Charleston, SC
Historic Houses and Buildings
A Scottish Merchants Vision -
A Carolina Rice Planter's Pride
The
stately
Edmondston-Alston House on Charleston's High Battery is one of the city's
most splendid dwellings, a gracious example of early nineteenth-century
commitment to elegance, style, and comfort.
When
Charles Edmondston of Scotland built his residence
in 1825, he was at the height of his success as a Charleston
merchant. His late Federal-style house was one of the earliest
constructed in the developing water-front location. The site
was a comfortable distance from the noise and confusion, a
few blocks to the north, of mercantile wharves and warehouses
including his own. From his piazza he could monitor the arrival
and departure of ships carrying his cargoes.
Economic
reversals during "The Panic of
1837" forced
the sale of Edmondston's house. It was bought by
Charles Alston, member of a well-established Low
Country rice-planting dynasty. Alston modified the
appearance of the house in the fashionable Greek
revival style by adding a third floor piazza with Corinthian
columns, a second floor iron balcony on the east facade,
and a parapet across the front on which he proudly displayed
the family coat of arms.
The
house would be the Alston city residence for
more than eight decades and is still in the family;
today the first two floors are open to the public with
tours conducted by staff of the Middleton Place
Foundation, a non-profit educational trust.
Alston
family furniture, silver, books and paintings
remain in place in the high ceilinged rooms, much
as they have been for over a century and a half.
Water-cooled breezes funnel in from the piazzas,
with their unlimited vistas across Charleston Harbor.
In the 1860's, these piazzas provided a front-row
vantage point to history as General Beauregard joined
others at the Alston's to watch the bombardment of Fort
Sumter. Robert E. Lee must have also appreciated the
harbor view the night he took refuge here from a
wide-spreading fire that threatened his hotel further uptown.
Combination tickets are available for the
Edmondston-Alston House and
Middleton Place, the 18th-century plantation and National Historic Landmark
on Ashley River Road. Tickets can be purchased at either location.
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