A Photographic Journey Through Huntington Beach State Park

History, striking scenery, ecological diversity – you’ll find it all at one of the crown jewels of the Myrtle Beach area, Huntington Beach State Park.

This Grand Strand landmark is a study in contrasts, and one of the park’s defining features exemplifies it – Atalaya (pictured, Spanish for “watch tower”), a national historic landmark and the one-time winter home of Archer and Anna Hyatt Huntington.

A noted scholar of Spanish culture and art, Archer Huntington fashioned the 200-foot by 200-foot structure in the style of the Moorish architecture of the Spanish Mediterranean coast. This much is clearly evident when you view the site on a grand scale, and marvel at some of its more obvious defining features – including the archway entrance, the courtyard, and the 40-foot square tower that rises from the center of the courtyard.

Walk through the structure, though, and you quickly see how it was used primarily as a functional base for Anna Hyatt Huntington’s world-renowned sculpting work (much of which you’ll find across the highway at Brookgreen Gardens). In addition to the courtyard, Mrs. Huntington used both an indoor studio and outdoor studio to ply her trade, adjacent to the horse stables, dog kennels and bear pens that housed the live animals she used as sculpting models. Historical notes show that the building’s masonry work was completed without many detailed written plans, and instead of employing hordes of high-level designers Mr. Huntington insisted on using local labor to provide work for locals hit hard by the Great Depression.

My afternoon stroll from Atalaya’s beach side through the dunes path revealed one of the more pristine stretches of Atlantic coastline you’ll find anywhere. Looking south/southwest, the afternoon sun glimmers off the ocean and presents a breathtaking sight. Glance north/northeast, and there’s nothing but dunes, sand and ocean for as far as the eye can see.

The flip side of the Atalaya site bears the entrance to one of the park’s two nature trails. The Kerrigan trail ushers you through the maritime forest and to a freshwater lagoon where, among the abundant wildlife viewing opportunities, alligators can be seen from the observation decks. If you don’t see any gators there, you can visit a baby gator at the nearby Education Center, which sits outside the entrance to a boardwalk that meanders deep into the saltwater marsh.

Located three miles south of Murrells Inlet on U.S. 17, Huntington Beach is open daily year-round, 6 a.m. – 6 p.m. October through March (until 8 p.m. on Fridays) and 6 a.m. – 10 p.m. April through September