,000-square-foot building built in 1991. With the bulk of construction finished in December of 2010, the associate director for the Marine Extension Service, Keith Gates, who has since retired, says of the project, “The geothermal [heat pump] is fantastic; it dropped our electric bill around 50 percent, which is pretty amazing. And not only were we improving energy, the idea was to teach folks down the road about the whole operation.”

Photography by Shawn Heifert
Read more on our August/September Issue now!