Williams Mansion
Framed by glorious Spanish oaks, the Williams Mansion remains the largest and most iconic single-family residence in Charleston, and thanks to restoration efforts, it is now open to the public for tours. Built by business tycoon George Walton Williams and finished in 1878, Charleston’s “Gilded Age Mansion” is a baronial Italianate Revival manor house filled with art and antiquities Williams collected from his extensive travels. Think oil paintings, Persian rugs, taxidermied wild animals, baroque tapestries, and ornate crystal chandeliers. At 24,000 square feet, the house includes 35 rooms, 23 period fireplaces, a stairwell that reaches to a domed ceiling of 75 feet, and a Music Room with a 45-foot glass skylight. Climb five flights to the Tower for a panoramic view of Charleston.
Aiken-Rhett House
As one of the only historic homes in Charleston that has been entirely preserved as found, the Aiken-Rhett House is a revealing glimpse into the city’s antebellum past. Built in 1820, the mansion was once home to Governor William Aiken Jr., one of the wealthiest Southern politicians and slaveholders, housing both his family and dozens of enslaved men, women, and children. With its pale yellow, peeling facade, wraparound double porches, and line of palms— as well as the original furnishings inside— this grand estate feels like a true time capsule, transporting visitors into a time in Charleston’s history that is as complicated as it was opulent. This is the ultimate study in contrasts; the self-guided audio tour begins in the slave quarters, which lie in the courtyard overlooked by the mansion’s windows, before bringing visitors into the house, where crystal chandeliers, gilded mirrors, and upholstered French furniture show how the prominent Aiken family once lived.
Nathaniel Russell House
Restored with elegance rather than precisely preserved, the Nathaniel Russell House offers visitors a portal into the lives of Charleston’s early-19th century mercantile elite. A wealthy slave merchant and trader, Russell oversaw the five-year construction of the townhouse, moving his family— along with eighteen enslaved people— to the large Federal Style home in 1808. Today, the house has been restored as close as possible to its original look, including its three-story spiral “flying” staircase, whose unique cantilevered structure makes the steps look as if they’re floating mid-air. The restoration project’s most recent phase involved the excavation of the kitchen house cellar, where slaves would work to prepare meals. It’s a rare opportunity to witness how enslaved people would work and live for families like the Russells. Visitors can learn all about the excavation and its wealth of historic finds from beef and pork bones to indigenous pottery and pieces of graphite pencils, likely used by enslaved laundresses to mark completed batches of laundry.
Heyward-Washington House
Now open to visitors and run by the Charleston Museum, the Heyward-Washington House has seen many storied owners and visitors since it was built in 1772. This Georgian-style double house was named after two of America’s Founding Fathers: Thomas Heyward Jr., a signer of the Declaration of Independence who originally owned the house, and George Washington, to whom Heyward rented the house for the President’s weeklong stay in Charleston in 1791. In 1794, Heyward sold the house to John F. Grimké, a Revolutionary War officer, jurist, and father to Sarah and Angeline Grimké, famous abolitionists and suffragettes. The house is now filled with Charleston-made furniture that exemplifies the colonial style, and out back, visitors can wander through lovely parterre gardens.
Joseph Manigault House
Another property owned and operated by the Charleston Museum (and a stone’s throw away from it), the Joseph Manigault House is one of the best examples of the city’s antebellum architecture— particularly the “Adam” style, an ornate neoclassical 18th century aesthetic popular among wealthy Southerners. The three-story brick house was built for his brother by architect Gabriel Manigault, whose studies focused on the style pioneered by Robert Adam in London. At one point the wealthiest family in South Carolina and all of British North America, the Manigaults were Charlestonian elite, regulars of the city’s social scene. The interior of the house reflects the family’s elegant European-inspired taste; think refined moldings, ornamental fireplace mantels, curved walls, and domed ceilings. Set to be demolished and replaced with a gas station in 1920, local preservationists stepped in to save this architectural marvel.
