Saturday, December 14, 2013

Atalaya Castle at Huntington Beach State Park

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   Anna and Archer  Huntington, who created Brookgreen Gardens as a public garden, kept a section of the property for a private, secluded residence and studio. They built a Moorish style house where they spent the winters during the 1930s and 40s. The house, which resembles a fort from the exterior, is constructed of bricks with a courtyard in the center and rooms around three sides of the perimeter. The interior is very plain and completely empty. A small fee is charged for self guided tours.

  The house and property surrounding it is now a beautiful state park with a campground, nature center, white sand beach, and boardwalks that extend out over the marsh.
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  The house is accessible but a little backtracking is necessary to see all of the rooms. The nature center is accessed by a long ADA compliant ramp. The boardwalks are accessible. The campground has four sites marked as accessible but we didn’t see any difference between them and the other sites but they are close to the restrooms. The parking pads are hard packed sand.The tables have short overhangs.
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   The campground is nicely shaded by live oaks. The sites have good spacing between them but not much privacy. Some of the sites are long enough for almost any RV. Seven South Carolina state parks are participating in a snowbird program – 1/2 off the monthly camping rates for December, January and February. Normally the sites are about $20.00 – $25.00 a night which includes electricity and water. The daily entrance fee does not apply to campers.

  The entrance to the park is not very well marked. There’s a sign for wildlife viewing area at the only road into the park. US 17 is a busy highway and it’s hard to spot the sign in time to turn.  Park
33.50175, -79.06758
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