a problematic landscape The inn is sited in the exceptionally fertile riverine landscape of the Ashley River watershed in lowcountry South Carolina. It is not uncommon to see alligators, dolphins, otters, bald eagles, osprey and egrets. The natural world is very close. Ashley River Road, which leads to the inn, is lined by live oak and cypress hung with Spanish moss – these trees dominate the landscape, their ample shade providing relief from the heat, if not the humidity, of the lowcountry. Indigenous Peoples, the Kiawah, lived here before they were removed by European settlers who established a plantation-based rice and indigo economy. The Ashley is a tidal river whose fresh- and salt-waters mix at Magnolia Plantation, about six miles downstream from Middleton Inn, and one of three plantation estates still existing on this stretch of the river, none of which operate as agricultural enterprises, but as tourist destinations. The site’s history is as problematic as its physical qualities are beautiful. The Middleton Inn (or as it is known legally, The Inn at Middleton Place) sits adjacent to Middleton Place, one of nineteen plantations across fifty thousand acres (about seventy-eight square miles) once owned by the Middleton family. Having emigrated from Barbados, Edward Middleton settled in South Carolina in 1678, building The Oaks, a plantation at Goose Creek, about twenty miles north of Middleton Place. Henry Middleton acquired the land that became Middleton Place in 1741 as part of his wife Mary Williams’s dowry. Here he planned both buildings and gardens, built by the enslaved people he owned — some of the oldest non-Indigenous gardens in the country. The Middleton family occupy a key place in both American and Southern history and culture: among them were a President of the First Continental Congress, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, a Governor of South Carolina and Minister to Russia, and a signer of the Ordinances of Secession, which sparked the Civil War. Over generations, the Middletons enslaved at least 3500 people, the means for creating and accruing wealth enough to place the family in the 0.1% wealthiest Southern Whites by the start of the Civil War. 3 The Middleton Inn owes its very existence to its relationship to Middleton Place. They are legally separate but interdependent, geographically adjacent and occupying the same territory. The agent of the corporation that owns the Inn is also the president of the non-profit entity that governs Middleton Place. One can move easily and without recognition of a line between the two properties. Middleton Place is a key aspect of the inn’s public profile online and in publication. The inn fosters Middleton Place as a tourist and event destination, not merely a protected historical artifact. The relationship of these two entities brings into relief enormous questions that underlie much of American politics today; first and foremost, how do we square the values of democracy with the historical facts of colonisation, removal of Indigenous Peoples, manifest destiny and the institution of slavery? Sylvester Magee, who was born into bondage, was the last known enslaved person in the US. He died in 1971. The USA is only about two generations removed from the experience of (lawful) slavery.
https://www.americanrivers.org/river/ashley-river
The Ashley River rises out of the Wassamassaw and Great Cypress Swamps, and becomes an estuary, having joined the Cooper and Wando Rivers, before emptying into Charleston Harbour.
Clark and Menefee Architects
After passing by an equestrian center and the inn’s business office, neither a part of Clark and Menefee’s ensemble, the approach to the buildings that comprise the inn is through a continuation of the oak and cypress woodland.
https://www.bing.com/maps
In 1989, Hurricane Hugo apparently wiped out a significant number of these stately trees. But the chiaroscuro is returning, as a satellite view suggests: the four buildings that comprise the Clark and Menefee project are barely visible through the canopy.
3 Ager, Philipp, et al. ‘The Intergenerational Effects of Large Wealth Shock : White Southerners After the Civil War’. American Economic Review 111 (11), 2021 pp 3767-3794
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on site review 43: architecture and t ime
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