Historic $13.2M SC coastal home for sale has a tower for drinking cocktails and watching sunsets
A nearly century-old 68-acre marsh-front estate with 10 bedrooms and 13 bathrooms is on the market on Seabrook Island.
The asking price is $13.2 million.
Located at 92 Dean Hall Road, the house known as Dean Hall was built in 1827 and covers 9,709 square feet in northern Beaufort County.
It includes six habitable structures with barns, a four-car garage, sheds, shop, accessory structures, gardens, a potting shed, a pool, ponds and gathering centers.
A particular structure that garnered the attention of Garden & Gun magazine in 2014 is the Cocktail Tower, a two-story Jeffersonian building that is reminiscent of a lighthouse.
Owners Frank and Gay Fowler wanted something based on a little bit of fantasy and a little bit of fact, Garden & Gun said.
They called it the Lantern.
“In the antebellum era, navigation at night was difficult along the intracoastal back rivers of this area, so people used lanterns in trees as a point of reference. I liked that,” Frank Fowler told the magazine.
The Fowlers, whose permanent home was in Tennessee, spent two decades restoring Dean Hall.
He was an international arts dealer specializing in works of the Wyeth family, a developer in Chattanooga, a conservationist who introduced tarpon fishing to various southern states and was a devoted fan of the University of Georgia, where he went to school. He died in 2024.
Gay, who died in 2022, was a cook, angler and gardener. Her obituary says garden tours at Dean Hall attracted groups such as The Board of The Garden Club of America, Colonial Williamsburg and Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library in Wilmington, Delaware.
Of the Cocktail Tower or Lantern, Frank Fowler said, “It is a marvelous place to have a drink and watch the sun set, especially after a storm.”
The two-story brick house has a wraparound porch, a formal garden and lush landscaping around the house and other structures.
The maritime forest and botanical species cover 65 of the 68 acres. The property has 3,200 feet of frontage on Huspah Creek, which flows into the Coosawhatchie River.
The listing is represented by Jimmy Dye of The Cassina Group and Steve Kiser of Kiser & Associates, Inc.
Dye said, “Dean Hall is a meticulously preserved estate which stands as a living testament to the rich architectural and cultural heritage of the Lowcountry.”
He said the preservation brought the property to its original state, honoring the craftsmanship and history of its time.
