[new_royalslider id=”189″]
Historic photo and information provided by Jim Jordan
Birnie Hill, one of the last plantations in Greenville, was the home of Mary Birnie Lewis. It encompassed 87 acres and provided a familiar sight overlooking a broad vista on Augusta Road between Grove Road and West Faris Road. Pictured are Lewis’ daughter, May Lewis Alston, with four of her children, out for a pony and buggy ride about 1918. Behind is “the big house” as it appeared for more than 150 years.
In the 1940s, following the death of Mary Birnie Lewis, the property was sold to the Caine Company, and was developed into Plaza Apartments, Lewis Village Apartments and Lewis Plaza, one of the first urban shopping centers in South Carolina. Prior to the development, however, one of Lewis’ sons had the big house moved to a site facing the Plaza across Aberdeen Avenue (named by Lewis for her forebears’ home in Scotland) and the interior renovated. It became the Birne Apartments, and today it is the Lewis House Apartments.
