Since 1808, visitors have admired the grand Federal townhouse of Charleston merchant Nathaniel Russell. Set amid spacious formal gardens, the Nathaniel Russell House is a National Historic Landmark and is widely recognized as one of America’s most important neoclassical dwellings. The graceful interior with elaborate plasterwork ornamentation, geometrically shaped rooms and a magnificent free-flying staircase are among the most exuberant ever created in early America. Today the Nathaniel Russell House interprets the lives of the Russell family, as well as the African American slaves and artisans who were responsible for maintaining one of the South’s grandest antebellum townhouses.