Dataw Island, located just outside of historic Beaufort, offers superlative golf, a wide range of watersports, excellent club facilities and gracious homes. And all in the casual lifestyle and abundant, natural beauty found only in the Lowcountry of South Carolina.

Dataw Island is consistently ranked high in published lists of preferred communities. Dataw Island and Beaufort have been named among the top choices in the nation for retirement living by Fortune magazine and New Choices magazine, a Reader's Digest publication.

Dataw Island Golf
The convenience and privacy of Dataw Island are perhaps best experienced on the golf courses; tee times which fit your schedule and the mannerly play of a true club atmosphere, not a busy resort. The 36 holes of golf at Dataw Island are among the very best in the Lowcountry.

Dataw Island Golf: Cotton Dike
Dataw Island's Cotton Dike was the first golf course created at Dataw Island. Designed by the ever artful hand of Tom Fazio, Cotton Dike is built over terrain which was coaxed from the marshes by a series of dikes, intended to create more land for cotton fields during the great Plantation days of Dataw Island.

The 18 holes of Cotton Dike require strategy and accuracy and in return provide a tireless golfing experience with a variety of interesting challenges. Almost half of the 18 holes lie along the marsh and Jenkins Creek, a wonderful contrast of the natural beauty of the Lowcountry and the precision design of the Cotton Dike course.

Dataw Island Golf: Morgan River
Dataw Island's Morgan River was the second course built at Dataw Island and is a striking example of the great talent of Arthur Hills. Narrower than Cotton Dike, the Morgan River course is the more demanding of your accuracy but well rewards every disciplined shot. The beauty of the course is dramatic; breaks in the stands of massive oaks create frames for the water views of the Morgan River and the savannahs beyond.

Dataw Island Real Estate
Dataw Island understands that meticulous planning always precedes the development of a fine community. Dataw Island has an excellent master plan which is sensitive to the environmental concerns of the island while creating well-designed homesites with great orientations

Dataw Island offers single family homes with unsurpassed views; sunset across the marsh, a river front teeming with local wildlife or fairway views of either Cotton Dike or Morgan River golf course.

Dataw Island Marina
The Dataw Island Marina provides state-of-the-art facilities and marine services, catering to seasoned mariners as well as families casting off for their first picnic afloat. A hub of activity, the marina at Dataw Island is the perfect start for quiet explorations of the pristine inlets, marsh waterways or exciting, deep-sea fishing expeditions on the Atlantic Ocean.

Dataw Island's Marina is 3 miles from the ICW and easily accessible. By boat, follow the Intracoastal Waterway to mile marker 521.5 and turn south into Parrot Creek. Keep all green markers to your left and all red markers to your right. Depths in Parrot Creek are 10' MLW. To contact the marina by telephone, simply dial (888) 838-8410, or call on channel 16 or 68 for docking or approach instructions.

Dataw Island: Location
Dataw Island is located six miles east of Beaufort, South Carolina, just off the Sea Island Parkway (Route 21)

39 miles north of Hilton Head Island, South Carolina
52 miles north of Savannah, Georgia
75 miles south of Charleston, South Carolina
Commercial air service at Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport & Charleston Airport
Private airports in Beaufort, Ridgeland and Hilton Head
Dataw is bounded by the Morgan River to the north and Jenkins Creek to the east, south and west
Shopping and premier medical facilities nearby

Dataw Island's History
The great barrier islands of South Carolina have long been a fertile source of history and folklore. Dataw Island's first visitors arrived around 2500 B.C.; these early tribes of wandering Indians returned frequently to the island, drawn by the bountiful supplies of game and shellfish.

Dataw Island greeted the Spanish Europeans in the early 1500s. Captain Pedro de Salaza discovered the area in 1514, which establishes Beaufort county as the second landing in the new world by the Europeans, preceded only by Ponce de Leon's founding of St. Augustine, Florida, just one year earlier.

Over the course of the next 200 years, the English gradually replaced the early Spanish settlers. In 1685, Caleb Westbrook, an entrepreneurial Scotsman, established a trading post on Dataw Island, trading with the Indians for deerskins, a valued commodity in England. Slow, but steady settlement of the area continued through the pre-Revolutionary War years.

With the beginning of the Plantation Age, the great sea islands of South Carolina became the "Newport of the South", with large, opulent homes financed by the enormous cash crops of indigo, used for cloth dying, and sea island cotton, the finest in the world. In the late 1700s, William Sams selected Dataw Island as the site for his indigo fields which later became Sea Island Cotton fields. The remains of the family's magnificent tabby home are a carefully preserved treasure today.

The Civil War heralded the end of a gracious and privileged lifestyle and for over 100 years Dataw Island was a quiet hunting preserve. The acquisition of Dataw Island by Alcoa Properties, Inc., in 1983, assures that the next era of the island's history will be recorded as the sensitive and responsible development of one of the more beautiful islands in this part of Eden. //