The Uncertain Future of South Carolina’s “Porgy and Bess” House-OxBig News Network

Tom Goodwin, Folly Beach’s mayor, joked that he would love for the city to buy the cottage and relocate his office to Follywood. About a year ago, the city talked to Glick, he said, without hearing any numbers on what it would take to land the house. Glick said he departed the conversations with the belief that city did not have the budget to purchase the home.

Now, Goodwin is interested to see what the preservationists will propose.

“As far as the city goes, we’re really in the infant stages of talking about what we would do or not do or can do,” Goodwin said. “That’s all I know right now. ”

As the group met, the irony was not lost that Folly Beach is a short 20-minute drive away from downtown Charleston, widely regarded as the birthplace of the country’s preservation movement. The Preservation Society of Charleston, founded in 1920, is America’s oldest community-based historic preservation organization and Charleston passed the first zoning ordinance enacted to protect historic resources in 1931.

“Unlike the city of Charleston, there’s really no preservation protections,” said Brian Turner, the president and chief executive of the Preservation Society of Charleston. “You can see the character of these beach towns changing very quickly up and down the coast.”

Glick has made indications he wants the home to be preserved, but he has yet to take steps to make that happen, Turner said. “The ball is in his court to an extent,” he said. The city could enact ordinances, but that could take time, Turner added. “And I don’t know if that would work on the owner’s timeline.”

For Glick, the sooner the home is off the market and Kathy’s memory is honored with a preservation plan — the better.

“I’d like to have sold it,” he said. “Last year.”