Wexford Plantation, Hilton Head Island, SC

The harbour is what sets Wexford apart from every other community on the island. Its canals wind between the homes and open onto Broad Creek, and from there onto the Intracoastal Waterway, through a lock. With the lock between the harbour and the creek, the water inside stays at a depth of about eight feet instead of rising and falling with the tide outside. Wexford says it is one of only three lock systems on the East Coast. Boats up to 70 feet long, with a beam of up to 19 feet, fit through.

There are 280 slips. Of those, 138 are behind privately owned homes, so the owners keep their boats at the end of the garden, and the rest are in the basin behind the clubhouse, for Wexford property owners only. The Harbour Center rents kayaks and paddleboards to residents, and its captains take residents out on the Wexplorer, a pontoon boat, for a tour of the harbour. For boating on the rest of the island, see our Hilton Head boating guide.

Wexford is gated. Cars come in past the Wexford Gatehouse, and the community has its own security department, which issues the passes and decals that contractors need to work inside. There is nothing inside for a day visitor to go and see on their own: the golf course sells no public tee times, the clubhouse restaurant is for members and their guests, and there is no public beach or park. If you are invited, your host arranges your way in.

The 18-hole course belongs to Wexford Golf Club, an Arnold Palmer design laid out among pines, live oaks and the harbour’s canals. Its practice ground, lessons and member events are for residents, and a visitor plays only as a member’s guest; our Wexford Golf Club page has the scorecard and the club’s phone number. For courses anyone can book, see our Hilton Head golf courses directory.

The Tennis & Pickleball Center has six Har-Tru clay courts and four pickleball courts, all lit for evening play, with a clubroom and two viewing decks. The club’s pros run clinics and private lessons, and there are social and competitive events all year. Croquet is part of club life here too. For courts open to visitors, see our Hilton Head tennis and Hilton Head pickleball guides.

The clubhouse looks out over the harbour and is the center of the community’s social life, with a kitchen that cooks seasonal, locally sourced menus and a long wine list. Beside it, the pool complex is heated and cooled to suit the season, so it opens all year, and attendants bring towels, chairs, food and drinks.

The Wexford Yacht Club is open to every resident and organizes the boating social life: gatherings, talks and trips by water. Its members get reciprocal privileges at other clubs in the Yacht Clubs of America.

Wexford’s houses share a look. The community’s design guidelines set a British Colonial theme, a mix of Georgian, Jacobean and British Caribbean styles, so you see quoins at the corners, eyebrow moldings over doors and windows, louvered shutters and balconies on curved brackets, set in lush planting. Single-family homes must be at least 2,200 square feet, and every exterior change, from paint colors to a new dock, goes through the Architectural Standards Committee.

Wexford’s best-known owner was Michael Jordan. He bought a 3,150-square-foot house overlooking the golf course in 1988 for $550,000, a three-bedroom home in the British West Indies style, and kept it as his Lowcountry retreat until he sold it in 1999 for $475,000. It is a private home, inside the gate like every house here.

Homes sit on the harbour, on Broad Creek, beside the golf course or on the lagoons. Several neighborhoods have their own supplemental rules, including their own size limits: Wexford on the Green, Wexford Commons and Wexford Garden Homes, plus a few multi-family areas. For what is on the market now, and what an owner should know before buying, see our Wexford Plantation homes for sale page.

Wexford isn’t a place to buy a vacation rental. Its covenants limit every lot and home to residential use and bar running any trade or business from it, and there is no rental program. If you are buying and hope to lease the house when you aren’t using it, get the association’s leasing rules in writing before you make an offer.

If you want to stay nearby, most of the island’s vacation rentals are in Sea Pines, Palmetto Dunes, Shipyard, Shelter Cove and around Folly Field, and our Hilton Head vacation rentals guide covers the companies that rent them.

Wexford is on the south end of the island, off William Hilton Parkway (US 278), with Broad Creek along one side. The shops and restaurants of The Village at Wexford, a shopping center on the parkway, are just outside the gate, and Sea Pines, Shipyard and the Coligny beaches are a short drive away. The club’s office is at 111 Wexford Club Drive, (843) 686-8810.

If you are comparing communities, our Hilton Head neighborhoods guide sets Wexford beside the others, and our Hilton Head real estate guide covers the whole island.