Richmond Plantation
National Register Listing
Street Address:
SE of Cordesville (Berkeley County)
Alternate Name:
Girl Scout Plantation
NRHP Nomination
Record Number:
S10817708019
Description and Narrative:
(Girl Scout Plantation) Richmond Plantation includes a manor house and outbuildings constructed ca.1927 as a hunting lodge for George A. Ellis. The property also contains a cemetery and archeological features associated with an eighteenth and nineteenth century rice plantation owned by John Harleston (1733-1793). The manor house and outbuildings are historically important for their association with Ellis, a prominent New York financier and co-founder of E.F. Hutton. The complex is also significant as an example of the phenomenon of the purchase and development of nonproductive southern plantations by wealthy northerners in the years between 1890 and 1940. The manor house, designed by the New York architectural firm of Clinton and Russell, is significant as an example of an American interpretation of the Shavian Manor Style, a style defined by the neo-medieval work of the English architect Richard Norman Shaw. This style is characterized by the high-pitched slate roof and the broad brick chimney stacks which dominate the low masonry mass of the building. The asymmetrical manor house is a 1 ½ story building with a rectangular central mass, and two single story wings, each set at an angle 15° north of the longitudinal axis of the central block. Brickwork is common bond, and the bricks may have been salvaged from a Charleston theatre. The manor house features two massive brick chimneys that hold iron masks, purportedly representing King Charles I of England in a grotesque grimace. Four outbuildings also in the Shavian Manorial Style, a carriage house, dog house, guest house and gate house, are also located on the property. A one story log house, three one-story frame cabins, a cemetery and archaeological features of the original plantation also remain. In 1963 the property was sold to the Low Country Girl Scout Council, who maintains it as a camp. Listed in the National Register November 24, 1980.
Period of Significance:
circa 1927;19th century;20th century
Level of Significance:
State
Area of Significance:
Architecture;Archeology: Historic - Non-Aboriginal;Agriculture;Social History
National Register Determination:
listed
Date of Certification:
November 24 1980
