Finding a place in the ACE for a pause
- cdavis884
- 3 days ago
- 6 min read
By Thomas R. Ellen and Coleman H. Davis
Imagine a place called the Temple of Sport. It’s in your backyard. Before you go there, you have to Wood Brothers General Store. When you see the two, you’ve found the true essence of the ACE Basin.
In the dreary days of mid-December, those last, listless throes of deer season, when the woods begin to feel picked over and a man’s thoughts drift from rifles to shotguns, we set out south with our bellies full of Mexican food and our minds already elsewhere. Ducks were on the brain. Waterfowlers were moving — to and from our destination as they always have. And so, naturally, we found ourselves pointed toward what we half-jokingly determined to be the southernmost end of Charleston: the newly revived Wood Brothers General Store.
Oases like this do not typically announce themselves. They reveal themselves. To those already inclined toward the sporting life, the old store was no stranger. To newcomers, a treasure trove awaits. For generations, Wood Brothers has served as an outpost for hunters and fishermen moving through the ACE Basin — a place to stop for coffee, biscuits, ammunition, gossip and whatever else the day demanded. It was a waypoint, a staging ground, a place where the questions of tide, season or migration could be assessed before pushing on into the marsh or timber.
An outpost in the ACE Basin
Our expedition began by crossing the Ashley and surrendering ourselves to Highway 17, that stretch of road whose relentless traffic can draw language from otherwise civilized gentlemen that would make a bishop blush. With our resident William Elliott scholar driving, we drifted further from the city and closer to that wide, marshy world where Charleston thins out and the ACE Basin begins to assert itself. Somewhere between the roadside pines and the flat, gray sky, our conversation turned to logistics: how best to work a visit to the store and a pilgrimage to the nearby ruins of the old Temple of Sport into one clean afternoon. The proximity of the two felt deliberate, almost symbolic — one still standing revitalized, the other crumbling, both testaments to a sporting culture that once defined this place, and now, due to the Wood Brothers resurgence, still is.
That connection was not lost on David Wise, our gracious host and the guiding hand behind Wood Brothers’ resurrection. With its clean, retro branding and rustic yet immaculately kept interior, the store feels like it could be frozen in time in the best way possible. We were greeted not with nostalgia alone though, but with abundance: the finest produce our region has to offer, shelves of preserves that summoned thoughts of biscuits and strong coffee, hand-forged cast iron begging to be picked up and tested by weight alone. In one wall of shelving, antique duck decoys, carved by one of the all-time greats, rested quietly, their honest craftsmanship reminding us that this landscape has long been shaped by the hands of people who cared.
What follows is not simply the story of a store reopened, but of a place restored — one that anchors the sporting life of the Lowcountry, champions conservation and craftsmanship and invites travelers to slow down long enough to remember why places like this matter in the first place.
Stewardship, not nostalgia
Wood Brothers General Store has stood in Green Pond since 1964 and was just reopened on November 1, 2025, after a full restoration, the historic structure was carefully preserved while being made functional for a new generation, with the addition of the coffee shop, expanded retail space, modernized facilities and restrooms with penny tile floors and a curated showroom. “I took this on because places like Wood Brothers matter,” said owner David Wise. “They anchor communities, keep stories alive and give people a reason to slow down. My hope is that the revived store becomes a hub again — a place where travelers pause, locals reconnect and families create new memories.” Early response has affirmed that vision, with the once-quiet store now full of life again, positioned not only as a retail space but as a steward of the natural and cultural heritage of the ACE Basin for the long haul.
What distinguishes Wood Brothers from mere roadside nostalgia is its relationship to the land that surrounds it. This is not retail detached from context, but commerce shaped by geography. For decades, the outpost functioned as a haven of sorts. Hunters passed through on their way to flooded rice fields and blackwater creeks; fishermen stopped in before first light, gauging tides and weather over coffee. It was for decades — and now is — THE place to meet before and after an expedition. In that sense, it served much the same role as the general stores of an earlier South — less of a “business only” than a nexus, where local knowledge was exchanged orally and carried forth.
That spirit animates the store’s revival today. The vintage Remington gun case, hand-carved decoys and shorebirds now displayed are not just decorative curiosities you’d find at some kind of large chain sporting goods store; they are artifacts of a particular culture that’s being preserved. The partnerships with local farmers and artisans reflect the same philosophy.
What endures
It was with this in mind that we left the warmth of the store and turned our attention toward the nearby ruins of the Temple of Sport. A colonial Elliott family tribute to Lowcountry sporting life, the structure now lays in a heap of dignified decay with its old columns now broken, the bricks overtaken and the surrounding grounds reclaimed by pine straw and palmetto. In its early days, this folly was eight columns built upon Barnard Elliott’s favorite deer stand. All heading to Beaufort from Charleston — or coming from the other direction — would have known that the Temple of Sport was a tribute to the honorable pastime that is on the brains of many who travel in these parts; it was a place for a pleasant pause.
Time had done its work there already when it was written about in 1846, unbothered by sentiment, then further assisted by the writer Harry Worcester Smith and Ambrose Elliott Gonzales, grandson of William Elliott III, taking a hammer to a remaining column in the early 20th century — we can only assume their intentions were for the study and further preservation of it. And yet, standing among the remnants of this colonial testament to hunting and conservation, it was possible to see the continuity between what once was and what is now being thoughtfully preserved a few miles down the road.
Monuments along the roadside — it is not by the gladius but the groma that expansion is made. Reflections of the passage of time and ways of living. Paths made wide for accommodation, the ever-increasing flow of man and material. On those greater expanses of asphalt (the interstate highway system) loom the seedy and kitsch — the strange sites made temples of consumption, brandishing the mask of a dam building rodent. But here Wood Brothers is, on a sleepier way, restoring an easier means, offering just what is necessary to the traveler and the sportsman alike.
Our nitro cold brew coffee cups — a signature item at the newly reopened store — were emptied, bags set in the back of the truck and Wood Brothers settled back into the role it has always played: not a destination clamoring for attention, but a place that waits. The Temple of Sport lay behind us as well, reclaimed by time and pine straw, its lesson already well-absorbed. Ahead was the narrowing road and the long pull back northeast, accompanied by the reassuring sense that some things endure not because they are gaudy or in your face, but because they are useful, rooted, done right and cared for. Wood Brothers General Store does not ask to be remembered, but it will be — just as it always has. Along with David Wise and his staff, it opens its doors, offers what is needed, and carries on, which in a landscape shaped by resistance to careless change and unchecked development may be the surest form of conservation there is.
