Date of Award

Spring 2026

Degree Type

Thesis

Department

History

Director of Thesis

Dr. Jessica Elfenbein

Second Reader

Dr. Jeanne Britton

Abstract

In 1930, Archer Huntington, a scholar of Hispanic studies, used a portion of the fortune he inherited from the Central Pacific Railroad to purchase The Oaks, Brookgreen, Springfield, and Laurel Hill plantations in coastal South Carolina and build Atalaya Castle, a winter home on the Atlantic. His wife Anna Hyatt Huntington, a sculptor, led the effort to turn the 19,000 acres into America’s first public sculpture garden, known since as Brookgreen Gardens. In the construction process, some structures from Brookgreen Plantation were repurposed while others were removed from the landscape.

Though Brookgreen Gardens has since interpreted its plantation history through the Lowcountry Trail (a boardwalk past Brookgreen Plantation’s former rice field with an audio tour and interpretive panels) and the Lowcountry Center (which houses special events and daily programming on lowcountry history and culture, including four history tours available to visitors for an additional fee), the adaptive reuse of plantation structures in the Huntington Sculpture Gardens area has not yet been significantly included or interpreted in an accessible way. This Honors Thesis aims to rectify this gap by providing an ArcGIS StoryMap that allows visitors to visualize three key sites of adaptive reuse on the Brookgreen property all salvaged from Brookgreen Plantation: the Brookgreen House Site, the Old Kitchen, and the Overseer’s House. By exploring sites of adaptive reuse, visitors will see a chronological display of archival photographs held by Georgetown County Digital Library along with new text documenting the site’s historical changes. This interpretive tool makes archival materials accessible for public understanding, using digital storytelling to build a fuller, more comprehensive narrative of how the plantation landscape became Brookgreen Gardens.

Comments

This project was completed with the aid and permission of Brookgreen Gardens Art and Historical Collections and Georgetown Digital Libraries. The digital deliverable associated with the project, an ArcGIS StoryMap, is linked in the appendix.

Author: Lola "Gracie" Bellah

First Page

1

Last Page

26

Rights

© 2026, Lola G. Bellah

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