Living on Daniel Island, SC
- CHSMLS
- Nov 11, 2025
- 7 min read
Daniel Island is a coastal community known for its waterfront properties and beautiful vistas. Its 4,000 acres has over 23 miles of coastline, offering ample boating and fishing opportunities for residents. The coastal island is bounded by the Cooper River on two sides, the Wando River to the east, and tidal creeks to the north. As the crow flies, Charleston and Mount Pleasant are just across the water, and until the twentieth century, the island was only accessible by boat and ferry. That remoteness makes the island unique, as it is close to everything but developed much later than the surrounding areas, so it retains marshes, woods, and rural serenity.
First Settlers
Daniel Island is named for Major Robert Daniell (1646-1718; also spelled Daniel), an English merchant who spent time in Barbados before relocating to the new proprietary colony of South Carolina. Here, he became a landgrave and Deputy Governor. He owned 48,000 acres near Georgetown and acquired his first land on Daniel Island, a 782-acre grant, in 1696. By the end of the year, he owned more than 9,000 acres in Berkeley County and had built a plantation house on Wando River near Raven’s Creek. He married Martha Wainright Daniell, and they had several children, including Martha Daniell Logan (1704-1779), who was famous in her own right as a renowned horticulturalist and entrepreneur. She operated a nursery and wrote one of the first colonial gardening treatises, which was published in the South Carolina Almanack. Historian, Christina Butler, notes that, “The Logan and Daniell (often spelled Daniel) families were deeply connected. After the death of Robert Daniell, widowed Martha Daniell, the elder, married Col. George Logan Sr. (1669-1721) in 1718. The colonel was a planter who also owned extensive lands in Berkeley County, including near the Wando River.”
Plantations and Place Names
The island was first known as Etiwan, for the indigenous people who called it home. A large portion is known as Cainhoy (probably also a Native American name), a 9,000-acre peninsula that is bordered by the Wando and Francis Marion National Forest. Cainhoy was also the name of an individual plantation. There was a small village and ferry landing on the bend of the Wando at Cainhoy, which was a popular connection point between the island, Christ Church (Mount Pleasant), and Charleston before the modern days of auto bridges. There were other ferries nearby, and historian, Nic Butler, notes that, “although few people actually resided on Daniel Island Neck in the 1730s, the route from Charles Codner’s plantation represented the shortest, easiest path over the river for all travelers commuting between urban Charleston and fertile lands in the parish of St. Thomas (later called the parish of St. Thomas and St. Denis), including such places as Cainhoy, Bonneau, and Jamestown. The object of Codner’s Ferry and its successors was not necessarily to get people to and from the properties for sale in Daniel Island, SC, but rather to link the rural frontier to the port of Charleston.’ John Clement (for whom Clement’s Ferry Road is named) operated a ferry line later.”
The rest of the island was a series of plantations created by English settlers, French Huguenots, and Scottish Presbyterians, which, like Cainhoy, were planted with rice, indigo, and sea island cotton that was cultivated by enslaved people whose Gullah descendants still live on the island. Richard Codner sold his land to Isaac Lesesne, who established the Grove plantation, which had brick kilns to make building materials to ferry to Charleston. Paul Pritchard had a shipyard at his plantation (the island was known for its rich timber stores), and cabinet maker Thomas Elfe had a 250-acre plantation on the island as well.
There was a meeting house used by Congregationalists and Presbyterians at Cainhoy that was present by the 1690s. The cemetery (which survives, though the meeting house is gone) holds Patriot graves from the American Revolution when the island saw several skirmishes and battles, as well as civilians who were living on the island at the time.
Into the Modern Era
Most of Daniel Island was rural and undeveloped before and after the American Civil War. Cainhoy Ferry lost prominence as modern bridges were built, but the village retains several historic properties that are listed as a National Register district: the Mary Lesesne House (1790), the Fogartie House (1798), the Sanders House (1735), and How Tavern (1745).
In 1876, George Cunningham bought 2,400 acres and created small farm plots which were harvested by freed people and migrant families; “after his death, several of the African American families who had worked for Cunningham bought their own parcels and the rest was sold to A.F. Young Company in the early 1900s, who ferried fruit and vegetables grown on island truck farms to town for sale and shipment.” The first bridge to the mainland was planned in 1940, but it didn’t spur development as planned. Most of the island stayed in use as truck farms or was left to nature.
In the 1940s, Henry Gugenheim of the famous New York family purchased most of Daniel Island and rebranded it as Cainhoy Plantation. He used it as cattle grazing land and a winter retreat, where he hunted and raised thoroughbred racehorses. The family retained most of the land until the 1970s, when developers began to eye the island for its beauty and proximate location to Charleston, which was also having a renaissance. At that time, the island still had a Black majority population, the Gullah descendants of the enslaved who worked the plantations. The creation of I-526 in the 1980s marked change for the island and development followed. The Guggenheims created Daniel Island Company in the 1990s to lay out a master-planned community with several unique surrounding suburbs surrounded by protected natural buffers. Daniel Island Club was developed in 2000 as a golf club with houses surrounding; “members of the Daniel Island Club have access to a 70,000-sq. ft. clubhouse, featuring dining and social areas, a ballroom, meeting space, a golf shop, men’s and women’s locker rooms. Stellar recreational amenities (Regulation croquet and bocce lawns), pickleball, fine and casual dining options, and a year-round calendar of golf at (both the Rees Jones designed course as well as the Tom Fazio design), tennis and social events.”
Living on Daniel Island, SC, Today
Daniel Island lies mostly in Berkeley County but is part of the City of Charleston today. The island offers restaurants ranging from casual to special occasion, punching above its weight for a small island for culinary experiences and great drinks. Vinea Courtyard specializes in Mediterranean cuisine, a large wine selection (vinea is Latin for vineyard), and is tucked under live oaks near the water’s edge, offering great views that inspire conversation. The Kingstide is an upscale, waterfront restaurant known for its seafood prepared raw or cooked, and its wood-fired entrees. On the casual side is Mac’s, with its tasty pub food, welcoming bar, and courtyard seating, and New Realm Brewery, which crafts IPAs and pilsners enjoyed with great food while listening to live music on the covered deck.
The island has high-ranking public schools (part of the Berkeley County system) and a renowned Catholic high school called Bishop England. Sports enthusiasts enjoy LTP (Live to Play)'s tennis and pickleball facilities, where the Credit One Charleston Open takes place, and there are loads of community boat landings, kayak slips, and parks for residents who don’t have their own dock. Barfield Park has marsh views and trails, Edgefield Park has an Olympic-sized swimming pool and Crow’s Nest Community Center, and Codner’s Ferry Park is beloved by children for its large playgrounds.
Most of the island’s subdivisions have large lots and natural focal points, like Smythe Park’s eleven-acre lake. Edgefield Park has views of the Ravenel Bridge, and the Waterfront is a 22-acre community with a walkable core and nearby parks. Daniel Island is known for its beauty and livability and was listed in the “20 best places to live on the coast” (Coastal Living), won the Urban Land Institute’s Award for Excellence, and was awarded the SC Chapter of American Planning Association’s Outstanding Project Award.
Listing prices for real estate can be dear, reflecting the beauty of location, lot and home size, and the general desirability of the island, but condos start in the affordable $330k range. Buyers have a range of choices from bespoke, architect-designed mansions to traditional style houses with wide, welcoming wrap-around porches, to townhouses, to condos, many of which have an array of amenities like pools and community gathering spaces, as well as private balconies for most units. Most of the island’s building stock was constructed in the last 30 years, meaning low maintenance and up-to-date landscaping and interior layout preferences.
For more real estate resources, follow CHS Regional MLS on Facebook and Instagram! If you’re not a member yet, join CHS Regional MLS for access to the Lowcountry's most extensive and accurate property database.
Sources:
Christina Butler. “Martha Daniell Logan Biographical Essay.” Compiled for Daniel Island Historical Society, 2024.
Christina Butler. “McDowell Cemetery and Cainhoy Meeting House.” Compiled for Daniel Island Historical Society, 2025.
Ramsay. David. The History of South Carolina, from its First Settlement to the Year 1808. Charleston: David Longworth, 1809.
Smith, Henry Augustus Middleton. “The Baronies of South Carolina.” South Carolina Historical Magazine, Vol. 13, No. 1 (Jan., 1912), pp. 3-20.
Smith, Henry Augustus Middleton. “Charleston and Charleston Neck: The Original Grantees and the Settlements along the Ashley and Cooper Rivers.” South Carolina Historical Magazine, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Jan., 1918), pp. 3-76.
Butler, Christina. “Best of Coastal Living on Daniel Island.” Charleston Empire Properties Blog. 2020. https://charlestonempireproperties.com/the-best-of-coastal-living-on-daniel-island/
Cainhoy Historic District. National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service.
Frazier, Herb. Behind God’s Back. Gullah Memories: Cainhoy, Wando, Huger, and Daniel Island. Charleston: Evening Post Press, 2019.
Irving, John Beaufain. A Day on the Cooper River. Columbia: R.L. Ryan, 1932.
Daniel Island Company website. https://danielisland.com/island-living/town/
Charleston News and Courier. “Daniel Island Bridge to be Ready in 1940.” 21 July 1939.
Historic maps and plats
Michael Dahlman and Michael Dahlman Jr. Daniel Island. Charleston: Arcadia Press, 2008.
Nicholas Butler. “The First Century of Ferry Service Across the Cooper River.” Charleston Time Machine. 25 May 2018.
Daniel Island Property, island history. https://www.danielislandproperty.com/local- information/history-daniel-island-sc/ (Accessed October 2020.)
Guggenheim Foundation. Master Plan Submission. March 1993.