The Charleston Visitors Center: A Holy City Landmark Gets A New Look

Originally constructed in 1840, the historic Charleston Visitors Center has taken on a new look.

Listed as a National Historic Landmark, the visitors center opened to the public in 1991 and has been a hub for Charleston tourism ever since. Along with a full scale renovation of the building, the landscape also received the same treatment led by Charleston landscape architect Glen Gardner.

Moonlighting was tasked with creating a landscape lighting design that would accentuate the key features of the landscape. The new landscape consisted of the introduction of new palm trees, camellias, etc. A key part of our landscape lighting design was safely illuminating the stairs to allow for a safe entry/exit for visitors of the center.

Scroll through the gallery to see more photos of our latest project and leave a comment below! For daily updates and regular happenings, be sure to follow Moonlighting  FacebookInstagram and Houzz .

Moonlighting Travels For An Atlanta Landscape Lighting Installation

Just last week ahead of the Fourth of July, Moonlighting hit the road, bound for the Peach State to install our latest custom landscape lighting design.

Our latest project lands us in Atlanta, Georgia. The landscape and property itself offered many great opportunities for illumination as both the front and backyard had elements of both entertainment space and focal points within the landscape.

The backyard especially is used for entertaining as the elaborate deck structure required a need for circulation lighting to help make the space easier and safer to navigate in the evening. While enjoying a nice cocktail from the beautiful deck, we knew that adding a secondary layer of landscape lighting by highlighting some of the key trees and creating some enjoyable scenes was an absolute must.

It wasn’t all work while we were there… Since we were able to wrap up a little early before the final night aiming, we took to the links for a friendly round of golf and go-carts… well mini golf. Ricky was crowned the champion of the round!

The best part of this project is we were able to have everything completed in time for the Fourth of July holiday and ready to enjoy!

Do you have a project outside of Charleston? We can help! Traveling out of state for projects is not something we are strangers to. In the last two years alone, we have traveled for landscape lighting designs and installations in California, Texas, Florida and Georgia. You never know where you might find us next!

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A Modern Solution For Outdated Post Lights

Have your post lights shown signs of degradation? Is the paint flaking off and the lamps going dim? Is it leaning or wobbling? It may be time to explore some other options.

In this blog post we’ll dive into a recent project where we helped provide a solution for two outdated post lights. For this particular project we wanted  modernize the lighting while still maintaining a classic look.

Located in the historic district of Charleston, we were recently tasked with replacing two existing post lights that were inefficient on multiple levels. The ten-plus year old lights were constructed of  aluminum, highly corroded and they were 120V with incandescent bulbs.

Before

The new custom post lights that we were proposing would begin with fabrication in our shop. We chamfered the posts at the tops and the bottoms to provide a more decorative look. After they were chamfered, we painted them “Charleston Green,” a very popular color within the lowcountry and the greater Charleston area.

Fabrication

The copper fixture heads that we specified are handmade and the highest of quality that come all the way from The Copper House, located in New Hampshire. The selection of a copper fixture head ensures that these post lights are built for a long term solution and can withstand the corrosive conditions presented in Charleston. As part of a separate scope of work within this property, we brought low voltage wiring into the location of the post lights with the intent of converting them from line voltage to low voltage and LED, allowing for a more efficient and energy conserving solution.

Check out the images below of the final product and let us know what you think in the comment section.

Final Product

If you’re in need of an upgrade of your post lights, contact our office today to speak with one of our designers about how we can find a custom solution for you! Be sure to follow us on your favorite social media platforms like FacebookInstagram and Houzz for our weekly updates.

How Do You Light A Tree?

A Common Question Further Explained…

How do you light a tree with landscape lighting? Well…that’s a trick question. Not every tree is created equal and not every tree calls for the same application as the next. We’re here to help explain.

Where we are located in Charleston, South Carolina,  we see a wide variety of trees on our projects ranging from live oak trees, palmetto trees, crape myrtles and olive trees just to name a few. Whether it be new construction where newly planted trees have been installed or it’s an existing landscape where trees have had years to blossom and mature, our knowledgeable design staff is always prepared for the best design techniques to best illuminate your trees.

In this blog post, we’re going to show you a beautiful live oak tree illuminated in three very different ways.

Let’s start with the most basic method.

Flooding:

Flooding
Flooding

In this photo we have positioned three fixtures on the ground, about 30′ away from the tree and aimed them to illuminate the tree. In the big picture, the whole tree is illuminated and it’s being shown off in all of its beauty. Essentially, it’s the easiest way to illuminate this tree while still accomplishing a positive effect. While still very effective, we can probably do a little better and create a little more interest within this scene.

Grazing:

Grazing
Grazing

In this photo, were aiming for a different effect. We’re looking to create interest and we’re looking to enhance the limb structure. This is what makes the live oak tree so unique and a focal point within many lowcountry landscapes. Live oak tree limbs tend to sprawl and crawl in their own way. This makes them so unique and quite honestly, so much fun illuminate.

For the “grazing” technique, we’ve positioned three up lights closer to the tree than what you see in the previous photo and focused on the limb structure of the tree. This allows you have a better visual of the detail of the tree and limb structure.

Tree Mounted Up & Down Lighting:

Tree Mounted Up And Down Lighting
Tree Mounted Up And Down Lighting

Let’s say this tree is in a high traffic area and we need to keep fixtures off the ground so they don’t become a hindrance, thats where this technique comes into play. In this photo, the oak is illuminated with fixtures all mounted within the tree itself. We have two fixtures mounted about 15′ up, aimed up into the canopy while we have three down lights, mounted at about 35′ aimed down. One is aimed through the center of the tree, picking up the trunk while the other two are picking up the right and left side of the tree. The down lights as a whole create some great shadowing on the ground plane below. We’re again focusing on the detail of the tree and further enhancing what makes the oak tree the specimen tree that it is. What we’re accomplishing here is illuminating the top parts of the limbs that cannot be picked up by just simply up lighting.

By combining up lighting and down lighting, we’re painting a multidimensional picture as opposed to the one dimensional technique you see with the first two techniques.

If you want to see this in person… you can find it at the Addlestone Library on the College of Charleston campus where it permanently illuminated with technique No. 3 (tree mounted up and down lighting.) Because it is in fact in a very high traffic area, that is why we elected to design with this method.

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Contact our office today and schedule a consultation with one of our award winning designers and learn more about how Moonlighting can assist in creating a custom landscape lighting design for your home or business.

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