City Directories and History: BENNETT-SIMONS HOUSE
Constructed 1800-12
“The wealthy lumberman Thomas Bennett Sr., a contractor and amateur architect, built this house as a family residence sometime before his death in 1814. Bennett’s grandson later owned the property but sold it in 1830. Passing though the Guerard and Moultrie families, the house was acquired in 1857 by Thomas Grange Simons. A plat prepared at the same time described the lot as containing “one large three story building being the mansion house, and the outbuildings and offices to wit, one two-story brick building and another brick building in one story, another one-story building of wood, together with two other small buildings.”
The principal two-and-a-half-story wood house retains its essential form, although two-over-two windows replaced the original sashes in the late-nineteenth century. Probably at the same time, the portico was changed to create a wide overhanging piazza. The Ionic columns at the end of the first floor stand on individual masonry piers, while a stone staircase rises to the original portico in the same arrangement as 54 Montagu Street. The brick carriage house, visible from Gadsden Street and now known as 40 Barre Street, retains its original arched openings and other fenestration despite its conversion in the 1980s to a separate residence.”
Information from: The Buildings of Charleston – J.H. Poston – Author, for the Historic Charleston Foundation, 1997
Other sources: Charleston Tax Payers of Charleston, SC in 1860-61, Dwelling Houses of Charleston by Alice R.H. Smith – 1917, Charleston 1861 Census Schedule, and a 1872 Bird’s Eye View of Charleston, S.C. The Hist. Charleston Foundation may also have additional data at: Past Perfect
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