Calhoun Mansion
We at Charleston Spots rate the many historic house tours with specific criteria in mind. Since they all cost approximately the same amount, we look at the age of the building, whether it contains original furnishings, and who manages the tours, to name a few. Calhoun Mansion really caught us off guard. Almost immediately, the words "rip-off" and "fraud" were running through our minds. First off, the house tour costs $15 which is about $5 more than most of them. Upon entering the house, there is a pronounced smell of stale cigarette smoke. The tour guide revealed that the current owner (who is never identified by name), bought the residence in 2004 for between $3 and $5 million and now uses the house as his permanent residence. He routinely smokes in the house, explaining the smoke odor. The guide boasts that the house is the largest residence in Charleston (which is true), built in 1876, and that it has 24,000 sq. ft. (the property tax deed states it is 15,247 sq. ft., purchased for $3.5 million). It gets weirder.

They point out that we are not on a museum tour but touring a private residence. They also warn about two dogs and a cat roaming freely. All of the rooms are roped off so we were only able to walk down the downstairs and upstairs hallway. We were not allowed to see the master bedroom at the time of our tour because the owner was supposedly in it! If you want the full house tour, that's going to set you back $50 and require advance reservations. From an architectural standpoint, the house is pretty darn impressive. Unfortunately, none of the belongings are original. Instead, it was an overwhelming collection of "seven tractor-trailer loads" of random artifacts, antiques, sculptures, stuffed wild animals, and more things that in total probably cost more than the house itself. The tour lasted about 15 minutes. As far as we can tell, the admission fee is going straight into the pocket of the "present owner" who doesn't seem to need the money. Many of the other historic home tours are orchestrated by a historic trust or other non-profit. This one is not. The gardens are really nice and they are free to walk through. Therefore, we assign the gardens a value-rating of 4 and the home a 1.

Side view of Calhoun Mansion.
The gardens attached to Calhoun Mansion.
One of several ornate fountains in the Calhoun Mansion garden.