Moon Coastal Carolinas

by Jim Morekis

  Today, Magnolia is a place to bring the whole family, picnic under the massive old live oaks, and wander the lush, almost overgrown grounds. Children will enjoy finding their way through “The Maze” of manicured camellia and holly bushes, complete with a viewing stand to look within the giant puzzle. Plant lovers will enjoy the themed gardens such as the Biblical Garden, the Barbados Tropical Garden, and the Audubon Swamp Garden, complete with alligators and named after John James Audubon, who visited here in 1851. House tours, the 45-minute Nature Train tour, the 45-minute Nature Boat tour, and a visit to the Audubon Swamp Garden run about $8 per person extra for each offering.

  Of particular interest is the poignant old Drayton Tomb, along the Ashley River. Look closely at the nose of one of the cherubs on the tomb; it was shot off by a vengeful Union soldier. Nearby you’ll find a nice walking and biking trail along the Ashley among the old paddy fields.

  S Middleton Place

  Not only the first landscaped garden in America but still one of the most magnificent in the world, Middleton Place (4300 Ashley River Rd., 843/556-6020, www.middletonplace.org, daily 9am-5pm, $28 adults, $15 students, $10 children, guided house tour $15 extra) is a sublime, unforgettable combination of history and sheer natural beauty. Nestled along a quiet bend in the Ashley River, the grounds contain a historic restored home, working stables, and 60 acres of breathtaking gardens, all manicured to perfection. A stunning piece of modern architecture, the Inn at Middleton Place, completes the package in surprisingly harmonic fashion.

  First granted in 1675, Middleton Place is the culmination of the Lowcountry rice plantation aesthetic. That sensibility is most immediate in the graceful Butterfly Lakes at the foot of the green landscaped terrace leading up to the foundation of the Middleton Place House itself, the only surviving remnant of the vengeful Union occupation.

  In 1741 the plantation became the family seat of the Middletons, one of the most notable surnames in U.S. history. The first head of the household was Henry Middleton, president of the First Continental Congress, who began work on the gardens. The plantation passed to his son Arthur, a signer of the Declaration of Independence; then on to Arthur’s son Henry, governor of South Carolina; and then down to Henry’s son Williams Middleton, a signer of the Ordinance of Secession.

  As the Civil War wound down, on February 22, 1865, the 56th New York Volunteers burned the main house and destroyed the gardens, leaving only the circa-1755 guest wing, which today is the Middleton Place House Museum. The great earthquake of 1886 added insult to injury by wrecking the Butterfly Lakes.

  It wasn’t until 1916 that renovation began. In 1971 Middleton Place was named a National Historic Landmark, and 20 years later the International Committee on Monuments and Sites named Middleton Place one of six U.S. gardens of international importance.

  All that’s left of the great house are the remains of the foundation, still majestic in ruin. Today visitors can tour the excellently restored Middleton Place House Museum (4300 Ashley River Rd., 843/556-6020, www.middletonplace.org, guided tours Mon. 1:30pm-4:30pm, Tues.-Sun. 10am-4:30pm, $15)—actually the only remaining “flanker” building—and see furniture, silverware, china, and books belonging to the Middletons as well as family portraits by Thomas Sully and Benjamin West.

  A short walk takes you to the Plantation Stableyards, where costumed craftspeople still work using historically authentic tools and methods, surrounded by a happy family of domestic animals. The newest addition to the Stableyards is a pair of magnificent male water buffalo. Henry Middleton originally brought a pair in to work the rice fields—the first in North America—but today they’re just there to relax and add atmosphere. They bear the Turkish names of Adem (the brown one) and Berk (the white one), or “Earth” and “Solid.” Meet the fellas daily 9am-5pm.

  If you’re like most folks, however, you’ll best enjoy simply wandering and marveling at the gardens. “Meandering” is not the right word to describe them, since they’re systematically laid out. “Intricate” is the word I prefer, and that sums up the attention to detail that characterizes all the garden’s portions, each with a distinct personality and landscape design template.

  To get a real feel for how things used to be here, for an extra $15 per person, you can take a 45-minute carriage ride through the bamboo forest to an abandoned rice field. Rides start around 10am and run every hour or so, weather permitting.

  The 53-room Inn at Middleton Place (843/556-0500, www.theinnatmiddletonplace.com, $215-285), besides being a wholly gratifying lodging experience, is also a quite self-conscious and largely successful experiment. Its bold Frank Lloyd Wright-influenced modern design, comprising four units joined by walkways, is modern. But both inside and outside it manages to blend quite well with the surrounding fields, trees, and riverbanks. The inn also offers kayak tours and instruction—a particularly nice way to enjoy the grounds from the waters of the Ashley—and features its own organic garden and labyrinth, intriguing modern counterpoints to the formal gardens of the plantation itself.

  They still grow the exquisite Carolina Gold rice in a field at Middleton Place, harvested in the old style each September. You can sample some of it in many dishes at the Middleton Place Restaurant (843/556-6020, www.middletonplace.org, lunch daily 11am-3pm, dinner Sun. and Tues.-Thurs. 6pm-8pm, Fri.-Sat. 6pm-9pm, $15-25). Tip: You can tour the gardens for free if you arrive for a dinner reservation at 5:30pm or later.

  The Coburg Cow

  The entire stretch of U.S. 17 (Savannah Highway) heading into Charleston from the west is redolent of a particularly Southern brand of retro Americana. The chief example is the famous Coburg Cow, a large, rotating dairy cow accompanied by a bottle of chocolate milk. The current installation dates from 1959, though a version of it was on this site as far back as the early 1930s when this area was open countryside. During Hurricane Hugo the Coburg Cow was moved to a safe location. In 2001 the attached dairy closed down, and the city threatened to have the cow moved or demolished. But community outcry preserved the delightful landmark, which is visible today on the south side of U.S. 17 in the 900 block. You can’t miss it—it’s a big cow on the side of the road!

  NORTH CHARLESTON

  For years synonymous with crime, blight, and sprawl, North Charleston—actually a separate municipality—was for the longest time considered a necessary evil by most Charlestonians, who generally ventured there only to shop at a mall or see a show at its concert venue, the Coliseum. But as the cost of real estate continues to rise on the peninsula in Charleston proper, more and more artists and young professionals are choosing to live here. Make no mistake: North Charleston still has its share of crime and squalor, but some of the most exciting things going on in the metro area are taking place right here.

  While many insisted that the closing of the U.S. Navy Yard in the 1990s would be the economic death of the whole city, the free market stepped in and is transforming the former military facility into a hip mixed-use shopping and residential area. This is also where to go if you want to see the raised submarine CSS Hunley, now in a research area on the grounds of the old Navy Yard.

  In short, North Charleston offers a lot for the more adventurous traveler and will no doubt only become more and more important to the local tourist industry as the years go by. And as they’re fond of pointing out up here, there aren’t any parking meters.

  Magnolia Cemetery

  Although not technically in North Charleston, historic Magnolia Cemetery (70 Cunnington Ave., 843/722-8638, Sept.-May daily 8am-5pm, June-Aug. daily 8am-6pm) is on the way, well north of the downtown tourist district in the area called “the Neck.” This historic burial ground, while not quite the aesthetic equal of Savannah’s Bonaventure, is still a stirring site for its natural beauty and ornate memorials as well as for its historical aspects. Here are buried the crewmen who died aboard the CSS Hunley, reinterred after their retrieval from Charleston Harbor. In all, over 2,000 Civil War dead are buried here, including five Confederate generals and 8
4 rebels who fell at Gettysburg and were moved here.

  Charleston Navy Yard

  A vast postindustrial wasteland to some and a fascinating outdoor museum to others, the Charleston Navy Yard is in the baby steps of rehabilitation from one of the Cold War era’s major military centers to the largest single urban redevelopment project in the United States. At the north end lies the new Riverfront Park (843/745-1087, daily dawn-dusk) in the old Chicora Gardens military residential area. There’s a nifty little fishing pier on the Cooper River, an excellent naval-themed band shell, and many sleekly designed modernist sculptures paying tribute to the sailors and ships that made history here.

  From Charleston, you get to the Navy Yard by taking I-26 north to exit 216B (you can reach the I-26 junction by just going north on Meeting Street). After exiting, take a left onto Spruill Avenue and a right onto McMillan Avenue, which takes you straight in.

  S CSS Hunley

  For the longest time, the only glimpse of the ill-fated Confederate submarine afforded to visitors was a not-quite-accurate replica outside the Charleston Museum. But after maritime novelist and adventurer Clive Cussler and his team finally found the CSS Hunley in 1995 off Sullivan’s Island, the tantalizing dream became a reality: We’d finally find out what it looked like, and perhaps even be lucky enough to bring it to the surface. That moment came on August 8, 2000, when a team comprising the nonprofit Friends of the Hunley (Warren Lasch Conservation Center, 1250 Supply St., Bldg. 255, 866/866-9938, www.hunley.org, Sat. 10am-5pm, Sun. noon-5pm, $12, free under age 5), the federal government, and private partners successfully implemented a plan to safely raise the vessel.

  It’s now on the grounds of the old Navy Yard at Warren Lasch Conservation Center (1250 Supply St., Bldg. 255, 866/866-9938, www.hunley.org, Sat. 10am-5pm, Sun. noon-5pm, $12, free under age 5), named after Warren Lasch, chairman of the Friends of the Hunley. You can view the sub, see the life-size model from the TNT movie The Hunley, and look at artifacts such as the “lucky” gold piece of the commander. You can even see facial reconstructions of some of the eight sailors who died on board the sub that fateful February day in 1864, when it mysteriously sank right after successfully destroying the USS Housatonic with the torpedo attached to its bow.

  Raising the Hunley

  The amazing, unlikely raising of the Confederate submarine CSS Hunley from the muck of Charleston Harbor sounds like the plot of an adventure novel—which makes sense considering that the major player is an adventure novelist. For 15 years, the undersea diver and best-selling author Clive Cussler looked for the final resting place of the Hunley. The sub was mysteriously lost at sea after sinking the USS Housatonic on February 17, 1864, with the high-explosive “torpedo” mounted on a long spar on its bow. It marked the first time a sub ever sank a ship in battle.

  For over a century before Cussler, treasure-seekers had searched for the sub, with P. T. Barnum even offering $100,000 to the first person to find it. But on May 3, 1995, a magnetometer operated by Cussler and his group, the National Underwater Marine Agency, discovered the Hunley’s final resting place—in 30 feet of water and under three feet of sediment about four miles off Sullivan’s Island at the mouth of the harbor. Using a specially designed truss to lift the entire sub, a 19-person dive crew and a team of archaeologists began a process that would result in raising the vessel on August 8, 2000. But before the sub could be brought up, a dilemma had to be solved: For 136 years the saltwater of the Atlantic had permeated its metallic skin. Exposure to air would rapidly disintegrate the entire thing. So the conservation team, with input from the U.S. Navy, came up with a plan to keep the vessel intact at the specially constructed Warren Lasch Conservation Center (1250 Supply St., Bldg. 255, 866/866-9938, www.hunley.org, Sat. 10am-5pm, Sun. noon-5pm, $12, free under age 5) in the old Navy Yard while research and conservation was performed on it piece by piece.

  Upon seeing the almost unbelievably tiny, cramped vessel—much smaller than most experts imagined it would be—visitors are often visibly moved at the bravery and sacrifice of the nine-man Confederate crew, who no doubt would have known that the Hunley’s two previous crews had drowned at sea in training accidents. Theirs was, in effect, a suicide mission. That the crew surely realized this only makes the modern visitor’s experience even more poignant.

  The Lasch Center, operated under the auspices of Clemson University, is only open to the public on weekends. Archaeology continues apace during the week—inch by painstaking inch, muck and tiny artifacts removed millimeter by millimeter. The process is so thorough that archaeologists have even identified an individual eyelash from one of the crewmembers. Other interesting artifacts include a three-fold wallet with a leather strap, owner unknown; seven canteens; and a wooden cask in one of the ballast tanks, maybe used to hold water or liquor or even used as a chamber pot.

  The very first order of business once the sub was brought up, however, was properly burying those brave sailors. In 2004, Charleston came to a stop as a ceremonial funeral procession took the remains of the nine to historic Magnolia Cemetery, where they were buried with full military honors.

  So that research and conservation can be performed during the week, tours only happen on Saturday-Sunday. Because of this limited window of opportunity and the popularity of the site, reserve tickets ahead of time. To get to the Warren Lasch Center from Charleston, take I-26 north to exit 216B. Take a left onto Spruill Avenue and a right onto McMillan Avenue. Once in the Navy Yard, take a right onto Hobson Avenue, and after about one mile take a left onto Supply Street. The Lasch Center is the low white building on the left.

  Park Circle

  The focus of restoration in North Charleston is the old Park Circle neighborhood (intersection of Rhett Ave. and Montague Ave., www.parkcircle.net). The adjacent Olde North Charleston development has a number of quality shops, bars, and restaurants.

  Fire Museum

  It’s got a mouthful of a name, but the North Charleston and American LaFrance Fire Museum and Educational Center (4975 Centre Pointe Dr., 843/740-5550, www.legacyofheroes.org, Mon.-Sat. 10am-5pm, Sun. 1pm-5pm, last ticket 4pm, $6 adults, free under age 14), right next to the huge Tanger Outlet mall, does what it does with a lot of chutzpah—which is fitting considering that it pays tribute to firefighters and the tools of their dangerous trade.

  The museum, which opened in 2007 and shares a huge 25,000-square-foot space with the North Charleston Visitors Center, is primarily dedicated to maintaining and increasing its collection of antique American LaFrance firefighting vehicles and equipment. The 18 fire engines here date from 1857 to 1969. The museum’s exhibits have taken on greater poignancy in the wake of the tragic loss of nine Charleston firefighters killed trying to extinguish a warehouse blaze on U.S. 17 in summer 2007—second only to the 9/11 attacks as the largest single loss of life for a U.S. firefighting department.

  EAST COOPER

  The main destination in this area on the east bank of the Cooper River is the island of Mount Pleasant, primarily known as a peaceful, fairly affluent suburb of Charleston—a role it has played for about 300 years now. Although few old-timers (called “hungry necks” in local lingo) remain, Mount Pleasant does have several key attractions well worth visiting—the old words of former Charleston mayor John Grace notwithstanding: “Mount Pleasant is neither a mount, nor is it pleasant.” Through Mount Pleasant is also the only land route to access Sullivan’s Island, Isle of Palms, and historic Fort Moultrie. Shem Creek, which bisects Mount Pleasant, was once the center of the local shrimping industry, and while there aren’t near as many shrimp boats as there once were, you can still see them docked or on their way to and from a trawling run. (Needless to say, there are a lot of good seafood restaurants around here as well.) The most common route for visitors from Charleston is by way of U.S. 17 over the massive Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge.

  Patriots Point Naval and Maritime Museum

  Directly across Charleston Harbor from the old city lies the Patriots Point Naval and Mar
itime Museum (40 Patriots Point Rd., 843/884-2727, www.patriotspoint.org, daily 9am-6:30pm, $20 adults, $12 ages 6-11, free under age 6 and active-duty military), one of the first chapters in Charleston’s tourism renaissance.

  Patriots Point and the USS Yorktown

  The project began in 1975 with what is still its main attraction, the World War II aircraft carrier USS Yorktown, named in honor of the carrier lost at the Battle of Midway. Much of “The Fighting Lady” is open to the public, and kids and nautical buffs will thrill to walk the decks and explore the many stations below deck on this massive 900-foot vessel, a veritable floating city. You can even have a full meal in the CPO Mess Hall just like the crew once did (except you’ll have to pay $8.50 pp). If you really want to get up close and personal, try the Navy Flight Simulator for a small additional fee. Speaking of planes, aviation buffs will be overjoyed to see that the Yorktown flight deck (the top of the ship) and the hangar deck (right below) are packed with authentic warplanes, not only from World War II but from subsequent conflicts the ship participated in.