As those of you who follow this blog may know, we also went out to the beach at Huntington Beach State Park in Murrells Inlet, SC one day on our vacation this summer. As you enter the park you will drive over a causeway that divides a salt water march from a fresh water lagoon. Look to your right to see some of the alligators that are present in the fresh water area only. We go to the beach that you will reach if you bare right and park by the campground offices and beach showers. The beach here is great but there are no lifeguards on duty so it is swim at your own risk.
See my blog Was That You? A Vacation Encounter With a Real Estate Twist for one of the experiences of this day. As mentioned in that blog we toured Atalaya, which was built by Archer and Anna Hyatt Huntington in the 1930s. They bought four former rice plantations and built a winter home and sculpture garden. The sculptures and gardens can be toured at Brookgreen Gardens which is a separate property from the state park. We did not tour Brookgreen yet but it is on our future trip plans.
This is the long roadway that leads from the house to the sculpture garden. The gardens themselves are on the opposite side of Hwy 17 today.
Atalaya means the tower and the house is named for this tower which was the first thing the Huntingtons built. The entire structure is brick and mortar built in the style of a Moorish Castle. The tower actually housed a fresh water system which was very innovative for the time. The bricks were placed in an open pattern to encourage bats to roost there because Huntington had noticed that bats helped to keep mosquitoes away.
This is a view of the left side of the courtyard. The house surrounds the tower in the courtyard.
These steps allowed the Huntingtons to stand on top of the roof and view the ocean from the house.
This is a view of the courtyard from the inside of the living room. The interior of the house is empty today. It faced much abuse over the years before the state leased the property from Brookhaven Gardens. They have cleaned it up and it is truly amazing.
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