Historic Columbia

In a number of cities, a select number of houses are preserved as museums - each house museum is often a standalone museum, and the homes that are preserved either had a notable figure(s) who lived there and/or have significant architectural features. Historic Columbia takes an innovative approach where multiple historic properties are under the same organization - this means the historic homes are collaborative with shared resources. It also provides Historic Columbia to tell a more complete story of Columbia's history looking, so they can tell the story of notable people (e.g., Woodrow Wilson, Wade Hampton) but also about regular people and their work to get ahead. Most of the homes come with a guided tour - that's why there are a limited number of tours each day for each house.

The Mann-Simons site is set up as a self-guided experience, so it seems unnecessary to require visitors to pay for a tour guide and drive around the small neighborhood in their own vehicles. It would be much more convenient if the home had open house hours, allowing guests to explore at their own pace rather than being required to follow a structured tour—especially if they’re only interested in one of the houses. While the exhibits consist mostly of videos and informational signs, the history itself is interesting. Overall, I’m glad to have visited the Mann-Simons house, but I was disappointed in the way the tour was structured.

Historic Columbia and their team are wonderful!! I had correspondences with John, Kat and Jeff - they were all phenomenal. We were looking for a history tour to do because we were stopping in Columbia for a night and hadn't explored it. There were many wonderful sites to see on their website, but we just wanted an overview of the city and to learn more about the history - like we do in most cities we visit. We didn't see one online, but reached out and they connected us with one of their volunteers - Jeff P. - he did a wonderful tour and had tons of pictures from years back. We could clearly tell he's passionate about what he does. Kat was kind enough to suggest some wonderful restaurants and local spots to try out while we were in!! We truly loved our experience of Historic (and beautiful) Columbia. Thank you again, John, Kat and Jeff for making our trip so special!!

Do not just show up up here. Check the website to see if you can figure out when and how to visit some of the historic homes and gardens. Or contact them to ask... it definitely requires more planning ahead than I like to do on vacation. On your adventure, you can hope to learn about Columbia while you see architectural styles spanning three centuries. Or maybe you just wander through the neighborhood admiring the old homes on your own.

Toured the Hampton-Preston Mansion. Our tour guide Denise was an extremely knowledgeable. She went out of her way to answer all of our questions and really took the time to make our experience memorable. I am proud of the strides that historical Columbia has made to include the stories and experiences of enslaved workers that built and ran these properties. Highly recommend to anyone visiting.

This hard working group has preserved historic buildings for Columbia's citizens to enjoy. Their tours are fantastic. They stepped up and prevented our iconic landmarks from being razed when no one else would!

The Historic Foundation saved several of the historic homes 50 years ago and prior to 2015 the tours gave great detail about those who lived in the homes and how they lived. Today the tours are more about political correctness.

Very interesting! So thankful it's preserved

My sister and I loved our tour with Historic Columbia. We visited the Hampton-Preston house. The staff was very friendly and honored my sister's student discount even though she didn't have her ID with her. Our tour guide is a current history PhD student at USC. She was very knowledgeable and clearly had a passion for history. The tour group was small and intimate, allowing us to ask as many questions as we desired. I would love to go back sometime and do one of the three other tours. Highly recommend this group!

Perhaps I'm biased, but I love Historic Columbia and so should you. The houses are beautiful and well-loved, the tour guides are knowledgable and friendly, and the gift shop has something for everyone. They are in the process of updating and adding more landscaping which makes the surroundings of Robert Mills and Hampton Preston even lovelier. They also are out there doing good for the historical community and are very involved in helping preserve the history of Columbia. Finally, they are creative - they do historic happy hour tours, neighborhood walking tours, spooky nighttime graveyard walks, and awesome fundraising events. This is really an organization to be aware of and get involved with.

We visited the Hampton-Preston house for only one dollar on the third Sunday! What a bargain! Great for kids 5 and up! They had a scavenger hunt for my two daughters to do while we toured the house. They loved it!! Thanks for this inexpensive opportunity!!

I am a student at the College of Hospitality, Tourism, and Retail Management at University of South Carolina in Columbia. For my Intro to Hospitality course, my professor assigned our class to take a local tour for the purpose of taking notes on how things are run and how they operated. I selected Historic Columbia Tours for my tour, and had a good time with my guide, who was very kind to give me a tour of the Robert Mills House as well as the garden in the back. The tour's meeting point is simply right next to the actual building itself, and they have plenty of parking for those taking the tour. Inside the gift shop, which also serves as the starting point of the tour, there are tons of pamphlets on all the local historical and cultural tourist sites in the city, of other tours so people can keep learning more about Columbia. The tour was a walk through the Robert Mills House, and my guide, Jeanne, was a very wonderful woman who took great care of me. She made sure to show me the whole area and kept me informed on the history of the home, and was always sure to make sure to keep asking if I had any questions. Inside the home you could see many relics from such a time when the home was used. It was also full of quirks from the architect who had a thing for symmetry. I enjoyed that the tour was small, allowed me to keep asking questions and gave a more personal touch to the tour itself instead of just getting lost inside a crowd. What I found fascinating was that these homes that Historic Columbia shows tours through, were originally going to be torn down to make way for more modern buildings. However some people refused to just allow these places to be torn down, and so they were made into a tourist attraction that honors our past. The grounds are very well managed, and the garden out back is beautiful. You can very easily see that the employees all take very loving care of the homes they manage. The architect, Robert Mills, was very keen on symmetry, to the point of having doors merely for décor as they did not open anywhere, simply because there was a real door on the other side of the hall or building itself. Even the marble mantles over the fireplaces had twins on the other side of the building. I had a blast learning about the home and I highly recommend this tour group to anyone visiting Columbia. Historic Columbia is full of wonderful staff and a beautiful area that feels relaxing next to the bustle of the city itself.