City Directories and History: EDMONDSTON-ALSTON HOUSE
Constructed 1828; renovated 1838
This house was built in the Regency style by Charles Edmondston, a Scottish-born Charleston merchant, and remodeled by Charles Alston, a prominent rice planter, after he purchased the property in 1838. It reflects a modified Charleston single house plan with its front entry accessing a separate vestibule on East Battery. Alston added a third tier with Corinthian columns to the side piazzas, a cast-iron balcony, and a sur-mounting parapet with the Alston coat of arms. Although changes were made to the exterior to accommodate Greek Revival fashion, the use of the structure most likely remained the same. Business visitors were received on the first floor, renovated in the Greek Revival manner by the Alstons; the drawing rooms on the second floor, where piazza doors could be thrown open to catch sea breezes or provide a backdrop for formal events, functioned as the family’s social spaces and retain late Federal or Regency style decoration. The two small rooms behind the drawing rooms served as separate withdrawing spaces for men and women, and the family bedrooms occupied the third floor. A substantial kitchen dependency is attached to the rear of the dwelling, while a separate stable and slave quarters remain at the back of the lot. Descending through Alston’s daughter Susan Pringle Alston to her favorite cousin, the historian Henry Augustus Middleton Smith, the property and many of its furnishings have remained in the family. The house is currently shown as a museum administered by Middleton Place Foundation.
The Buildings of Charleston – J.H. Poston for the Historic Charleston Foundation, 1997
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The Edmondston-Alston House. This Regency style house was built between 1817 and 1828 by Charles Edmondston, a native of the Shetland Island who made a fortune as a merchant and wharf-owner. lt was purchased in 1838 by Charles Alston, a wealthy planter, who added features in the Greek Revival style such as the third level of the piazza and the roof parapet with his family coat of arms. The present cast iron balcony replaced an earlier one which was knocked down in the 1886 earthquake. The parapet was also shaken down and was replaced with a minor correction in the heraldry. The interior woodwork is unusual in that it employs ball shapes in place of dentils in entablatures. During the Civil War, the house was occupied in March, 1865 by the Union Maj. Gen. Rufus Saxton. Charles Alston’s daughter, Susan Pringle Alston, was the last of his family to live in the house. Her cousin, Judge Henry Augustus Middleton Smith, bought it from her estate in 1922. He moved two Regency style marble mantels from the William Mason Smith House on Meeting Street and installed them in the ground floor rooms. The first two floors are open to the public as a house museum operated by the Historic Charleston Foundation. (Stoney, DYKYC, March 15, 1984; Stockton, DYKYC, March 3, 1975; Thomas, DYKYC, April 1, 1968; Sparkman, “Beauregard’s Headquarters.”) Courtesy of the Charleston Co Library
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
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IMAGE GALLERY courtesy of the Library of Congress – HABS Collection