The history of the Williams Mansion is rich and complex. It was called the “handsomest and most complete private residence in the South” when it was built in 1878. (Charleston News and Courier)

The Williams Mansion, built by George Walton Williams, is a baronial Italianate manor house, widely acclaimed as one of the great post-Civil War homes on the Eastern Seaboard. It’s “Charleston’s Gilded Age Mansion.”

Featured on A&E’s “American Castles,” the remarkable 24,000 square feet structure includes 35 rooms with 14-foot ceilings, ornate plaster and wood moulding, elaborate chandeliers and has 23 period fireplaces, a stairwell that reaches to a 75-foot domed ceiling, and a Music Room with a 45-foot glass skylight. The grand entrance hall is an astounding 15 feet tall by 14 feet wide and is 50 feet long. The Williams Mansion was named one of the top attractions in Charleston by Travel and Leisure magazine.

The collection inside the mansion today was recreated and represents the opulent lifestyle experienced by the wealthy merchants and industrialists of the late 19th century. Those with vast amounts of wealth in the United States, often business tycoons and railroad barons from New York and Rhode Island, traveled extensively on The Grand Tour and collected antiques and contemporary art to bring back to America.

The items that they went to see were those that were owned and shown by the aristocrats and royalty of Europe and the Middle East in the 18th and early 20th centuries.

A visit to the Williams Mansion is taking a trip back in time to view what the finest European and Asian continents produced and showcased during the Gilded Age. It’s a mansion and collection of decorative and fine arts unrivaled anywhere else in the United States.