The Hampton Terrace Hotel
- The Hampton Terrace Hotel was built in 1903, during the Gilded Age.
- It could accommodate 500 guests on five floors within its 300 rooms.
- The hotel was built to maximize sunlight in each room. Only 14 rooms got less than 4 hours of sunlight each day.
- The resort hotel closed every year during the summer months. Many of the hotel's visitors were from the North and wintered here. Some families brought furniture and servants, rented out suites of rooms and stayed weeks at a time.
- Some of the hotel's notable guests included Harvey Firestone, President Taft, Marshall Field and John D. Rockefeller.
- Amenities included tennis courts, riding stables, a 15,000-acre hunting reserve and an 18-hole golf course, which lay between Arlington Heights, North Augusta Plaza and the North Augusta Community Center.
- A brochure for the Hampton Terrace mentioned that the city of Aiken could be seen from the hotel's east wing and was 40 minutes away by trolly.
- In 1912, the Hampton Terrace Country Club formed, giving members free access to all of the amenities the hotel offered. Two hundred members were elected the first year.
The fire
- The hotel burned on New Year's Eve 1916, just days before the opening of its 14th season. The wiring in the west wing short-circuited. The first calls came in to Augusta fire headquarters at 2:10 a.m.
- The fire lasted five hours. When it was over, only rubble and chimneys remained.
- The hotel was insured for $200,000 but was worth more than $750,000. Before the hotel was to open for the season, more than $20,000 was spent refurnishing and repainting the building. Twenty guest rooms had been added.
- Every room was booked when the fire occurred.
- The responding fire companies had difficulty putting out the blaze. Steep terraces made the hydrants nearly inaccessible. Because the hotel sat on a hill, water pressure was very low.
The aftermath
- The golf course remained in use for three years after the hotel's destruction.
- Several auxiliary buildings remain, including Pine Heights Sanitorium (now The Family Center on Georgia Avenue),, the Boatwright Tea Room on Carolina Avenue and the Ruland Tea Room on Arlington Heights (both now private residences).
- Today, all that remains of the hotel itself are a broken sidewalk on Carolina Avenue and a pile of bricks that was a chimney on Butler Avenue.
- A replica of the hotel is part of the cityscape display at the Arts and Heritage Center of North Augusta, located in the first floor of the municipal building on Georgia Avenue.
Reach Lisa Kaylor at lisa.kaylor@northaugustatoday.com.
KNOW A GOOD GHOST STORY?
North Augusta is not an old city by many standards, but it does have its share of spooky tales.
In the spirit of Halloween, North Augusta Today wants to publish ghost stories from around the area.
If you have a ghost story to share about your house or another site in North Augusta, please send it along with your contact information to Lisa Kaylor at lisa.kaylor@northaugustatoday.com.
