City Directories and History: ROBERT WILLIAM ROPER HOUSE
Constructed 1838-39; addition late nineteenth century; restored 1982-83
The Robert William Roper House is one of Charleston’s most monumental Greek Revival houses. With its prominent position on the southern edge of the Battery, its massive five columned Ionic portico could be seen by approaching ships miles away. The city originally intended for this section of the Battery to be part of White Point Gardens, an L-shaped public park running from Atlantic to Church Streets, on East and South Battery. The financial panic of 1837 encouraged the city to sell the lands on the eastern side, predicting that they “will produce a beautiful row of ornamental buildings along the whole line of East Bay Battery.” The income generated from the sale of these lots was used to finance the development of the southern section of the park, extending it westward to Meeting and later to King Street.
With the development of the park and the high retaining wall, the Battery became a social gathering place in Charleston. In April 1838 Robert William Roper purchased two lots along the Battery from the city for $8,200. For $1,439 he also acquired a triangular section of the lot which bounded his to the north and which Isaac Holmes had recently bought from the city. Roper’s house on East Battery was grand in scale and execution, with possible design by Charles E Reichardt. With narrow end facing the street, the colossal Ionic columns of the piazza stretch down the length of the lot. At the time of its construction, however, nothing stood between Roper’s house and the harbor beyond. The house follows a side-hall, double-parlor plan but boasts a large west wing added by late- nineteenth-century owners. Original interior detailing includes classical imagery likely inspired by widely available pattern books.
Roper died of malaria in 1845. Post-Civil War purchasers, the Sieglings of the music emporium at 243 King Street, lived here for a half century, selling to New Yorker Solomon Guggenheim in 1929. The current owner completed one of America’s most notable restorations of a Greek Revival house in the carly-1980s.
The Buildings of Charleston – J.H. Poston for the Historic Charleston Foundation, 1997
The Roper House was the first to be constructed on the east Battery (ca. 1838) and its outsized colonnade was built not only to support the portico, but to be admired from across the harbor. The house is typical of its period in that it is built on a grandiose scale, but is more so than almost any other private dwelling in the city. The house is two stories over a basement, built of brick in Flemish bond, and has a flat,
balustraded roof with an Ionic entablature. The portico is giant-order Ionic pent style above a ground-floor arcade of stuccoed brick. The five-columned portico is an unusual feature in Greek Revival buildings in the state. Unlike most Charleston houses, the Roper House portico does not have a second-story tier to break the height of the columns. Another unusual feature of the house is that the roof of the house proper and that of the portico are incorporated into a single unit; this treatment was not generally found during this period in the state. Although records have been destroyed, the detail of the house would point to E.B. White as its architect. Listed in the National Register November 7, 1973; Designated a National Historic Landmark November 7, 1973. (Courtesy of the SC Dept. of Archives and History)
Other sources of interest: Charleston Tax Payers of Charleston, SC in 1860-61 and the Dwelling Houses of Charleston by Alice R.H. Smith – 1917 The HCF may also have additional data at: Past Perfect and further research can be uncovered at: Charleston 1861 Census Schedule or The Charleston City Guide of 1872
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