Why South Carolina’s coast has a fortress that looks straight out of Spain

It’s Not What You’d Expect Here

A low stone fortress sits just off the beach near Murrells Inlet, South Carolina, and it looks like something pulled from the Spanish coast.

Atalaya, which means “watchtower” in Spanish, covers roughly 200 feet on each side and holds about 30 rooms, a courtyard full of palms, and a 40-foot tower at its center.

Archer Huntington, a scholar of Spanish culture, built it as a winter home in the early 1930s. The house is odd enough.

The story behind it goes further than you’d guess.

No blueprints, no plans, just a voice giving directions

Archer Huntington and his wife, sculptor Anna Hyatt Huntington, started building Atalaya in 1931 and finished two years later. Anna had tuberculosis, and the mild Carolina coast helped her breathe easier.

Archer never drew a set of plans. He stood beside the builder and described what he wanted, room by room, wall by wall.

Local workers did the construction, and the project put money into a community crushed by the Great Depression. The couple last wintered here in 1947, and the land became a state park in 1960.

The Army ran a radar station out of the living room

During World War II, the Huntingtons lent Atalaya to the Army Air Corps.

The house that Archer built without drawn plans became a military radar station on the Carolina coast.

That stretch of history sits between the couple’s last winters here and the day South Carolina turned their property into a public park.

You walk the same halls soldiers once used, and the shift from private home to wartime outpost to open landmark happened in less than 30 years.

A 40-foot tower rises from the center of the house

A square tower climbs nearly 40 feet from a covered walkway that splits the inner courtyard in half. The tower once held a large water tank that supplied the whole home.

Outside staircases near the entrance lead up to a wide roof terrace where you can look out over the courtyard, the surrounding park, and the Atlantic beyond the dunes. Most visitors pull out a camera the moment they see it.

The tower gave Atalaya its name, and it still commands the view from every angle.

Palmettos and climbing fig fill the courtyard

The house wraps around a large open courtyard planted with grass and sabal palmettos, the South Carolina state tree. Climbing fig vines once covered the inner walls, softening the stone with green.

Every room opens toward the center, and the design keeps you moving between shade and sunlight. Cool corridors ring the courtyard and give you a break from the heat and salt air outside.

The whole layout was built for indoor-outdoor living, and you feel it the moment you step through the entrance.

Wander 30 rooms and count 25 copper-topped chimneys

The living quarters hold about 30 rooms set around three sides of the house.

You’ll find bedrooms, a kitchen, a dining room, a library, and a sunroom as you make your way through. Smaller service rooms and open-air spaces fill out the rest of the plan.

You explore at your own pace on a self-guided walk, with no ropes or guided groups to slow you down. Look up before you leave.

Twenty-five chimneys top the roofline, each one capped with a copper hood that turns with the wind.

Bare stone walls and salt air tell the story now

Most furnishings were removed after Archer Huntington died, and the rooms sit bare. Open windows let sun, wind, and salt air move freely through the stone.

The exposed walls and floors give the place a quiet, ruin-like feel that photographs well in any light. Kids love the maze of corridors and open doorways.

Photographers come for the shadows, the weathered textures, and the way light falls through window after window down a long hall.

A 25-foot skylight lit a sculptor’s workshop

Anna Hyatt Huntington built a reputation on large animal and horse statues, and her studio at Atalaya matched the scale of her work. A 25-foot skylight flooded the room with natural light.

The studio opened onto its own small private courtyard where she worked surrounded by stone walls and open sky. The rooms were built large and open so she could create full-size sculptures inside.

That’s why you won’t find grand ballrooms here. The space went to art, not parties.

Bears, horses, and dogs lived next to the studio

Anna sculpted from life, so pens for live animals sat right next to her workspace. Horses, dogs, and bears all served as models, each kept in pens built to different sizes.

The setup made Atalaya a working studio as much as a home, and nothing about it looks like an ordinary grand estate.

You can still see the pens pointed out on tours today, and they give you a clear picture of how Anna worked, with her subjects standing just a few steps from her tools.

Turquoise iron bars guard every window

Anna designed the wrought-iron grills that cover the home’s windows. The heavy bars were built to hold up against hurricane winds off the Atlantic.

Over the decades, the iron weathered to a turquoise patina that gives the house its fortress-like face. She also designed iron gates for both Atalaya and nearby Brookgreen Gardens.

The ironwork shows that Anna’s skill went well beyond sculpture, and you’ll notice the detail the moment you stand in front of any window.

Alligators, painted buntings, and 300 bird species

Atalaya sits inside the 2,500-acre Huntington Beach State Park, widely known as one of the best birding spots on the East Coast.

More than 300 kinds of birds have been recorded here, including roseate spoonbills and painted buntings. Alligators bask along the freshwater causeway, easy to spot from a safe distance.

Loggerhead sea turtles nest on the beach in summer, and dolphins swim offshore. You don’t have to be a birder to notice what’s moving around you here.

Three miles of beach and a trail through old dunes

About three miles of wide, open beach stretch beside the castle, and raised boardwalks reach out over the salt marsh for close wildlife views.

The two-mile Sandpiper Pond Trail winds through a maritime forest growing on old dunes, and observation decks look out over ponds full of wading birds.

A nature center holds live-animal exhibits, including a touch tank where you can handle sea creatures.

Between the beach, the marsh, and the forest, you could spend a full day outside before you ever step into the castle.

Brookgreen Gardens sits right across the highway

Just across U.S. 17 lies Brookgreen Gardens, created by the same couple.

Anna and Archer built Brookgreen to display her sculptures alongside work by other American artists, and together the two properties form a single National Historic Landmark district.

The gardens hold one of the country’s great collections of American sculpture set among live oaks and landscaped grounds.

Many visitors pair the castle and the gardens in one trip, and the two sit close enough that you can walk between the parking lots.

Explore Atalaya Castle in South Carolina

You’ll find Atalaya inside Huntington Beach State Park on Atalaya Road in Murrells Inlet, S.C., just off U.S. 17 across from Brookgreen Gardens.

The castle is open daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and admission is $2 per person for ages 6 and up, plus the park’s day-use fee.

Hours can shift by season, and the castle sometimes closes for private events and weddings, so check ahead.

Each September, the juried Atalaya Arts and Crafts Festival takes over the house, with a separate festival admission.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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