The place of governors, historians and preservationists, the Legare-Waring House at Charles Towne Landing State Historic Site serves as the grand seat of class at South Carolina's birthplace. Built in the 1840's, the modest two-story cottage was a part of Old Town Plantation. By 1865, after the burning of the plantation's great house during the Civil War, this structure became the most significant shelter on the property for the beleaguered Parker and Legare families. In the 1930's, Ferdinanda Izlar Legare Backer Waring became the sole owner of Old Town Plantation and the last of nine families to own the property. Moving into the house by the 1950's, she and her husband Joseph Ioor Waring transformed the house by transforming it into an elegant early representation of an antebellum plantation. Expanding it to three times its original size, it became a quaint home and an entertainer's dream. By the late 1980's, with Mr. and Mrs. Waring's passing, their daughter, Nancy Stevenson, former Lieutenant Governor of SC, recommended the home as a Charleston residence for the sitting governor. Since that time, it has hosted South Carolina's first families, national officials and international dignitaries. The South Carolina State Park Service also continues to provide educational opportunities to gain a better understanding of the significant plantation era history of the site.