There’s a memorable scene in the 2004 film The Notebook (based on the novel by Nicholas Sparks) when teenage lovers Allie and Noah stumble into a dilapidated old house. In the heat of the moment, Noah vows to buy it and fix it up, and Allie makes him promise to paint it white, with blue shutters, and add “a room overlooking the river so [she] can paint.” This is that house. When director Nick Cassavetes came to town to film the movie, he found that the charming Wadmalaw Island residence fit the bill. Moviemakers roughed it up for earlier sequences, and then “restored” it to its natural beauty for Noah’s grand reveal. In real-life, the estate, known as Martin’s Point Plantation, was owned by the Towles family from 1866 until the 1970s, and then turned into a private waterfront community in 1989.
