Charleston's South of Broad Is Where the American South's Old Money Stays Put

Charleston, South Carolina, founded in 1670 as Charles Town, has one of the best-preserved historic peninsulas in the United States, largely because the city's economic decline after the Civil War left little money for the kind of redevelopment that reshaped other Southern ports. What that left behind, particularly in the neighbourhood known as South of Broad, is a dense concentration of 18th- and 19th-century mansions still held by the same old planter, merchant and shipping families whose names appear on the street signs and church plaques around them.

A neighbourhood, not a hotel district

South of Broad, the peninsula's southern tip below Broad Street, has stayed almost entirely residential and privately held, which is part of why it hasn't been absorbed into the city's considerable tourism infrastructure the way other historic quarters have. Many of its grand single houses, a distinctive Charleston style built one room deep with long side piazzas to catch the sea breeze, remain family homes rather than guesthouses or museums.

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Spoleto brings everyone back each spring

Spoleto Festival USA, founded in 1977 by composer Gian Carlo Menotti as a sister event to Italy's Festival dei Due Mondi, has run in Charleston every late May and early June since, filling the city's historic theatres and churches with opera, dance and chamber music. It remains one of the longest-running performing arts festivals in the country and reliably draws a well-heeled East Coast crowd back to the city each year, many of whom keep second homes on or near the peninsula specifically for the occasion.

A society that still keeps its own calendar

Charleston's old families have long kept a private social season built around debutante balls, the St. Cecilia Society (one of the oldest private social organisations in the country, dating to 1762) and a handful of long-running private clubs, most of which remain closed to outsiders regardless of means. It is this institutional continuity, rather than any recent development, that keeps Charleston distinct from newer-money Southern resort towns.

Traveller tips

• Charleston International Airport connects to most major US hubs; the historic peninsula is a roughly 15-minute drive or taxi from the airport.
• South of Broad's homes are private residences; visitors are welcome to walk the streets but should respect that these are not public attractions.
• Spoleto Festival USA runs for about two weeks from late May; accommodation on the peninsula books out well ahead.
• Charleston's summers are hot and humid; spring and autumn are generally more comfortable for extended walking tours of the historic district.