Old Edwards Reserve Is Building Laurel Village on Lake Keowee. It Sits in Pickens County, Not Oconee.

Construction is underway on Laurel Village at Old Edwards Reserve at Lake Keowee. The full name matters, because the shorthand in circulation is simply Old Edwards. The community is Old Edwards Reserve at Lake Keowee, and Laurel Village is the new phase inside it.

The numbers: 24 turnkey cottages, three and four bedrooms, on roughly 12.8 acres overlooking Laurel Pond, with a private putting course at the village center. Edgens Herzog Architects designed it. P+F Construction of Fountain Inn, South Carolina, is the general contractor, and its release of May 11, 2026 said construction was officially underway. The Upstate Business Journal piece followed on May 12. No exact groundbreaking day has been published anywhere, so we are calling it May 2026 and leaving it there. Completion is targeted for summer 2027.

One correction to the record. The address is 931 Reserve Boulevard, Sunset, South Carolina 29685, which sits in Pickens County. Lake Keowee straddles Pickens and Oconee, and this is on the Pickens side. Coverage that files it under Oconee has the county wrong.

Both the contractor release and the Upstate Business Journal describe Laurel Village as the first new real estate offering from the community in more than 20 years. That is the line worth sitting with. Twenty-four cottages is a small release by any measure, but it is the first time in two decades that a buyer gets a front-door entry here without waiting for a resale to surface.

The hospitality connection is confirmed. James Whitley acquired Old Edwards Hospitality Group in June 2024, and Old Edwards Reserve at Lake Keowee sits in his portfolio. That is what makes this phase interesting beyond its unit count. A Highlands hospitality name is carrying its standard an hour south onto the water, in a market where the Cliffs communities and Greater Lake Keowee have competed largely on golf, amenities and frontage.

Pricing is where we stop short. A from $2 million figure is circulating, but it comes from an aggregator rather than the developer, so treat it as reported, not published. What Laurel Village actually asks will set the reference point for branded lakefront cottage product on Keowee, and that number is worth waiting for instead of guessing at.

If you are weighing the plateau against the lake, bring us the specifics and we will give you the read, with no pitch attached.