Less than two hours drive north from Charleston, Brookgreen Gardens offers a remarkable day trip filled with visual splendor. The 9200-acre tract is a famed sculpture garden and natural habitat, boasting elegant metallic and stone figures that accentuate lush botanical backgrounds.
Created from a group of former rice plantations by the Huntington family in 1931, the gardens now display more than 1200 featured works of such renowned sculptors as Adolph A. Weinman, who created the frieze of the US Supreme Court, and Glenna Goodacre, creator of the Vietnam Women’s Memorial in Washington DC. The largest sculpture at Brookgreen, Laura Gardin Fraser’s Pegasus, is carved from 1575 feet of white granite, and took nine years to complete.
Brookgreen is an eye-catching palate, featuring a 250 year-old live oak allee’, sparkling fountain vistas in four separate garden regions, and a stunning wildlife preserve where otters, deer, ibis, and owls roam and fly. With tens of thousands of blooms, the gardens attract some of the most colorful assortment of butterflies ever seen. Dazzling Monarchs, Swallowtails, and Fritillaries add a dimension of colorful motion to the stunning surroundings.
In warmer months, Brookgreen offers guided garden and wetland excursions by vehicle or boat, charging a fee extra to the very reasonable admission price.
To get to Brookgreen Gardens, drive north on US highway 17 to Pawley’s Island, take the 17 bypass, and look for entrance signs across from Huntington Beach State Park, 70 miles north of Charleston.
