March 19- Non-Profits and Current Issues

Above: Historic Charleston Foundation's circa 1808 headquarters at 40 East Bay Street. We met with Katherine Saunders, Associate Director of HCF, and discussed important current issues such as the Calhoun Street East/Cooper River Waterfront Plan. Photo by Historic Charleston Foundation.

Meeting Katherine Saunders with Historic Charleston Foundation provided an insightful glimpse into an active historic preservation agency. Their mission is to preserve and protect the architectural and cultural character of Charleston and its environs. In order to promote preservation in Charleston HCF has created several programs that involve the public. Revolving fund initiatives, easements and covenants all help HCF in their mission.

In the 1950s, the historic Ansonborough neighborhood was part of the nation’s first neighborhood rehabilitation effort. However, gentrification and displacement soon followed. We need to find ways to encourage preservation without gentrification and displacement. Our goals as preservationists now should be to promote our cause to every demographic and to preserve the character that comes with a diversity of people, not just the character that comes with historic buildings. In planning for Charleston’s preservation plan for the future, city officials, preservation organizations, and the public need to consider these issues and others, like zoning. Future plans also need to consider green sustainability and re-use of historic materials. Charleston is moving outward, thanks to the active annexing of the surrounding area—there is no one character of Charleston now.
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Above: Part of the corridor for the proposed Calhoun Street East/Cooper River Waterfront Plan. You can find a pdf of the plans if you follow this link: http://www.charlestoncity.info/shared/docs/0/calhounst_091123.pdf.
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Preservation Society of Charleston headquarters at 147 King Street. We met with Robert Gurley, Assitant Director, to discuss the above plan.

Robert Gurley gave us a great introduction to the oldest community based preservation society in the nation. For more information on the Preservation Society, follow this link: http://www.preservationsociety.org/. Like HCF, they have easement programs and view themselves as a preservation advocacy arm of the community. Some of their concerns for the future of Charleston are issues to consider as having important impacts on preservation progress. Tourism has become a major blessing and curse for Charleston. Crucial tourism dollars help fund a city that is weakened by a declining population and increase in absentee property owners. There is little buildable land and much of it is privately owned. Staying vigilant to changing ordinances and broadening their inclusion of historic buildings since the 1950s has made the Preservation Society of Charleston an important cornerstone in Charleston’s preservation community.
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Above left to right: On the way to our last meeting, we passed by an interesting building near King Street and the United Church of Christ's Circular Congregational Church on Meeting Street. The church is very interesting and for a bit more of its history go to this link: http://www.circularchurch.org/content.cfm?id=2002.
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Above: Wrought iron entrance gate to the William Aiken House and the courtyard view of the house and wrap around piazza.

Meeting with John Hildreth of the Southern Regional Office, National Trust for Historic Preservation. Offices are located at the circa 1810 William Aiken House on 456 King Street at Ann. For more information: http://www.preservationnation.org/about-us/regional-offices/southern/.
We met John Hildreth, Director of the Southern Office of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and Nancy Tinker, Senior Program Officer at the Southern Office. The National Trust promotes our historic sites, buildings, structures, and landscapes from an organizational (not governmental) stance. One of the goals in supporting certain sites and buildings is to add to America’s “portfolio of places” examples of true American experiences. For example, the Lower East Side Tenement, Slave Meeting House, and Drayton Hall reflect varying experiences of different people.

Another goal of the National Trust, and one that I see as extremely crucial to the future of preservation, is how to use properties in a responsible way to make them more vital. We need to move away from making more house museums and create model projects to promote advocacy of realistic preservation. The National Trust also acts a way to connect the public and other preservation organizations on a national scale. Programs such as their Endangered Properties List, Gosaic heritage travel initiative, Main Street Initiatives, Rosenwald School Initiative, and Modernism in Recent Past Initiative demonstrate just how involved the Trust is. Through these programs, they hope to apply their National Trust resources on the ground and become even more of a worthy advocate to other organizations.

Inside the Southern Office headquarters:

Above left to right: Sitting room and detail of an earthquake bolt.

Above group: Drawing room chandelier with decorative ceiling medallion, window treatments, and crown molding detail in red salon on second floor.

Below left to right: Chandelier with decorative ceiling medallion in ballroom and a glimpse onto the second floor piazza.

February 19- Preserving the Building Arts & Restoration and the Private Sector

Above: The Trolley Barn, ca. 1897, at 665 Meeting Street. Potential class room space for the American College of the Building Arts. For more information about the College of Building Arts, follow this link: http://www.buildingartscollege.us/.

Our class met David Payne outside The Trolley Barn on Meeting Street. This building used to house streetcars for the city of Charleston. The American College of Building Arts will lease the property from the city in order to have more classroom space for its stone carving, iron working, masonry, timber framing, and plaster workshops. The goal is to have the Barn functioning for Fall 2011--which may not be a realistic time frame considering the actual shape of the building and outbuildings.
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Above: Circa 1840 15 Thomas Street home that the College of Building Arts is working on.

Next, we drove to the site of a current project between the College of Building Arts and a local contractor. The Thomas Street residence was getting a near complete preservation treatment. This house was a unique architectural blend of a New England Style house with a Charleston Piazza--dare I say a form of Charleston vernacular architecture? External and internal structural issues were holding up the progress. Interior changes will occur, but mainly in the form of modernizing interior space. In order to match the house to its appropriate historic appearance, a house was found on the same neighborhood that records indicate is a close match to the Thomas Street house. The College of the Building Arts is collaborating with a contractor that is building for a client. In situations like these, client's wishes often do not mesh with preservation professionals like those at the College and the State Historic Preservation Office.

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At left and below: American College of the Building Arts.

Located inside the old Charleston District Jail at 21 Magazine Street.

The main building of the 21 Magazine Street Old Charleston District jain was built in 1802 in a Georgian style. In 1850 a Gothic Revival addition included an octagonal shape at the back and crenallation on running along the top of old and new space. In 1886, an earthquake severly damaged the jail and an entire floor was destroyed--bringing the jail to three stories down from four. In 1933, the building was discontinued as a jail and was used for storage. The old jail has been used as a work house for slaves and a P.O.W. camp for Union soldiers during the Civil War. In 1999, the School of Building Arts arrived and through a Save America's Treasure grant, was able to rehabilitate some areas of the old jail.

This is a good example of an adaptive reuse of an historic building. Though the College faces many challenges with funding, deterioration, and lack of space--reusing this builidng has afforded the College a great experimental place. Externally, the facade is in great shape. Internally, I feel that they need to preserve some of the historical fabric like cell markings and windows that give a sense of what this building's layers of history represent.

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Above: McLeod Plantation, 1850-1851, pre Civil War gin house, an 18th century outbuilding, and post Civil War barn on James Island. The last two photos are of an intact slave house row that you can view from the main highway.

This was a frustrating visit for the simple reason that no one within Charleston's preservation community can figure out what to do with McLeod Plantation. Currently, it is owned by the Historic Charleston Foundation. At one time the American College of Building Arts (ACBA) was to purchase the property. However, Friends of McLeod Plantation, dissapproved and the process was stopped. The College of Charleston was interested, but it too met with the Friends of McLeod's dissaproval. For more information about the Friends of McLeod Plantation, follow this link: http://www.mcleodplantation.org/.

McLeod Plantation is threatened by development. A major highway runs parallel to the main house, only seperated by mere acres. An original row of slave cabins runs nearly from the highway to the house. Of the outbuildings, the gin house is pre civil war and the barn is post civil war construction. There is an 18th century structure that is now used for storage and at one point was a garage.

The problems that McLeod Plantation seems to face is uncooperation for area preservation organizations--mainly the Friends of McLeod. Professional and non-professional preservation organizations should work together to overcome situations like the plantation is in. This is a threatened historic site and it should not be encased in glass as a house museum. It should become part of a living organization that will strive to protect its unique historical character while making it a viable part of our modern world.

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Above photos left to right: At the 97 Broad 1830s single house just completed and the 1787 Georgian style undergoing work at 93 Broad.

We met with Fillmore Wilson of Meadors Construction to talk about historic preservation concerns with LEED projects (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design). For more information on LEED, follow this link: http://www.usgbc.org/. Mr. Wilson has worked with many LEED projects and was able to impart a great deal on some problems with LEED and preservation projects.

LEED point criteria is based on sustainable ideas. New construction, major rehabilitations, and residential projects can be LEED compliant. However, there are many different criteria depending on where you live that can potentially change how many LEED points you earn.

Left: A freshly started project that will turn this 1961Navy degaussing station into a very upscale and gold LEED certified private home.

There currently is no national standard for what is green and LEED provides a way for large scale, and now smaller scale, projects to have an official standard for green. LEED levels consist of certified, silver, gold, and platinum. There are problems between LEED and historic preservation projects. LEED does not recognize specific historic material needs that may be needed to make a rehab or restoration historically accurate. From what I can tell, LEED is an important rating system that many architects and preseration professoinals are buzzing about. Changes can occur with proper preservation representation within LEED and initial programs are always broad. It is up to those wihtin the historic preservation to initiate an acceptance within LEED of historic preservation's place in all things green.

February 5 African-American Heritage

Below: Facade of Old Slave Mart Museum. Photo from the City of Charleston.

This field school session started off with a visit to the Old Slave Mart Museum, located at 6 Chalmers Street. This museum has been around since 1938, but has only recently been purchased by the city. The link to the museum from the city's website is found here: http://www.charlestoncity.info/dept/content.aspx?nid=1469.

Once called Ryan's Mart, this location was central to Charleston's slave trade from 1856 to 1863. The original port of sale was on Queen's Street and the main building was a jail where many enslaved men and women were bought and held for new owners. Nichole Green, a former cultural anthropologist, now heads the city-owned museum as curator. Ms. Green gave us a very informative introduction and tour of the space starting with how the current museum space came to be.
The structure was made by enclosing an alleyway with a roof. The two walls were once the exterior walls of the adjoining buildings. Slave sales were once common all over Charleston, but due to complaints of residents, slave sales were confined to Ryan's Mart. Most white Charlestonians were not complaining out of dissapproval over the slave trade, they simply thought that the large gathering of sellers and slaves were unsightly and gave cause for criticism from northern abolitionists.
In the 1870s, the roof was raised to present elevation and a second floor was added. It was made into a tenement building in 1937. Then owned by Charlestonian Marion Wilson, she opened it as the Old Slave Mart Museum and it stayed open until 1987, when it was bought by the City of Charleston. In 2007, the museum was re-opened with a more focused and modern interpretation of the slave trade in Charleston. The Old Slave Mart Museum of today deals with the changing voice of interpretation within slavery and tackles the misconceptions of public memory towards the building and the slave trade.
The exhibits focus on the antebellum slave trade was like and give different perspectives of traders, buyers, and slaves. Stories of the transAtlantic and domestic slave trade is addressed.
Issues in exhibit space arise when wall use is needed, as they try to not damage the former exterior walls of adjacent buildings. Public interaction also becomes challenging with many African Americans, uninformed whites, and racist groups who are not aware or challenge the validity and truth of the information exhibited.

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The next stop was a walk up Meeting Street to the Historic Charleston Foundation's Aiken-Rhett House. This strikingly yellow house is located off of Meeting at the corner of Judith and Elizabeth Streets. The house sits on a large lot and contains original stables and urban slave quarters in the back. The house was built in the Federal style in 1818. There were renovations during the 1830s and 1850s. The house remains largely as it has since 1858 with the exceptions of some 20th century wiring and small renovations. The Aiken-Rhett House escaped bombadment damage during the Civil War because of its location in the northern part of Charleston, but was later looted by Union troops. A more in depth history can be found at this link: http://www.historiccharleston.org/experience/arh/.

Brandy Culp, Curator with Historic Charleston Foundation, met with us for an introduction to the house. The class then went on a self-guided tour aided by an audio recording. The weather was bad and a downpour prevented me from taking acceptable photos of the outbuildings, but I will hopefully return to document those buildings. Flash photography was not allowed within the house and some rooms were too dark to bother with a photo. Needless to say, I do not have many photographs of the interior of the house. And for another reason--I was simply to fascinated by the house's interior to be bothered to take photos.

Plaster work was deteriorating, there was no furniture, wall paper was falling off the walls, and it was beautiful. The preservation plan for this house is one of conservation. There are beautiful areas where the age does not show much, but then there are rooms that echo the past lives and times long gone. The delicately handpainted red and silver wall paper that now show rust and brown are imprints of a grander age for the Aiken-Rhett Houses's white residents. It is the quieter parts of the house that keep you grounded to the reality of so many different lives living, working, and literally slaving away within the Aiken-Rhett compound. The slaves that resided and toiled here can be felt along the back staircases and in the outbuildings.The kitichen outbuilding was my favorite part of my visit. Not ever as grand and in slightly worse condition than the main house, the kitchen building is far more compelling. Most of the enslaved men and women lived over the kitchen building. From one room to the next, up a dark stairwell, and through the dark plaster rooms of the living quarters on the second floor--this experience was moving. To see where slaves in an urban setting dwelled is a sober moment for anyone I would hope. It is my recommendation that these outbuildings be considered as important as the main house in conservation because there simply are not very many historic structural resources related to urban African-American slavery.

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I have few comments on the International African American Museum. For more information, go to: http://www.rhodesdahl.com/documents/RhodesDahl%20-%20IAAM%20RFQ%20-%20Final.pdf.

I do not think that the committee has given realistic thought to the viability of their endeavor. Architecturally, the submitted designs were unfitting and too full of the architect's vision to be monetarily and characteristically acceptable.

Historically, I beieve that the committee does not recognize the lack of history prevalent in what they propose. I believe that this project looks good under the belt of several politicians and has now become a politically oriented project. Charleston has the Avery Institute, which is a wonderful research and repository of African-American history. The International African American Museum committee needs to reconsider its goals and what they truly want to convey.

January 22 Charleston Field School

Our first Charleston outing found us walking under slightly gloomy skies. However, we had a successful first class field session and left with a great introduction to Charleston under our history belts. We were first met by Dr. Nic Butler, Manager of the Charleston Archives at the Charleston County Library. We were given a quick review of the many interests Dr. Butler has concerning Charleston's history and ideas that he has for incorporating them into the public sphere. Dr. Butler is also the Historian for the Walled City Task Force which aims "to further the study, identification, protection, and interpretation of the Walled City of Charleston." Follow link to http://walledcitytaskforce.org/ for more information. After Dr. Butler's presentation he led us on a tour in which we followed a part of Charleston's wall. Before our walk he gave us a crash course in the history of Charleston as a walled city and of the wall itself.

The British at Charles Town sought some measure of fortification as early as 1680. In 1696-1697 monies were appropriated to build Granville's Bastion. By 1703, with the Spanish an increasing threat, the city increased its might by a legislative act that specified the creation of a fortification with curtain walls, corner bastions, eight redans, and a ravelin to be positoned on 62 acres of high land around Charles Town. The walls were earthen work and canon mounted. The constructed Half Moon had 6 canon with 4lbs shot and the Battery had 3-4 canons with 3 lbs shot.

Between 1703 and 1730 the wall was built with additions as needed. By 1730 much was destroyed and in 1784-1785 Granville's Bastion was knocked down. In 1745-1746, during King George's War, Charleston saw the construction of new fortified city lines that created a northern line of defense. During the French and Indian War the fortifications were expanded along the Ashley River and the Battery. Earth, brick, tabby, and Palmetto wood were used in this construction. The Hornwork, a 30 ft. tall wall with 18 canons, was constructed during the American Revolution. By the end of the Revolution, the wall was gone. Now the wall can be found mostly through archaeology. One known location is the Tradd Street redan site at South Adgers Wharf. The King Street gate is available for further research along with the 1739 Watch House at Broughton's Battery.

Left to Right: Facade of Russell House and members of our class enjoying the joggling board in the Russell House gardens.

After lunch we gathered at the Nathaniel Russell House to learn about its restoration. Owned by the Historic Charleston Foundation (HCF), the Nathaniel Russell house is a beautiful Federal style ca. 1808 home that is now operated as a house museum. Nathaniel Russell was a merchant and worked with all major New England slave traders as a trader himself. Here is the link to the home by way of the Historic Charleston Foundation at http://www.historiccharleston.org/.

We met Valerie Perry, Associate Director of Museums with the HCF, who led us on a tour of the house to discuss various topics like the challenges of interpretation and preservation. The Nathaniel Russell House is a beautifully kept house with a great deal of history to interpret. Unfortunately, as we discussed, generation gaps in the docents and the historians often lead to problems in the interpretation of the African-American influences. No one wants to talk about slavery, but slavery needs to be talked about to visitors! Valerie Perry makes sure that those giving tours present all of the story--white and African American. HCF is serious about the training of their docents and holds lectures and field trips to further educate.

The house is interpretated as it was between 1810 to 1820. It is furnished from other homes and some pieces are original to the Russell family. The withdrawing room is very high Federal in design--high design being the correct term for even the family rooms. I was taken by the beautiful suspended staircase and decadent moldings throughout.

The slaves owned by the Russell family lived over the kitchen and carriage house area. The carriage house is now gone, but archaeological findings do show an active slave prescence. One of the Russell slaves, Tom Russell, a skilled blacksmith, made the iron spears and pikes used in the 1822 Denmark Vesey revolt in Charleston. Tom Russell owned a blacksmith shop while enslaved to Nathaniel Russell and had white apprentices. He was convicted and hung in 1822 for hisalleged part in the uprising.

Ms. Perry discussed the management plan that is in place in case of a natural disaster and she went over some of HCF's curatorial issues. There is no restoration ongoing on the third floor. Overall, I look forward to another visit to the Russell House. I would like to go on a regular tour to see what, if any, interpretive issues should arise.