Atalaya Castle

Atalaya Castle, is correctly and historically known simply as Atalaya, and was the winter home of industrialist and philanthropist Archer M. Huntington and his wife, the sculptor Anna Hyatt Huntington, located in Huntington Beach State Park near the Atlantic coast in Murrells Inlet, Georgetown County, South Carolina.Archer Huntington was a noted scholar of Spanish culture and art, and designed the residence in the Moorish Revival and Mediterranean Revival architecture styles from Spanish Andalusian coast models.ResidenceAtalaya was built near the Atlantic Ocean in northeastern South Carolina, within present day Huntington Beach State Park. The location was chosen as a milder winter retreat for the health of Anna Huntington, who suffered from tuberculosis from the mid-twenties to the mid-thirties.The 200 by 200 foot (60 by 60 m) masonry structure was built from 1931 to 1933 apparently without drawn plans, Archer Huntington had already designed the residence for them with his detailed imagination 'in his head.' Local labor was used at Archer Huntington's insistence to provide work for a community hard hit by the Great Depression.DescriptionAtalaya means "watchtower" in Arabic, as in the real Atalaya Castle in Spain. The house is dominated by a square tower, which housed a 3,000 gallon water tank. Rising nearly 40 feet from a covered walkway, it bisects Atalaya's inner court. The inner walls of the main courtyard were covered with creeping fig vines, Sabal palmettos, the South Carolina state tree, and other palms.