down full time. I loved that little cabin.” Cyndy designed their eventual home herself— sketching“ a thousand plans” of the home and how it would fit around the property’ s grand oaks.“ I designed this house around the trees,” she says.“ I tried to make it feel like a little tree house.”
The McKinleys return to Johns Island has not only revived their connection to the Lowcountry but has also brought them closer to the rhythms of the land itself. Bobcats traverse the oak-studded corridors near their home, coyotes call across the evening marsh, and the occasional snake reminds them that this is a place where nature reigns.
“ We have a video we shared with the Conservancy of a collared bobcat that was right outside our house,” Cyndy says.“ I was able to contact Megan Keating, who was doing a PhD on bobcats, and she told me that bobcat was collared near the Ocean Course on Kiawah. So you can see how the Conservancy’ s creation of these corridors of conserved land allows wildlife to move. If all this turned into neighborhoods, that wouldn’ t happen.”
For the McKinleys, these encounters are more than moments of wonder— they are a living connection to the landscape they help protect.“ You come here, and you feel like you’ re a part of it,” Cyndy reflects.“ It’ s not just that you’ re watching wildlife, you’ re also sharing the land with them.”
But she has also discovered a new passion: woodworking.“ My dad was an engineer and a woodworker, and I think as I get older, I’ ve become more like him,” she says. Now she fills her workshop with projects made from salvaged and reclaimed wood.“ It’ s so much fun to find the wood and build things. It brings me so much joy.”
Meanwhile, Shep serves on several local nonprofit boards, including the Sea Islands Hunger Awareness Foundation and the historic Progressive Club. Cyndy is the coordinator of the Kiawah Island Shorebird Stewardship Program, and both are deeply involved with the Conservancy.“ It started because they had really good food,” Shep laughs, remembering their early visits to Conservancy events.“ And then they had really great people too. We love them.”
Looking back, they see their return to the Lowcountry as a renewal. After years in the suburbs, their days are now filled with conservation, creativity, and community.“ I was this shy, quiet person,” Cyndy says.“ I’ ve come into my own here.”
For Shep, it’ s about helping to protect the very landscapes that first drew them here.“ Johns Island needs partners,” he says.“ They didn’ t have what Kiawah and Wadmalaw have in place to protect green spaces. Johns Island is developing rapidly, seemingly without regard for keeping some of it natural, so to have an entity like the Kiawah Conservancy forming partnerships and helping to protect the rural character of the island is absolutely crucial.”
30 • KIAWAH CONSERVANCY