A local's eye view
The Wentworth Mansion, built c. 1886 as a private house on Wentworth Street, was once known as “the finest home in all of Charleston.” With about 24,000 square feet of space, it’s an amazing building. You can stay there, as it is now a spectacular 5 Star hotel.
You’d never know it by this photo, but the City Market is the most visited tourist destination in Charleston. Early in its evolution, it was a meat market — which accounted for the gathering of tremendous numbers of vultures, earning them the nickname of “Charleston eagles.”
This beautiful pink house on East Battery (c. 1848) is reaching the end of a long restoration, converting it from a B&B back to a single family house. Once owned by a dentist, the popular story about the pink color is that it represents healthy gums. It is not the original color of the house, but has become iconic and the new owners decided to keep it that way.
A beautiful sunrise as seen from Riley Waterfront Park. Prior to opening in May 1990, the park sustained about $1,000,000 worth of damage when Hurricane Hugo struck Charleston.
In the background of this pretty view of Waterfront Park, there is an Irish flag flying on Castle Pinckney on Shutes Folly in honor of the day.
This beautiful stretch of antebellum houses is on St. Michael’s Alley. The first house on the left was designed by the famed architect, E.B. White — who was the supervising architect of the US Custom House on East Bay Street, among other prominent Charleston projects.
St. Michael’s steeple being bathed in the light of the setting sun. The iconic white steeple wasn’t always that way. During the Revolutionary and Civil Wars it was painted black, to make it a tougher target during the bombardment of the city.
The Young-Johnson House was built around 1770 and is an imposing presence on Church Street. Home to Joseph Johnson in the 19th century, Johnson (among other things) led the SC Unionist Party during the Nullification Crisis in 1832-33.
This beautiful Charleston entryway is to a Meeting Street house built in 1789. If you turn left when walking out the door you’ll quickly come to the intersection of Meeting and Broad Streets — known as the Four Corners of Law (dubbed that by Robert Ripley, of Ripley’s Believe It or Not).
This relatively unassuming door on Rutledge Avenue is the entrance to a house (c. 1850) that boasts some of the grandest Tower of Wind (a.k.a. Corinthian) columns in Charleston.