Glimpses of Charleston

A local's eye view

Houses/Buildings/Gates

Grace Church Cathedral, located on Wentworth Street, is one of the most striking in Charleston. Designed by the famed architect, Edward Brickell White, it opened in 1848.
Located on Coming Street (this is a backside view), the Cathedral Church of St. Luke and St. Paul (c. 1811), is the cathedral of the Diocese of South Carolina.  Due to cost overruns and engineering difficulties, they were not able add a steeple and opted for this tower.
There is holiday beauty all over Charleston. This elegant scene can be found on East Bay Street.
This house on Murray Boulevard (the Low Battery) is nicely dressed for the holidays. With an unobstructed view across the Ashley River to James Island, it's a pretty nice spot.
The beautiful Governor's House Inn on Broad Street was built on the site of the former Charleston Orange Garden in 1760. It's believed that an actual orange grove was there in the 1600's.
This beautiful house on East Bay Street is well dressed for the holidays.  Built in 1783, it was a rental property that even had a grocery store in the bottom at one point. The earthquake rod or bolt, the end of which is visible in the big black cross, was likely added later to help shore up the property.
This half of a double tenement building (c. 1806) on Queen Street always looks snazzy. Dressed up for the holidays, only adds to the charm. Located across the street from the Footlight Players Theater, and around the corner from the Dock Street Theatre, it's in a pretty good spot if you want to catch a play.
The Col. John Ashe House on South Battery always looks sharp. With a great view across to White Point Garden, it's not only good looking, but well situated.
The beautiful gates at 10 Legare Street are dressed up for the holidays. Classic Charleston.
This entry is the north end of a "triple tenement" on East Bay Street, right next to Hazel Parker Playground. Built by Governor Arnoldus Vanderhorst in about 1800, the triple tenements were used as rental property. These days each section of the tenement is a magnificent house unto itself (Zillow values just this third of the tenement at well over $4 million).
The neighbors of this pretty little house on Gibbes Street used to have roosters roaming their garden. They would serve as an early morning alarm for the whole neighborhood.
Some serious holiday trimming on this 1740 house on East Bay Street. An interesting story about the house is that the first resident, Anne Boone, was the granddaughter of one of the people who executed King Charles I in 1649 -- leading to his son moving to Charleston as a refugee.
This beautiful house, on Murray Boulevard, is nicely dressed for the holidays. With a wonderful view of the Low Battery and the Ashley River, whether look at or from the house.
The house that this gorgeous Charleston doorway is in dates to Colonial times, but the door itself is a more recent addition. Located on Rainbow Row, as with most buildings on this stretch of East Bay Street, the first floor was originally used commercially (in this case as a counting house and then as a grain and feed store). In 1941, when Susan Pringle Frost -- the founder of the modern day preservation movement in Charleston -- restored the building she replaced the existing storefront with this door.
This c. 1835 house on South Battery glows in the early evening. At the time it was built it would have had a great view of the Ashley River. The 1910 Murray Boulevard project changed all that. 
Built in 1850, this architecturally diverse house on Franklin Street was home to French consul in the 1870's and 1880's. 
This gorgeous colonial house, built c. 1718 on Tradd Street, later became the home of the well-known artist, Elizabeth O'Neill Verner. She lived there from 1938 until her death in 1979.
This pink house on Franklin Street is just above Broad Street, making it a SNOB.
This handsome house on Queen Street, c 1850, once had a very different look. This was once a classic Charleston single house with a double piazza -- you can tell by the large doors that open on the first and second floors. 
This beautiful entrance on Tradd Street leads into a house built c. 1850 by William C. Bee, the owner one of the leading blockade running businesses in Charleston.
The famed Robert Mills designed this beautiful building as the Marine Hospital to treat sick and disabled merchant seamen. Built in 1831-34, it was Charleston's first Gothic Revival structure and has had many interesting tenants since its original use -- including being a Confederate hospital, a free school for black children and the Jenkins Orphanage. 
This simple little antebellum (c.1810) house on Tradd Street is unusual for the size of it setback from the street. In the 1850's it became the residence of an undertaker, who constructed a small structure next door in which to build coffins. Not what you'd find South of Broad today!
This beautiful blue-shuttered house on Tradd Street was built about 1718. 300 years ago it would have stood within the walls of the then walled city of Charleston.
This interesting mix of Charleston iron can be found on Meeting Street. While built in 1806, the house did not add the cast iron balconies until the mid-1800's.
One of the nice things about being in a sub-tropical climate is the diversity of plant and animal life. The Washingtonian (aka Mexican Fan Palm) palm trees on either side of this pretty house on King Street are a great example of some of the more tropical plants that are found throughout Charleston
This circa 1740 house is one of the earliest examples of where the Charleston single house layout was utilized. It is  notable that its public entrance has always faced the street. The change to the main entrance of a single house coming off of the side piazza followed the construction of this house.
This Charleston entrance on Meeting Street just screams, "Welcome!" Doesn't it?
These beautiful gates, and the rest, can be found on Legare Street. Legare, pronoucned "Luh Gree," is home to some of the most memorable houses in Charleston.
The ironwork along the top of the wall in front the of the Miles Brewton House on King Street is perhaps the most visible and significant example of chevaux de frise iron in Charleston. Scary.
While relatively new by downtown Charleston standards, this 1908 house on Lamboll Street holds its own with some of its neighbors.
This antebellum house on Limehouse Street (c.1856) was built by William Shingler, and then sold shortly thereafter  due to his wife dying and a weak cotton market (he was a cotton factor). But, since he apparently knew what he liked, within the next year he began to build a similar house across the street and married his former wife's sister.
This picturesque little structure is tucked off Tradd Street, which is one of the few streets that runs completely from one side of the peninsula to the other.
This wonderful combination of architectural details and beautiful plants can be found on Meeting Street, just across from the Calhoun Mansion. A real "wow."
This eye-catching pre-revolutionary pink house (c. 1740) on Tradd Street is framed by two crepe myrtle trees, which can be easily identified by their distinctive blotchy bark.
A beautiful Colonial Revival style house on Lamboll Street, which was built circa 1912 by the editor of the Evening Post newspaper. Love the checkerboard.
The house to which this beautiful door belongs was built on Tradd Street between 1767-1772, by a Scotsman (John Stuart) who was the King's Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the southern colonies. With the coming revolution Stuart fled in 1775 and the house was sold to a new owner as confiscated property in 1782. Another defeat for those pesky Redcoats.
This beautiful Charleston gate on King Street is made from wrought iron -- meaning that each piece was individually heated and then bent by hand (most often hammered over an anvil). Most of the decorative ironwork in Charleston was made this way, as opposed to cast iron where molten metal is poured into a mold, and each piece is identical.
Some of Charleston's night creatures caught heading home as the early morning sun hits the rooftops. You can find them this time of year hanging out on the balcony of the beautiful pre-revolutionary house on the northeast corner of Meeting and Tradd Streets.  And the good news is that you can hang out with them whenever you want, as the house is for sale for a cool $2.95 million.
This incredible house and property on Montegu Street was originally for sale at $12,950,000. You can now pick it up for a steal at $6,990,000. A bahgin!
This welcoming house on lower King Street sports a rounded front porch -- which is less common to see in Charleston thank those incorporating right angles.