Charleston SC USA (Part 2)

The Aiken-Rhett House

Ollie drove us all back to Charleston on Wednesday 1 May and after lunch on board BV we headed out to give them a short tour of the city since neither of them had visited it before.  Nicky was keen to see inside one of the old mansions and the Aiken-Rhett House (c1820), which we visited, is one with a bit of a difference:  the organisation that maintains it has not restored the building, rather it is being preserved in the state that they obtained it, peeling wallpaper and everything.

The ballroom, painted this dark green at some point in the 20th century, the room was originally wallpapered throughout

It is quite odd to wander around the preserved property.  Most of the decoration in the lower part of the house is not from the mid-nineteenth century but is more modern, where more recent owners have updated in the current style.  But in places, glimpses of the 1800s can be seen under a peeling corner of wallpaper and the historic society has several photographs of the property in its prime.

Note the hideous marble and tile fireplace surround.  Not an original feature but an addition to try to make the fireplace more efficient

Left: original wallpaper

The veranda (though it has another name in Charleston).  Note the traditional curved lovers’ seat on the street-side.  The potential couple would start at opposite ends of the seat and gradually shuffle in towards the centre

Around 2 sides of the building, on 2 levels are wide balconies overlooking a narrow verdant garden and the street.  This feature of southern architecture helps to catch cooling breezes and funnel them into the house and the balconies were as much a public room of the property as the ballroom and dining room.  Here friends would be entertained (perhaps over a mint julep?) and potential suitors courted on the curved lovers’ seat.

Steps into the house from the rear courtyard

Whilst much of the inside of the house has been changed over the years, the yard, the coach houses and the other buildings at the back are almost as they would have been in the building’s prime.  In fact, this is one of few houses in Charleston with essentially original slave quarters and this reason alone makes it an important historic structure.

Courtyard, coachouse and slave quarters.  Top left: Looking along the courtyard back towards the house.  The coachouse is on the right of this picture with slave quarters over.  On the left was the laundry and a kitchen with further slave quarters above.  Top right: Looking down the courtyard away from the house.  Note the high walls and gates surrounding the property

On the upper floors, the original nineteenth century decoration is more in evidence.  Here though, the water damage resulting from the ravages of hurricanes after the house was left empty is more obvious.

Just one room, the art gallery, has been restored and air conditioning installed, and that to maintain the fabric of the paintings and the sculptures that came with the property.  The artwork is impressive and very much of the period but not greatly to our taste – the paintings are generally quite dark and over dramatic and the sculptures, whilst fabulously detailed, have a bit too much ancient Greek mythology and tragedy about them.  But all the items, including the furniture, were inspired by their owners’ trips to Europe; a European tour was de rigour for the wealthy in the mid-nineteenth century.  Some pieces were acquired there and brought back, others were commissioned in the style, for example the sculpture and the paintings of the lady of the house.

House visit complete, we showed Ollie and Sheen some of our favourite parts of old town Charleston, including the craft market and some of the more beautiful mansions (from the outside only).  And Sheena was delighted when we came across the ‘Christmas in Charleston’ shop and bought some souvenir decorations for their tree, though it seems a bit early in the year to think about Christmas to us [Ed: but then anything before about mid-December does, by which time it’s almost too late!]

Civil War submarine, HL Hunley – truly a deathtrap

Not far from the Aiken-Rhett House we came across a model of the HL Hunley, the first submarine in history to sink an enemy ship.  It was a vessel of the Confederate navy and was designed and built to try to break the Union’s blockade of Charleston.  The bulb on a stick at its bow was a bomb and the idea was to ram an enemy vessel and then set off the bomb to sink it; a risky business for the fledgling submariners!  But the HL Hunley achieved her aim and on the night of 17 February 1864 sank the Federal blockading vessel Housatonic, in the process becoming the first submarine in history to sink an enemy ship.  But she never returned to port after the event.  The wreck was eventually found in 1995 and raised in 2000 and it was then realised that the original vessel was 17” shorter in height than this model which was made in 1967.  ‘Cramped’ really doesn’t do justice to the description of the real thing!

Ollie and Sheena left us in the late afternoon for the drive back to Myrtle Beach and the rest of their holiday relaxing and recovering from their busy jobs.  We spent Thursday 2 May busy with a big supermarket shop (the marina shuttle-bus gave us a lift there and back), laundry and filling up with water.  Tasks complete we took a final wander around the city.

It’s worth saying again:  the historic part of Charleston is beautiful with huge numbers of elegant buildings…..

….quiet side streets, verdant courtyards and a ‘thing’ about gas lanterns [Ed: we overheard one of the carriage tour guides talking a bit about the gas lamps but we didn’t get the full detail.  However, they certainly appear to be a decorative feature on many of the older houses and more than you would expect have real gas flames].

Some of the properties in the old city are just huge.  Clearly the original owners had them built with an eye to demonstrating their vast wealth and to show off just how successful their plantations and other various businesses were.  Equally clearly, there is still a significant pool of wealth in this city today.  The amount of money required to keep these properties going (general everyday buildings and gardens maintenance, heating/cooling and lighting), let alone refurbish them in the first place, must be immense.  But for those of us who get to enjoy the views they create it’s a wonderful use of that wealth.

White Point Garden.  The Battery, just out of view in this picture is the most southern point of historic Charleston

View north up the Cooper River towards the bridge

With the tides and the weather conspiring to require a very early start for us on Saturday 4 May, we moved out of the marina on Friday 3 May.  Marinas in the US are very expensive so, with our week’s deal expired, we saw no point in paying a full day’s charge for half a day’s use of the marina when we could anchor off, east-southeast of the marina and nearly due south of the White Point Garden and The Battery, with great views across to the old city.  We had a very settled afternoon and evening swinging on our hook to the tide and it was by far an easier place than the marina to get going from the following morning when we were looking at a 4am start!

View across the Ashley River to the old city.  White Point Garden on the riverside left of centre to the left side of the picture

Charleston, South Carolina, USA