Description
The house has a double projecting (and recessed) portico on the west facade, which faces away from the river and toward the land side approach from Ashley River Road. The double projecting portico resembles a similar feature at Villa Cornaro, a country estate near Venice, Italy, designed by Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio in 1551. The floor plan of Drayton Hall is Palladian as well, perhaps derived from Plate 38 of James Gibbs' A Book of Architecture, the influential patternbook published in London in 1728. A large central entrance stair hall with a symmetrical divided staircase is backed by a large saloon, flanked by square and rectangular chambers. Pedimented chimneypieces in the house are in the tectonic manner popularized by William Kent. There is fine plasterwork in several of the rooms of the main floor, which is set above a raised basement.
Located on SC 61 and included in the Ashley River Historic District, it was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1960.
The South Carolina Department of Archives and History claims that Drayton Hall is "without question one of the finest of all surviving plantation houses in America".
Drayton Hall is managed by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which opened the house to the public in 1977. It presents a full interpretation of the historic plantation economy as exemplified by the Draytons, both white and black. African slaves and free blacks created the Gullah culture of the Lowcountry. The first guide to the house, Drayton Hall, was published in 2005.
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