Orton Plantation Gardens

The original small Orton House was built C. 1725, adding a second story and columns in 1840 and wings in 1910. Modest gardens began around 1910 and were enlarged to their present size in the mid 1930s. At its height, it was one of the leading rice plantations of the lower Cape Fear. The Sprunt family has continuously owned and managed the gardens from their 1904 inception. The gardens are tastefully distributed over 20 acres. Formal beds dominated by annuals and perennials and informal path borders lines with azaleas and camellias in unknown numbers, and mixed pines and deciduous hardwoods creating a thick canopy over the upper paths, The architecture of the house (not open to the public) and the c.1915 Luola's Chapel seems reminiscent of the Tennessee Williams' deeper south. And there are ponds, lakes and lagoons in addition to the river.