The destruction of North Augusta's Hampton Terrace Hotel in the early hours of the first day of 1917 was a blow to the fledgling town's prominence. A planned reconstruction of the hotel might have brought the same success to Belvedere but it never got off the ground.

The original Hampton Terrace was a haven for the Northern industrialists who made up the Winter Colony. The five-story hotel boasted 300 rooms and a guest capacity of 500 and a regular guest list that included the likes of New York industrialist John D. Rockefeller, Chicago department store magnate Marshall Field and rubber and tire millionaire Harvey Firestone, among others.

North Augusta designer and Hampton Terrace impresario James U. Jackson worked ceaselessly from the hotel's destruction until his death in 1925 to rebuild the grand resort, this time at a site some three miles from the original building, which dominated the landscape of downtown North Augusta. He worked with renowned Chicago architect Benjamin H. Marshall, creator of the Drake Hotel, on the project, and after Jackson's death Marshall sought to continue the project with a group of private investors. In 1928 the Aiken Standard reported that a groundbreaking was near on the Belvedere complex - and then, nothing.

"It was probably just beyond where the original Hampton Terrace was, abutted up to Haskell Plantation, which is still there," said Owen Clary, chairman of the Aiken County Historical Commission. "Nineteen-twenty-eight is right before the start of the Great Depression, of course, and the 1920s is when Henry Flagler built his East and West coast railroads and a lot of the Winter Colony switched to Palm Beach, Fla., because that's where Flagler built, and they followed him to Florida for their vacations. I don't know anything specific about what happened to the new Hampton Terrace, but those are my theories."

The plans for the new Hampton Terrace were to include a combination tropical garden and dining room, a dance floor, a swimming pool with palm trees, a polo field, four golf courses, tennis courts, bridle path and aviation field. The project was expected to run to $4 million and cover a 4,000-acre tract; also in the plan was the development of a cottage colony estimated at $3 million.

"It would've been interesting. We're talking about 1928, and the Depression started in 1929, which could've thrown everything for a loop," said Aiken County Historical Museum Executive Director Elliott Levy. "If they'd completed it, would they have had the clientele, because of the Depression? It might not have had the impact it had in North Augusta, where they had built up the market. To restart something after 12 years, I don't know if they could've recaptured that magic time. I wonder if it was a case of fate stepping in to say, 'You've had your time.'"