Mulberry Plantation

National Register Listing

Street Address:

Off U.S. 52 on Cooper River (Berkeley County)

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NRHP Nomination

Record Number:

S10817708011

Description and Narrative:

In plan, elevation, and architectural detail, Mulberry is in the first rank of American architectural landmarks. One of the earliest and most singular colonial plantation houses, Mulberry Plantation (1714) has long defied characterization in a single term. It has been called everything from Jacobean to Queen Anne to Baroque to early Georgian. Essentially a building with an eclectic uniqueness, Mulberry is a precious example of a single transitional structure which brings together a number of diverse indigenous seventeenth century forms, and creates a new unity which foretells the arrival of the eighteenth century Georgian formality. The plantation house was constructed by Thomas Broughton, Englishman, planter, and later Royal Governor of South Carolina, possibly as early as 1714, but certainly by 1725. The mansion was built over a cellar fort, with firing slits in the foundation walls. The square central block of the two-story mansion is laid in English bond brickwork, and the gambrelled roof is dormered and hipped above the wind beams, in the Virginia manner. The eaves are flared in the Flemish style, and the end walls have iron anchor ties, such as those used by the Dutch. Mulberry Plantation is the third oldest plantation house in South Carolina and one of the oldest brick dwellings to survive in the Carolinas and Georgia. Listed in the National Register October 15, 1966; Designated a National Historic Landmark October 9, 1960.

Period of Significance:

1714;18th century

Level of Significance:

National

Area of Significance:

Architecture

National Register Determination:

National Historic Landmark

Date of Certification:

October 15 1966

Date of Certification as a National Historic Landmark:

October 9 1960

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