Just under an hour’s drive from Charleston, Kiawah Island remains a largely unspoiled sea island with a combination of amenities, exclusive residential communities and resorts, and natural beauty in the form of beaches, marshes, and coastal pine forest. Kiawah Island is past the sprawl of West Ashley and Johns Island and is bordered by the Atlantic, the Kiawah and Stono Rivers, and Seabrook Island. Explore Kiawah Island History and discover its rich past, stunning coastlines, and vibrant communities.
Kiawah Island History
Kiawah is named for the indigenous people who lived there in 1670, as they had for centuries, when the English colonists arrived in the Lowcountry in 1670. They were a friendly tribe led by a “cassique” or chief and they lived in harmony with the landscape on lands bordered by the Sewee and Edisto tribes. They fished, hunted deer, and farmed small fields of peas and corn. The Kiawah advised the English on the best places to settle and the settlers wrote, “wee found very great Assistance from the Indians who shewed them selves very kinde and sould us Provisions att very reasonable rates and taking notice of our necessitys did almost daylie bring one thinge or another otherwise wee must undoubtedly have binn putt to extreame hardshipps.” The Kiawah later ceded much of their island for a nominal fee to the English.
Plantation Landscape
Because so much of Kiawah is beach and sandy soil, and due to its remote location, the island remained largely rural aside from a relatively small number of plantations. There was no road access to Kiawah, so if the residents wished to travel to Charleston by land, they would have had to travel west to Seabrook Island, where there was a road near William Seabrook’s plantation that meandered inland across Wadmalaw and John’s Island. They likely would have traveled by water instead, boarding a plantation boat in the Stono River and heading northward, then cutting east toward Charleston via Wappoo Creek, in today’s West Ashley area. The last option, which was faster but more treacherous, was to take a boat along the coast from Kiawah, past Folly Beach, and into the Charleston Harbor to town.
John Stanyarne, one of the first grantees of the island, passed it to his granddaughters Mary Gibbes and Elizabeth Vanderhorst by will. The Vanderhorst family retained ownership of half of the island from the eighteenth to the early twentieth century, while the Shoolbred, Wilson, and Gibbes families held other nearby plantations. Enslaved people tended sea island cotton and provision crops on landscapes that were mostly devoid of white residents in the antebellum era.
The British camped on Kiawah briefly during the American Revolution, burning Andoldus Vanderhorst II’s residence before General Nathaniel Greene garnered a peace treaty in 1782. By 1802, Vanderhorst was governor and had constructed a symmetrical and stately federal era house. It survived the American Civil War, during which the Union forces found it to be the only working plantation on the island, and the troops damaged the interior but did fortunately did not burn the house. The Vanderhorst mansion remains the oldest residence on Kiawah.
Ebb and Flow of the Twentieth Century
The Vanderhorst bought out the Gibes family in 1900 and owned virtually the entire island during the catastrophic sea island storm of 1911, but there were few inhabitants on Kiawah at that time, aside from the Vanderhorsts and several Gullah families whose ancestors had been brought forcibly to Kiawah as enslaved people.
C.C. Royal bought Kiawah in 1950 and created a small summer home community for Charlestonians to enjoy the beach. The turning point came in 1974 when Kuwait Investment Corporation bought the island and planned a resort community and golf courses on the pristine island. Marsh Point/Cougar Point Golf Course and the Kiawah Island Inn opened two years later. In 1988 as development firm Kiawah Resort Associates purchased several tracts of undeveloped lands, the Town of Kiawah was incorporated, followed by two new gold courses in the 1990s and the opening of the stunning Sanctuary Hotel in 2004.
Calling Kiawah Home
Kiawah masterfully balances recreation, luxury, and unspoiled nature. Golfers can choose from several unique venues: the Ocean Course (where the PGA Championship was hosted in 2012), Osprey Point, Turtle Point, Cougar Point, and Cassique Course. There are tennis courts, kayak rentals and slips, bike rentals, paddleboard treks, nature walks, and beach yoga classes for the outdoor lovers. The Sanctuary hosts several top of line the restaurants and a luxurious spa, while Freshfields Village has lots of shops, a grocery store, restaurants, and pubs.
The Kiawah Conservancy works to protect the habitats of hundreds of bird species, alligators, sea turtles, and animals, which can be viewed along nature trails and beachfronts in Beachcomber County Park (one of the best places to swim and dolphin spot) and Night Heron Park.
There are several enclaves on Kiawah, including the Settlement and Kiawah Island Club communities, where purchasing a residence brings exclusive access to the amenities and club houses. The Sandcastle Clubhouse is open to all property owners along West Beach, and it boasts ocean front pools, community activities, and exercise facilities. West Beach is also home to a new LEED certified penthouse and luxury condo enclave called the Cape. The East Beach area has a combination of villages and cottages for rent as well as a gold course and large private residences. Some residents are seasonal while others have discovered that Kiawah is beautiful year-round.
–
For more real estate resources, follow CHS Regional MLS on Facebook and Instagram! If you’re not a member yet, join CHS Regional MLS for access to the Lowcountry's most extensive and accurate property database.