Boone Hall

Slave Street, Smokehouse, and Allee, Boone Hall Plantation

The main house at Boone Hall
Nearest city Mount Pleasant, South Carolina
Coordinates 32°51′27.21″N 79°49′19.37″W / 32.8575583°N 79.8220472°W / 32.8575583; -79.8220472Coordinates: 32°51′27.21″N 79°49′19.37″W / 32.8575583°N 79.8220472°W / 32.8575583; -79.8220472
Area 738 acres (298.7 ha)
Built 1936 (reconstruction)
1681 (settled)
Architect Beers, William Harmon; Trott, C.M. Abby Hatifield
Architectural style Colonial Revival
NRHP Reference # 83002187[1] (original)
93001512[1] (increase)
Significant dates
Added to NRHP July 14, 1983
Boundary increase January 21, 1994

The Boone Hall Plantation and Gardens is an antebellum era plantation located in Mount Pleasant, Charleston County, South Carolina, U.S.A., and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.[1][2][3][4]

The plantation includes a large Colonial Revival plantation house (completed in 1936) that replaced the lost original house on the site, a number of slave cabins or cottages (which were occupied by sharecroppers well into the 20th century), several flower gardens, and the historic "Avenue of Oaks:" an expanse of over a kilometer along the up to the house[5] with southern live oaks on either side, originally planted in 1743.

Boone Hall plantation sits on Wampacheeoone Creek in Christ Church Parish about 10 miles (16 km) from historic downtown Charleston, South Carolina.

History

The earliest known reference to the site is of 1681, in a land grant of 470 acres (1.9 km2)from owner Theophilus Patey, to his daughter Elizabeth and her new husband, Major John Boone. Apparently, cultivation was started on the tract almost immediately; a wooden house was raised on the tract in 1790. It was a two-story frame house with a one-story front porch.

A 1900 photograph shows the former house.

The house that stands now was built by Thomas Stone, a Canadian who purchased the land in 1935. He wanted a "grander style" home than what was there, so he built the Colonial Revival-style house that stands there today in 1936.[6] The bricks in the house were made in the Horlbeck brickyard.[6] The house was designed by Beers and Farley of New York.[6] Mr. Stone also reinvigorated the pecan farming operation at the plantation, focusing on about 200 acres of what had been a 700-acre pecan farm.[6] He also built an electrical plant which created power from the tides of the nearby rivers to power the plantation.[6]

On the grounds today, besides the house, sit nine of the original slave cabins which date back to 1790-1810, a smokehouse dating from 1750, a Cotton Gin house (1853), and the grand Avenue of Oaks that was created in 1743 and completed in 1843. The live oak trees run 3/4 of a mile long from the entrance to the front house gates. Boone Hall Plantation today spans 738 acres that includes seasonal crop fields, naturally preserved wetlands, creeks, and ponds.

The plantation was named one of the African American Historic Places in South Carolina.[7]

Owners over the years are as follows: Theophilus Patey, Major John Boone (founder), Fenwick, Hickman, Thomas Vardell (1811), John and Henry Horlbeck (1817), Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Stone (1935), Georgian Prince Dimitri Djordjadze (1940), Dr. Henry Deas and his wife Adele Deas (1945), and Harris M. McRae and his wife, Nancy Thomas (1955). The McRaes opened the plantation to the public in 1956 and have made great efforts to preserve the original structures and gardens.

Boone Hall Farms

Boone Hall Plantation is one of America's oldest working plantations, continually growing crops for over 320 years. Boone Hall Farms is the present agricultural arm that operates this part of the plantation. April to June, strawberries are the centerpiece at Boone Hall Farms. The annual Lowcountry Strawberry Festival caps off the peak of each season and thousands of pounds of strawberries are picked from Boone Hall Farms U-Pick fields. Spring planting annually includes tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, watermelons, sweet corn, and other produce that is part of the Boone Hall Farms farm-to-table program that is featured in over 35 Lowcountry businesses and restaurants. These crops are harvested throughout the summer months during the peak of the South Carolina growing season. Plans are presently underway to expand the tomato crop rotation that will produce deep into the fall growing season along with the pumpkin crop. Boone Hall Farms Market opened in 2006 as an outlet for its crops as well as featuring other fresh local South Carolina-grown produce. This market is open throughout the year and additionally features a variety of other food products, a market cafe, fresh local seafood, and a floral/gift shop.

While there is no photographing or filming of the house allowed on the tours, the house and grounds have appeared in NBC's television soap opera Days of Our Lives, ABC's mini-series North and South (as Mont Royal) and the movies Queen and The Notebook.[8]

Other films of note:

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 National Park Service (2010-07-09). "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service.
  2. Wells, John E. (August 4, 1972). "Slave Street, Smokehouse, and Allee, Boone Hall Plantation" (pdf). National Register of Historic Places - Nomination and Inventory. Retrieved 10 June 2012.
  3. Frick, Sarah (June 30, 1993). "Boone Hall Plantation House and Historic Landscape" (pdf). National Register of Historic Places - Nomination and Inventory. Retrieved 10 June 2012.
  4. "Boone Hall Plantation, Charleston County (Long Point Road, off U.S. Hwy. 17, Mount Pleasant vicinity)". National Register Properties in South Carolina. South Carolina Department of Archives and History. Retrieved 10 June 2012.
  5. Located at 1235 Long Point Road, Mount Pleasant SC 29464-9020
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 "Tide Harnessed at Boone Hall to Furnish Power for Entire Plantation". News and Courier. Charleston SC. November 8, 1936. p. 3C. Retrieved 1 May 2016.
  7. African American Historic Places in South Carolina Archived March 30, 2009, at the Wayback Machine.
  8. McGuire, Judy (February 28, 2009). "Romance, Movie Style - Love on Location - The Notebook". Time. Retrieved 3 January 2013.
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