Nature

The Artistry of Nighttime Lighting

“Kiawah River has taken great pride in making the parks a central feature of the community,” said Mike Rollins president and founder of Moonlighting, Kiawah River’s landscape lighting company. 

Moonlighting brightens the community to design a beautiful nighttime experience. The lighting at Kiawah River brings you into the space as opposed to everything going dark at night, which hides the beauty of the trees, he said.  

“At night, we’re able to take the Live Oak trees, the sculptures of the night, and we illuminate them to bring out the beauty of the canopy, the trunking, the resurrection vines, and the Spanish moss,” Mike said. 

The palm trees are the jewels of the night, which sparkle when you light them. The combination of the oak trees, the palm trees, the downlighting, and the gravel pathways, all contribute to Kiawah River’s nighttime ambiance. It also allows homeowners to engage with the parks at any hour. 

Homeowners can use this as inspiration for their own home. Mike recommends keeping it simple to create a purposeful landscape lighting scheme. Light will balance better if the focus is on elements that make sense to light, he said. 

Intentional lighting influences a calm landscape, changing the way homeowners experience the community at dark. 

“We can pick out a feature of the oak trees or the park and accentuate and highlight it more than you can actually see it in the daytime,” Mike said. “We’re able to bring the artistry of the trees and of the space into view at night.”  

Learn more about Moonlighting by visiting their website or liking them on Facebook.