Heyward-Washington House

Built in 1772, this Georgian double house on Church Street was the town home of Thomas Heyward, Jr., one of four South Carolina signers of the Declaration of Independence. The city rented it for George Washington's use during his week-long Charleston stay in May 1791 — which is how the name stuck. Now owned and operated by the Charleston Museum, it opened as Charleston's first historic house museum in 1930 and holds a collection of Charleston-made furniture, an 1740s kitchen building, and formal gardens planted with species common to the late 18th-century Lowcountry.