Historic Charleston

Typical House with side Portico

We did a walking tour of Charleston today. Most of the houses here were built in the 1700s. The old town is on a peninsula, so the houses are designed to be cooled by the winds that go from East to West. This places most of the porticoes on the side of the house, rather than facing the street to catch that breeze and the shade. The shutters on the first floor are solid to keep out the dust, while those on upper floors are louvered to let that breeze in. Most of these houses have beautiful gardens in the back yard. Houses are either single or double wide, that is one room or two rooms wide to let the air flow through the house. We also saw earthquake bolts on many of the houses, these were used to stabilize the house after the magnitude 7 earthquake of 1886.

 

Heyward-Washington House

We visited several of the houses: The Heyward –Washington House was built for Thomas Heyward, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Here we saw several beautiful mahogany pieces including a chest of drawers that could be un-stacked for traveling. The house added the name Washington after George Washington stayed in the house in 1891. A painted glass portrait adorns one of the fireplaces.

Edmonton-Alston House

The Edmonton-Alston house was originally built in 1825 in Federalist style, but the owner lost his fortune in the Panic of 1837. Charles Alston transformed it into a Greek revival house and it is still owned by a descendant of Alston. Confederate Generals watched the bombardment of Fort Sumter from its portico. The largest house in Charleston is the Calhoun house, built in 1876, and consisting of 35 rooms. The house was a gilded age house and sported objects from around the world. The house was sold and converted to other uses until recently. Today’s owner has his own collection of objects which filled each of the lower rooms. He bills the house as a museum, but you could only do a tour of the two lower floors, and barely got a chance to see each of these objects. Most impressive was some of the original wood work of the home as well as the Tiffany chandeliers. We tried to tour the Dock Street Theatre, but a show was about to start. Across the street was the Huguenot Church the last French Protestant church in the country. Its simple interior was a real change to the opulence of the many homes we saw.