Tuesday, June 12, 2018

Tuesday, June 12, 2018 -- Mattie died 456 weeks ago today.

Tonight's picture was taken in July of 2004. Mattie had become acclimated to the beach by this second visit to the Outer Banks. At that point, he liked playing and building in the sand, certainly much more than being in the water. In fact, I remember Mattie's sand toys very well. I stored them in a netted bag and literally that bag of toys came with us to California, Florida, and North Carolina.  








Quote of the day: Life is a mirror and will reflect back to the thinker what he thinks into it. ~ Ernest Holmes

Today we drove to Charleston, which is about 40 minutes from where we are staying in Kiawah Island. We toured the Nathaniel Russell house in the heart of the town. Nathaniel Russell came from a wealthy family in Connecticut, that made its money as merchants. The family sent Nathaniel down to South Carolina to expand their business, especially since the South was most profitable as it had free labor (slavery). In Southern standards however, Nathaniel Russell was "new" money, and wasn't part of the established elite. Elite which made its money through "planting." Basically owning land and plantations. 

Believe it or not, Nathaniel Russell married for the first time at the age of 50, and moved into this home with his wife, when he was in his 70s. His wife, Sarah, was 14 years younger than him and wealthy in her own right. In fact, before she married Nathaniel Russell, he had to sign what we would deem a pre-nuptial agreement. 

This is a 6,000 square foot home and the exterior is impressive. The three windows on the second-floor are emphasized by their floor length, ornamented with white marble lintels and are set in recessed red-brick arches with white keystones, tied together with a narrow white string course that runs around the entire perimeter of the house. Also featured is a light wrought-iron balcony that breaks out in a semicircle before each of the second-story windows, and displays Nathaniel Russell's initials in the center (do you see the NR initials, scrolled on the middle balcony wrought iron balcony).

Surrounding the home were lush English type gardens. 

The house features three main rooms per floor each of different geometric designs: a front rectangular room, a center oval room, and a square room in the rear. The rectangular entrance hall had a black and white diamond patterned floor cloth edged with a leaf motif. The entrance hall was like a waiting room for people who wanted to do business with Nathaniel Russell. Invited guests never waited in this room. 

Separating the public entrance hall at the front of the house from the more private rooms used by the family and invited guests were these incredible doors. The doors were made out of pine, not mahogany as the painted on design would suggest. In fact, these faux-grained double doors were a symbol of wealth, because it would mean that he had the means to have artists use the trompe l'oeil technique to deceive the eye.

The golden walled stair hall showcases the most important architectural feature of the house.... the cantilevered spiral staircase, that ascends to the third floor. The asymmetrical hall is illuminated by a Palladian window, and further ornamented with trompe-l'œil painting resembling a plaster cornice. The staircase looks like a feat of science actually. 

Get the feeling for this incredible three story staircase?

Looking all the way up the staircase, you see a medallion on the ceiling. Again this is an optical illusion, since this is a piece of trompe l'oeil. It is not a three dimensional structure. 

Off the central stair hall is the oval dining room, with turquoise walls that appear painted, but instead are small squares of unpatterned wallpaper bordered with interlocking rings, in red and gold, above cypress wainscoting painted white. The pine floors and the wood interior shutters are original.

The dining room featured paintings of members of the family. This being Nathaniel Russell. 

At the rear of the house was a square palor. It was used only by family. Guests were not invited inside. Take a look at what the family ate off of everyday... Canton china. In fact, Nathaniel Russell was the largest importer of Canton china to the USA.

This is second floor landing! It was very impressive with that stair case and palladin window. 

The second-floor oval drawing room is the most highly decorated room in the house and is where the women of the house retired to after dinner.   

Papered in apricot, it featured elaborate plaster moldings covered with 24-karat gold leaf

Blocks at the base of the door frames were painted to resemble lapis lazuli.

The ornamentation of the fireplaces' mantle and cornices are among the most detailed in the city. Nathaniel Russell wanted to highlight the art and culture of Europe as was reflected in his clock, mantle, and china. Having these possessions illustrated his worldliness and his desire to introduce these things to South Carolina. 

As our docent said today.... every fine English home had to have a piece of Wedgwood in it! So in Nathaniel Russell's case, he had Wedgwood candle holders. 

After the house tour, we walked around the main area of Charleston. Which was no easy feat, since it ranged from drizzling to pouring. 

However, we were determined to see single houses. Peter and I have been watching the TV show, This Old House, and recently they have been renovating two houses in Charleston. Both houses are single houses, which is how we learned about this architectural style. Turns out there are single houses all of Charleston. As my photos will show you. 

A single house has its narrow side along the street and a longer side running perpendicular to the street.  A front door on the long side of the house opens onto a short central hall and staircase. There is one room on each side of the hall, that is, one toward the street and one toward the rear of the house. The result is a building which is only one room wide when viewed from the street, giving the form its popular name. Each floor contains two rooms, and the floorplan is reproduced on each upper floor.

Another single house. Notice the two- and three-story porches, known locally as piazzas. The piazzas always appear on the side of the house with the front door in order to take advantage of local winds.

 and another!

Any stroll through Charleston will bring you in close encounter with another of Charleston’s treasures -- decorative ironwork. From gates to rails to windows to balconies, Charleston’s love affair with the beauty of finely crafted wrought iron is evident. 

Charleston’s affinity for decorative wrought iron came about early in the history of the city. In 1772, a wrought iron communion rail was imported from England and installed in St. Michael’s Episcopal Church. Blacksmiths, who had made a career of providing nails, horseshoes, and wagon wheels to the growing city, now began to expand their craft to include patterns and scrollwork. The earliest designs were taken from British pattern books, but it didn’t take long for the ironwork of Charleston to develop its own style. 

When you look through the gates of homes, you always see greenery and gardens!

Unfortunately, much of the earliest ironwork did not survive the multitude of of fires and natural disasters that plagued those early inhabitants. 

The streets are lined with all sorts of plantings. Beautiful, beautiful flower boxes everywhere. 

This gate reminded me of the sun. 

This is the most photographed block in Charleston, on East Bay Street. This is Rainbow Row.

Merchants constructed commercial buildings with stores on the ground floor and living quarters above. Most of the buildings had no interior access between the first and second floors; exterior stairs were located in the yards behind the houses. In 1778, a fire destroyed much of the neighborhood, and only 13 houses were spared.


After the Civil War, this area of Charleston turned into near slum conditions. In the 1920s, Susan Pringle Frost, the founder of the Preservation Society of Charleston, bought six of the buildings, but she lacked the money to restore them immediately. In 1931, Dorothy Haskell Porcher Legge purchased a section of these houses and began to renovate them. She chose to paint these houses pink based on a colonial Caribbean color scheme. Other owners and future owners followed suit, creating the "rainbow" of pastel colors seen today. The coloring of the houses helped keep the houses cool inside as well as give the area its name. By 1945, most of the houses were restored.