Lowndes Grove

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Lowndes Grove (1940)

Lowndes Grove or The Grove or Grove Farm is a house that was built on the Ashley River in Charleston , South Carolina around 1786 . It is located on triangular lot at St. Margaret Street, 5th Avenue and 6th Avenue. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on August 30, 1978 .

history

John Gibbes built a house and garden with greenhouses in The Grove before the American Revolutionary War . The house was believed to have been burned down by British troops in 1779, but the gardens have been preserved. Around 1786 the property was acquired by George Abbot Hall. Because his inventory of assets in 1791 mentions a house on the property, it is assumed that the current house was built around 1786.

The Grove was a popular place to hold duels , including that between Generals Christopher Gadsden and Robert Howe . The property was bought in 1803 by William Lowndes , who was elected to the United States' Congress and remained a member of Parliament until he waived re-election in 1822 for health reasons.

After the property changed hands several times, Charleston businessman Frederick W. Wagener became the owner of the home and property. He was president of the South Carolina Inter-State and West Indian Exposition and its main organizer; the exhibition took place in 1901–1902 on his 250 acre property. The house on Lowndes Grove was used as a woman's building.

architecture

The building is a two and a half story house on an elevated foundation. The base and ground floor are made of plastered bricks , the rest of the house is built using a timber frame construction. The original style of the house was believed to be Georgian architecture , but the actual appearance of the house is unknown due to numerous renovations. It presumably had a double portico that was converted into a veranda with Doric columns and a balustrade spanning five bays around 1830 . The three middle sections protrude from the facade. They are provided with cornice and opaion . The porch and the house have gable triangles with tooth decorations. During the renovation in 1830, the house was extended to the rear. The sides of the house have lattice windows with two nine fields to slide open.

The house has a gable roof , which in the 1920s with tiles from terracotta was covered again. There are two dormer windows at either end and three at the rear. The house has two internal chimneys, the covers of which are on consoles .

Inside there are four rooms on the ground floor, which are arranged around the central hall. Ceilings and walls are plastered, the floors in their original condition. Most of the rooms have cornices, ceiling medallions, and carved fireplace surrounds. On the first and second floors, the rooms on the northwest side were designed in the Regency style when the house was expanded. The north-east facing area was badly damaged in a fire in the 20th century. and then rebuilt as a kitchen and library. A spiral staircase leads upstairs in the stairwell , daylight is let in through a round skylight . Additional pictures are available.

Individual evidence

  1. a b c Harriette Kershaw Leiding: Historic houses of South Carolina ( English ). JB Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 1921, pp. 188-192.
  2. a b c d e f g Kappy McNulty: Lowndes Grove ( English , PDF; 463 kB) In: National Register of Historic Places Inventory - Nomination Form . National Park Service. December 10, 1971. Retrieved May 29, 2009.
  3. Lowndes Grove, Charleston County (260 St. Margaret St., Charleston) . In: National Register Properties in South Carolina . South Carolina Department of Archives and History. Retrieved May 29, 2009.
  4. Lowndes Grove ( English ) In: South Carolina Plantations . SCI-way.net. Retrieved May 29, 2009.
  5. Anthony Chibbaro: The Charleston Exposition ( English ). Arcadia Publishing, Mount Pleasant, South Carolina 2001, ISBN 0-7385-0682-6 , p. 47.
  6. J. Michael McLaughlin, Toddman, Lee Davis: It Happened in South Carolina ( English ). Globe Pequot Press, Guilford, Connecticut 2003, ISBN 0-7627-2452-8 , pp. 106-107.
  7. ^ Lowndes Grove (House), Saint Margaret Street & Sixth Avenue, Charleston, Charleston County, SC (Photographs) ( English ) In: Historic American Building Survey . National Park Service. Retrieved on May 29, 2009.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archivesInfo: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: dead link / memory.loc.gov  
  8. ^ Samuel Gaillard Stoney, Simons, A., and Lapham, Samuel, Jr .: Plantations of the Carolina Low Country ( English ), 7th edition, Courier Dover Publications, Mineola, New York 1989, ISBN 0-486-26089- 5 , pp. 74, 202.

Coordinates: 32 ° 48 ′ 6 "  N , 79 ° 57 ′ 58"  W.