Hardeeville plantation hits market for $4 million. It has some surprises, including claws
There is a cutoff at the intersection of Highway 46 and Highway 170 that Beaufort County residents have probably driven by dozens of times on the way to Savannah.
It’s the entrance to the Coleman Plantation and unlike many former plantations in South Carolina the dirt road leading up to the main property is lined with palmettos, not live oaks. The path cuts through a forest of moss-draped magnolias, pines and palmettos until the trees make their way to the cleared land.
“There’s about 50 acres or so of high-ground, and then 100 acres of broken rice field,” CJ Brown said. The real estate company of Brown Land and Plantation Advisors has listed the $3.955 million Hardeeville property for sale.
The seven-bedroom, six-bathroom home was originally a duck hunting lodge, according to Brown. The plantation is along the New River and named after J.A. Coleman, a “big turpentine man and banker” of Swainsboro, Georgia, according to the book “Northern Money, Southern Land.”
After the Civil War and in the early 20th century, wealthy northerners repaired and preserved many rice fields for waterfowl hunting.
“What would have been farmland is now used to cultivate rice just for hunting,” Brown said.
New owners purchased the home in 2016 and renovated the building, closing in a carport and adding another level. The owners renovated the building with the intention to create a wedding venue or Bed and Breakfast, according to Brown.
Each of the three floors has covered porches extending from the side of the home. There, instead of five massive live oak tree limbs stretching overhead, the balconies are on par with the massive trees’ ecosystems, receiving the same breeze that sways the ferns climbing the live oak branches.
“You still feel close to nature when you’re looking down on these big trees,” Brown said. “It’s a unique perspective of live oaks because you never really get this high on a live oak tree.”
Behind the main house is a kitchen-turned-guest cottage with a bedroom, living room and full kitchen. It’s also where Toby the giant cat lives. Toby is a sevral, a type of cat native to Africa, and his owner described him to the Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette as a roughly 45-pound spotted cat in 2017 when he escaped.
Further down the property are two storage containers that could serve as tiny houses and a chicken coop. There’s also a small office beneath the live oaks near the property’s entrance.
A narrow dirt path leads to the right of the property into the system of rice fields, dug by enslaved people prior to the Civil War. All of the channels are still intact, according to Brown.
“Really the only way to see this part of it is by canoe or kayak,” he said. “But there’s a series of channels out here that are just incredible.”
There isn’t a conservation easement in place meaning buyers can develop the land.
This story was originally published August 28, 2023 at 9:00 AM.
