Another beach story

While in Charleston my father, step-mother, and I decided to tour Boone Hall Plantation, which boasts itself as the only working plantation left in the country. The idea sounded cool, and it was the only plantation left in Charleston that we haven't seen before. We're all excited and we pull up to the front gate to find out that admission is pretty expensive, but we're on vacation so we pay it anyways. The plantation has it's own radio station that describes the lands as we drive though and make our way towards the house. This was the coolest part of the whole trip. Any "Gone with the Wind" fan will recognize the property as the inspiration for the property 12 Oaks. Had "Gone with the Wind" not been built and filmed entirely on stages, the 12 Oaks scenes would have been filmed here. This is one of their boasts. It sounds pretty neat, but is the fact that the grounds was the inspiration for the movie set isn't worth the cost of admission.

Then comes the house tour. It was advertised that the people in the house would be dressed in period garments, but I don't think Old Navy khakis and Nikes were worn between the late 1600s through the Civil War era. She began the house tour by saying the house was built in 1936. I stopped. What? 1936? "Hey Dad," I whispered,"The house you grew up in, when was it built?"

"1932."
"Think we can charge $15 a person to walk through it?"

The story gets even worse as the Nike clad "historic interpreter" continued talking. Apparently a Canadian diplomat bought the house in the 1930s, saw that a plantation house in indeed a farmhouse- why this is a shocker to some people, I don't understand- tore it down and built this house- his idea of what a plantation house should look like. So we paid $15 a head to see what a non-American's idea of what a plantation house should look like. Great. Additionally the tour guide only took us into 2 rooms of the house, which were decorated in the owner's furniture, not even disguised in period decor. The owner lives upstairs! I can see him sitting in a rocker, holding stacks of $10 bills and laughing while looking out the window, peering down on unsuspecting fools. "Muahahhaa!" He says.

This is just a side note which really bothered me. When the tour guide was talking about the line of oak trees leading up to the house, she kept calling it "the alley of the oaks." That is not the definition of the word "alley." However, it is would some would refer to as an avenue. This wasn't just a slip-up she made once, she said it about 6 times, every time like someone's nails down a chalkboard to my English-sensitive ears.

Boone Hall Plantation is forever known to my parents as the 1936 House. As for me: well, I call it Boone's Farm. Now I would have paid $15 to tour place that provides such cheap wine.