45 www.ReadMPM.com | www.MountPleasantMagazine.com | www.MountPleasantPodcast.com our town THE HUNTINGTONS A few years later, around 1930, Archer Huntington and his wife Anna arrived in Georgetown County after they discovered an advertisement in the New York Times marketing the sale of a hunting lodge called Brookgreen. Looking for a warm place to spend winters so that Anna could recover from tuberculosis, the Huntingtons traveled by boat up the Waccamaw River, the only way to approach the land at the time, and immediately fell in love with Brookgreen. The son of a railroad baron and a scholar in his own right, Huntington was one of the wealthiest men in America, according to Lauren Joseph, vice president of marketing at Brookgreen Gardens. Joseph added that Anna was a flourishing sculptor during the 1920s, a time when few women could aspire to become successful artists or high wage earners, making over $50,000 (roughly $700,000 in today’s dollars) per year from commissions. Although such wealth certainly afforded the Gilded Age lifestyle, the Huntingtons preferred to spend their time surrounded by art, books, nature and animals. Having married in their 40s, they did not have children, and the philanthropically-minded couple quickly realized that the beauty of Brookgreen should be conserved so that it could be shared in perpetuity. On July 13, 1931, they incorporated Brookgreen as a private, nonprofit corporation, and it is still run as such today by a board of trustees, which Anna served on until 1972 before her death in 1974. As Joseph said, “The Huntingtons were early environmentalists, and their mission to preserve, conserve and educate the Archer Huntington. POINT • CLICK • SCAN to learn more
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