Boone Hall Plantation

Boone Hall Plantation is a 738-acre historic site and working farm on Long Point Road in Mount Pleasant, 8 miles from downtown Charleston. It has been growing crops continuously since 1681, when Theophilus Patey deeded 470 acres on Wampacheone Creek to his daughter Elizabeth and her new husband, Major John Boone, as a wedding gift.

One ticket covers the whole property: a guided tour of the mansion's first floor, a tractor-drawn tour of the farm, the gardens, short history talks throughout the day, and the Black History in America exhibit housed in the slave cabins. Nothing on site costs extra once you're through the gate.

One thing to know before you go, because most visitors find out on arrival: the white-columned house at the end of the oaks is not antebellum. It went up in 1936. The oldest and most important buildings at Boone Hall are the brick cabins where enslaved people lived, and the plantation, to its credit, now treats them that way.

A short history, without the moonlight

The Boone family held the land until 1811. In the early 1800s it passed to Henry and John Horlbeck, Charleston builders who turned Boone Hall into a brick factory: by 1850 the plantation's brickyard was turning out four million handmade bricks a year, molded and fired by enslaved workers. Those bricks went into buildings still standing in downtown Charleston. The Horlbecks also planted pecan groves, and by the end of the 1800s Boone Hall was one of the leading pecan producers in the country.

The house most visitors expect to be original is not. When Thomas Stone, a Canadian, bought the property in 1935, the farmhouse on the site was in poor shape. He demolished it and built the current Colonial Revival mansion in 1936. The plantation then cycled through several owners, including a Georgian prince named Dimitri Jorjadze who raised racehorses here, before Harris and Nancy McRae bought it in 1955 and opened it to visitors. The McRae family still owns Boone Hall today, which makes it a rarity: a major Charleston attraction that is privately held rather than run by a trust or foundation. The property was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.

Then there is the Avenue of Oaks, the three-quarter-mile corridor of moss-hung live oaks you drive through on the way in. Tradition says Captain Thomas Boone, Major John's son, planted the first trees in 1743. The historical record credits the Horlbeck family with completing the avenue around 1843. Either way, roughly 88 oaks have had well over a century and a half to grow into each other, and the drive in is the single most photographed thing on the property.

The slave cabins and the Gullah presentation

Boone Hall's nine brick cabins were built between 1790 and 1810, from brick made on the plantation, and they still stand in a row along the original entrance road. That survival is unusual. Most slave dwellings in the South were wood and are long gone; these were brick because Boone Hall made brick, and they are among the few original cabin rows a visitor can walk through anywhere.

Each cabin now holds a chapter of the Black History in America exhibit. One is set up as a praise house, the plain worship space enslaved people were permitted. Others cover family life under slavery, the sweetgrass basket tradition that still lines the roadsides of Mount Pleasant, archaeological finds dug on the property, emancipation, and the civil rights era. It is a self-paced exhibit, and it rewards slowing down. Short talks on the lives of the enslaved people who lived and worked here run in front of the cabins throughout the day.

The other thing you should not skip is the Exploring the Gullah Culture presentation, a live performance of storytelling and song at the small outdoor theater near the cabins. The performers are descendants of the Gullah people, whose culture and Creole language grew out of the West African communities enslaved on Lowcountry rice and cotton plantations. Boone Hall says it is the only plantation in the South Carolina Lowcountry presenting Gullah culture live, and shows run a few times a day, with the schedule posted at the gate. If you see one thing here beyond the cabins, see this.

Visiting today

Check in at the hospitality center when you arrive and put your name down for a house tour, since times fill on busy days. The guided tour covers the first floor only, so it is a modest part of the visit. The tractor-drawn Farm and Nature Tour runs 30 to 40 minutes and loops the full 738 acres, past the crop fields, the creek, and the woods. The formal gardens in front of the mansion are self-guided, and stable tours, a newer addition, run during the day. Leashed dogs are welcome on the grounds but not inside the house.

The farm is not a museum exhibit. Boone Hall plants about 120 acres, and in season you can pick your own strawberries in spring, blueberries in summer, and muscadine grapes in fall. The Lowcountry Strawberry Festival takes over the grounds from late April into early May (April 24 to May 3 in 2026), and the Boone Hall Pumpkin Patch runs from late September through Halloween, with a corn maze and a petting zoo. If you're here in the fall, our Charleston in October guide covers how the pumpkin patch fits into the season.

Boone Hall is also one of Charleston's busiest wedding venues. Ceremonies start after the gates close to day visitors at 5 PM, so a wedding won't usually shorten your visit, but the plantation does close fully for two annual events, the Lowcountry Oyster Festival in late January and Wine Under the Oaks in early December, and the schedule can shift on event days. A glance at the calendar on the official site before you drive out is worth it. Movie trivia, since everyone asks: the mansion's exterior played Allie's summer house in The Notebook (the interiors were filmed at the Calhoun Mansion downtown), and the grounds appeared in the 1985 miniseries North and South.

Is it worth it?

For most first-time visitors, yes. Boone Hall is the most polished and family-friendly of the Charleston plantations: the oak avenue delivers, the wagon tour and farm animals keep kids engaged, and the slave cabins and Gullah presentation are genuinely substantive history, presented by people with a direct connection to it. At $30 with everything included, a three-hour visit holds up against anything at a similar price in Charleston.

Skip it, or pick differently, if an original antebellum house matters to you (the 1936 mansion and its first-floor-only tour will disappoint), or if gardens are your main reason for plantation-going. Magnolia Plantation has the older, wilder gardens and grounds that feel less manicured; our Boone Hall vs Magnolia comparison walks through the choice, and the plantations hub covers the full field. Be aware, too, that Boone Hall runs as a commercial operation with festivals and weddings, so it can feel more produced than solemn. Some travelers want exactly that, and some don't.

Getting there

Boone Hall is at 1235 Long Point Rd in Mount Pleasant, off US-17 North about 8 miles from downtown Charleston, a 20-minute drive over the Ravenel Bridge outside of rush hour. Parking is free and plentiful. Note the Sunday hours: the gates don't open until noon.

If you don't have a car, a tour with transport is the practical route. The Boone Hall entry ticket with transport (4.7★, 152 reviews) bundles admission and the ride from downtown, the entry with transfers option (4.6★, 120 reviews) does the same with hotel pickup, and the Boone Hall and historic city tour combo (4.7★, 104 reviews) pairs the plantation with a guided downtown tour in one day, which is the efficient play on a short trip.