The Tabby Abbey
A field note on Folly Beach and its special form of maritime medicine
It started with a leap.
New Year's Day, 2014. I caught a glimpse of a seaside gathering in my minds eye and decided to book a six bedroom house on the water before a single person had signed up. Right before I booked it, I told myself that even if nobody came, I was worthy of the experience all on my own and it would be worth every penny to inhabit that space with myself and my own dreams. It felt like a big declaration at the time. A statement of faith in something that did not yet exist.
That first retreat filled.
What followed became a rhythm that has repeated itself for more than a decade. A collection of entrepreneurs arriving at the edge of the marsh, pulling out whiteboards, tying their planning time to the tides. Restoration activities, watercolors, morning circles timed to when the light was right. The work unfolding across days rather than hours, which changes everything about what becomes possible.
Over the last decade we have convened in a collection of beautiful houses, all with their own unique expansive views of water. But my favorite of the houses is still that first one we anointed lovingly with the name Tabby Abbey. This one has been the site of more than half of the retreats. It has a spiral staircase connecting two porches, one above the other, both looking out over the marsh. On the lower porch people spread out their laptops and spreadsheets, doing the deeper financial work, the projections and the planning. On the upper porch there were yoga mats and art supplies, people choosing restoration or creative time, staring out at the water, watching for dolphins and egrets in the distance.
I remember standing on that spiral staircase and feeling something click. Here was the whole integration made visible. Left brain and right brain. Numbers and narrative. The spreadsheet and the blank canvas. I could move between them, and so could everyone there. Neither was more important than the other. Both were necessary. That staircase felt like a symbol of everything I had been trying to hold together in the work.
Over the years Folly Beach has given us paddle boards on the water with entrepreneurs taking turns navigating while we talked about leadership. Solo trips to the lighthouse with journaling prompts tucked in their pockets. Oyster shucking and cooking together. Bike rides. Studio strolls. Artist roundtables. Getting stuck in mud at low tide. Nightswimming. One-on-one conversations that happened naturally in the spaces between the structured time.
I always hold solo time, small group time, and full gathering time as equally essential. Nobody is pressured to perform or produce. The spaciousness is the point.
That is the thing about Folly Beach. It does not announce itself. It just quietly gives people something they did not know they were missing. And many of them have been coming back ever since.