Charles Pinckney was a principal author and a signer of the United States Constitution. This remnant of his coastal plantation is preserved to tell the story of a "forgotten founder," his life of public service, the lives of enslaved African Americans on South Carolina Lowcountry plantations and their influences on Charles Pinckney. Read More

Founded in 1738, Drayton Hall offers something unique in our modern world: authenticity. It’s the nation’s earliest example of fully executed Palladian architecture and the oldest preserved plantation house in America still open to the public. Read More

This house was built in 1818 by Ainsley Hall, a wealthy Columbia merchant, and his wife Sarah. They sold the house in 1823 to Wade Hampton I, who updated the Federal-style home to Greek Revival. The house passed through the Hampton and Preston families, who were forced to sell the estate after the Civil War. It was home to… Read More

The Cole-Heyward House, built as a summer home for a local plantation owner, was constructed circa 1841 and is one of only eight antebellum homes remaining in the Lowcountry coastal town of Bluffton. Located in the heart of Bluffton’s National Register Historic District, next to the breezy bluffs overlooking the May River, this simple timber framed home is an… Read More

Built in 1772, this Georgian-style double house was the town home of Thomas Heyward, Jr., one of four South Carolina signers of the Declaration of Independence. The property features the only 1740s kitchen building open to the public in Charleston as well as formal gardens featuring plants commonly used in the South Carolina Lowcountry in the late 18th century. Read More

Built circa 1740, some 40 years before the American Revolutionary War, Hopsewee Plantation was one of the South's major rice plantations and the birthplace of Thomas Lynch, Jr., one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Read More

One of Charleston's most exquisite antebellum structures, the Joseph Manigault House, built in 1803, reflects the urban lifestyle of a wealthy, rice-planting family and the enslaved African Americans who lived there. Read More

Kensington Mansion was completed in 1854 and placed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1971. Located in lower Richland County, South Carolina, it is an architectural and historical treasure. The Mansion is an Italianate Revival structure, furnished with the Scarborough-Hamer Collection of decorative arts from the Victorian Period. Read More

Although only one house stands today, the Mann-Simons Site was a collection of commercial and domestic spaces owned and operated by the same African-American family from at least 1843 until 1970. The property and its multiple buildings changed considerably over time to better accommodate the needs, tastes, and aspirations of this remarkable family. In 1970, through eminent domain, the… Read More

Middleton Place is a National Historic Landmark and home to America’s Oldest Landscaped Gardens. The Garden Club of America has called the 65 acres “the most important and most interesting garden in America”. Centuries-old camellias bloom in the winter months and azaleas blaze on the hillside above the Rice Mill Pond in the spring. In summer, kalmia, magnolias, crepe… Read More

One of only five National Historic Landmarks within Columbia, the Robert Mills House exemplifies the skill of the first architect born and trained within the United States who designed some of the nation's most prominent buildings, including the Washington Monument. Today, the structure stands as a testament of its designer's architectural ability and the preservation efforts of generations of… Read More

The historic White Home is one of the first homes in the area with the original portion of the home built in 1838. What started as a one-room cabin has become a large family home, serving five generations of the White family. From 1838 to 1912, the house was built upon and changed, creating a unique and lovely dwelling!… Read More

Since 1933 this property has operated as a historic house museum celebrating the life of Woodrow Wilson, the 28th president of the United States. Young Tommy Wilson's parents built this home in 1871 with the intent of remaining in Columbia. However, in 1874, Dr. Joseph Ruggles Wilson received a new posting and he and his family moved to Wilmington,… Read More