Cultural Landscape Report: Plum Orchard Historic District, Cumberland Island National Seashore
Hitchcock S. 2014. Cultural Landscape Report: Plum Orchard Historic District, Cumberland Island National Seashore. Cultural Landscape Report. U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service. Southeast Regional Office, Atlanta, Georgia
The Plum Orchard Historic District is primarily a landscape whose significance derives from the Carnegie Estate era, the centerpiece of which is the Plum Orchard Mansion. Around the mansion, the Carnegies created a picturesque Country Place Era landscape that included a winding entrance drive, a lawn interspersed with native trees, a reflective water feature, spaces for vegetables and cut flowers, and support structures laid out around a circular road. The period of significance begins in 1898 with the construction of the carriage house and mansion, and it ends in 1917 when the last support structures were completed. Plum Orchard’s name derives from an antebellum plantation at this location, whose eventual owner was Peter Bernardey. Little is known of the historic landscape during the nineteenth century, other than Sea Island cotton being grown in fields near the house. The ruins of the Bernardey house and two graves remain from the plantation era. Construction began on the Plum Orchard Carriage House and Mansion in 1898, designed by Peabody and Stearns as a wedding gift from Lucy Carnegie to George Lauder Carnegie and his wife, Margaret Thaw. The Cultural Landscape Report for the Plum Island Historic District was completed by the Southeast Regional Office Cultural Resources, Partnerships & Science Division. It focuses on the cultural landscape of the NPS-managed section of the site. Staff performed archival research, prepared the site history, documented existing conditions, and prepared comparative analyses, integrity evaluations, and treatment recommendations. The site history, existing conditions, and analysis and evaluation sections identify the historical values associated with the landscape, document extant landscape characteristics and features, and define the significance and integrity of the landscape. Treatment recommendations enable the park to better manage its cultural landscape. While there are many historic landscape features still evident at Plum Orchard, no assessment of the landscape’s integrity or significance had taken place at the time of publication.
- Type
- Published Report
- Authors
- Hitchcock, Susan
- Date of Issue
- 2014-11
- Publisher
- U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service
- Units
- CUIS , SER
- Keywords
- agriculture, archeology, architecture, barrier island, Carnegie, carriage house, Civil War, designed landscape, Dungeness, formal garden, Georgian Revival, Nancy Carnegie Johnston, Peabody and Stearns, picturesque, plantation, Plum Orchard Historic District, Sea Island cotton, wilderness
- Subjects
- CRIS-CL: 550163: Plum Orchard