Kiawah Island plantation sells for $20.5M, breaking Charleston-area record

The property includes a two-century old, 6,800-sq-ft house

The 1803 mansion surrounded by marshlands (Kiawah Island Real Estate)
The 1803 mansion surrounded by marshlands (Kiawah Island Real Estate)

A 16-acre property outside Charleston, South Carolina broke a local price record when it sold last week for $20.5 million.

The Vanderhorst Estate or Vanderhorst Plantation listed for $21 million in March, according to the Wall Street Journal. The sale surpassed the Charleston-area price record by $250,000. The buyer is an LLC.

The property includes a 6,800-square-foot plantation house dating to 1803 and two adjoining lots on Kiawah Island, a barrier island home to the Kiawah Island Golf Resort.

Built in 1803 by former Charleston Mayor and South Carolina Governor Arnoldus Vanderhorst II, the house replaced a previous structure that was burned down by British soldiers burned down during the Revolutionary War, according to city records.

The mansion was the anchor for Vanderhorst’s 3,000-acre plantation where he used slave labor to grow various crops. It was one of several plantations that the family operated in the region.

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The family sold the property in the mid-1950s and it was reportedly vacant for much of the 20th century. The house was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.

The property sold again in 1992 for $4.8 million to the Darby family, which owns several homes and golf facilities on the island.

It has six bedrooms and was without running water or electricity when the Darby family purchased it. There was also an alligator living in the basement, which the family killed and later had stuffed. They spent $7 million restoring and upgrading the property.

[WSJ] — Dennis Lynch