Wild Dunes Resort

In spite of inevitable changes over the years, Isle of Palms - with its six miles of white, sandy beaches - remains today as much a place of beautiful serenity for residents and visitors as it was for the original inhabitants, the Seewee Indians.

Originally named Hunting Island and then Long Island, Isle of Palms is thought to be at least 25,000 years old, and first inhabited by the indigenous Seewee Indians, who were said to have greeted the first English settlers to the area by swimming to the ships and carrying travelers to shore.

What today is the famed 18th hole at the Wild Dunes Links Golf Course was a significant site during the Revolutionary War. Lord Cornwallis' command of 2000 men landed there with the plan to head down the island and cross Breach Inlet to Sullivan's Island to attack Fort Moultrie from the rear. The English were met and held at bay by a force comprised of 600 North and South Carolina regulars, a company of militia and the Catawba Indians. Not a single soldier crossed over to Sullivan's Island that day; it was America's first victory in the South.

A century later, Isle of Palms served as another key historical landmark when the Confederate submarine, H.L. Hunley, successfully rammed and sank the Union warship, USS Housatonic. It was the world's first successful submarine attack in battle. The anchor to the Housatonic sits outside the Wild Dunes' reception center.

The island remained without permanent inhabitants until the late 19th century when locals discovered it as a perfect refuge from the summer heat and tempo of Charleston. In 1899, the island was purchased by Dr. Joseph Lawrence, who renamed it Isle of Palms and had designs on turning the area into a top-of-the-line Atlantic City-type resort.

Access to the island was greatly improved in 1929 when Grace Memorial Bridge replaced the ferry across the Charleston harbor. A bridge link to the islands was established in 1946, the same time when most of Isle of Palms was purchased by The Beach Company's J.C. Long, a developer who provided low-cost housing to veterans returning from World War II.

The development of Wild Dunes began in 1972 when Finch Properties purchased the site and sold the land to Sea Pines Company, one of the major developers of Hilton Head Island. Sea Pines Company established a similar enterprise on 1600 acres of land at the northeast end of the island and named it Isle of Palms Beach and Racquet Club.

Sea Pines sold the resort in November 1975 when Wilbur Smith and Associates became a project investor with Finch Properties. As the original name implied, the Isle of Palms Beach and Racquet Club was designed around the tennis complex, which became an immediate success leading to an early expansion. In 1981 TENNIS magazine named it one of the "Top 50 Tennis Resorts in the Country," a prestigious ranking that Wild Dunes still holds today.

As the resort prospered and grew, the decision to introduce golf into the master plan was given the go-ahead. The Links was Tom Fazio's, one of the world's premier golf course architects, first solo design project. It opened for play in 1980 and it wasn't two years before GOLF Magazine ranked the course among the world's best, a first for Fazio, prompting Finch Properties to combine the name of the course with the name of the resort. Hence, in 1984, Wild Dunes Beach and Racquet Club was born.

Two years later, Wild Dunes' second Fazio-designed course, the Harbor Course, opened to meet the increasing needs of members and guests. In 1988, GOLF Magazine awarded Wild Dunes "The Gold Medal," which placed the island resort among the top 12 golf resorts in America.

At the same time, the resort was receiving national exposure in the tennis world, as the United States Tennis Association selected Wild Dunes to be the site of the U.S. Men's Clay Court Championships in both 1988 and 1989.

Wild Dunes Resort, in February 1990, became part of the Destination Hotels and Resorts family, and has enjoyed great prominence in the resort world ever since. The opening of the Boardwalk Inn in 1998 provided guests the option of staying in a hotel versus a villa or home and the Inn has earned a AAA Four Diamond Award. With world-class golf and tennis facilities, and numerous other resort amenities, this Isle of Palms-based resort has become a major vacation locale on the South Carolina coast, popular with families, couples, golfers, meeting attendees, celebrities and retirees.