[7] The original Rose Hill Plantation property of 1880 acres was a wedding gift from James Brown Kirk to his eldest daughter, Caroline in 1838.

During these years, the Kirk family profited from the labor and talent of enslaved people who grew cotton, rice, and indigo on the land.

[9] Sometime during the early years of the American Civil War, the Kirks had to flee to nearby Grahamville when word came of Sherman's Union troop movement in the area.

After John Sturgeon's death in 1978, the estate was purchased, in 1981, by The Rose Hill Plantation Development Co., a joint venture of the Welton Corporation and Ontario Properties.

The company developed Rose Hill Plantation into a gated community of approximately 950 residential home sites that vary in size from patio lots to multi-acre tracts, an Equestrian Center, a golf course, and many amenities for the use of its residents.

In 1983, due mainly to the intense efforts of Mrs. Welton, the Rose Hill Plantation house was listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

According to The National Register of Historic Places: Rose Hill, on the Colleton River in Beaufort County, South Carolina, is a two-story, frame, cruciform, Gothic Revival building with a brick foundation, vertical board-and-batten siding, and a steeply pitched gable roof sheathed in standing-seam metal [copper].

The interior has a cruciform plan arranged around a central domed stair-hall which is oval-shaped and has an open-stringer staircase rising at the north end of the hall and following the curve of the call to the second-floor gallery.

The details of Rose Hill are integrated in a highly sophisticated manner, and exhibits extraordinary craftsmanship, with the interior millwork being of exceptional note.

The kitchen and laundry room at the rear of the house that was adding during the Sturgeon years has been completely renovated and updated with period-looking modern appliances.