City Directories and History: SIMMONS – EDWARDS HOUSE
Constructed circa 1800; variously altered twentieth century
“Francis Simmons, a Johns Island planter, constructed this dwelling as his town house in about 1800. It is one of a group of masonry, Neoclassical single houses of this decade (including 18 Meeting Street and 51 East Bay) that are related in scale, fenestration, exterior brickwork, marble detailing, wood trim profiles, and interior plasterwork. Simmons also owned an earlier wooden house on the site of the present garden. At his death in 1814, his appraisers completed a room-by-room inventory listing furniture in “the back room on the first or ground floor,” “the first room on the first floor” (the dining room), the “Passageway of the 1st floor,” “the Drawing Room on the 2nd. Floor,” the “Passage on the 2d. floor,” “the chamber opposite the drawing on the 2nd Floor or drawing room chamber,” “the small room on the 2nd floor of the Drawing room chamber,” “the Back chamber on the 3rd. Floor,” “the front room on the 3rd. floor,” and “the back Garret.”
The large brick gates with decorative wrought-iron panels were installed during the ownership of George Edwards, who acquired the house in 1816, and bear his initials. The brickwork is one of several examples in Charleston of true English tuckpointing with the mortar tinted red to straighten visual lines of the irregularly shaped bricks and a white lime mortar joint added within a recess in the tinted mortar. The stone pineapple finials dating from the Edwardses’ occupancy were carved to resemble Italian pine cones. Although said to have been carved in
Italy, they may be the work of an Italian mason working in Philadelphia, as it is known that Charlestonians were ordering marble work from Philadelphia in this period.
Francis Simmons House, 14 Legare Street, Charleston, Charleston County, SC – Courtesy of the Library of Congress
The original two-story kitchen building and one-and-a-half-story carriage house survive, the former joined to the main house by a series of late-nineteenth century hyphens. The plan of the nineteenth- century garden is unknown, but the owners of the 1950s engaged Umberto Innocenti to design the current formalistic garden at the rear of the site, reusing the stone posts with spherical finials and the hexagonal summerhouse already in the garden.”
Information from: The Buildings of Charleston – J.H. Poston for the Historic Charleston Foundation, 1997
Built ca. 1800 by Francis Simmons, this three-story house with raised basement is done in the Federal style. The two-story piazza
R&R HISTORY LINK: – Mill’s ca.1825 Map of Charleston showing F. Simmons plantations.
located on the side of the house is typical of many Charleston dwellings during this period. Brick composition is Flemish bond and house has brick quoins at each of its corners. First floor colonnade has stylized unfluted Corinthian columns. Second floor colonnade has segmental arches and the roof over the piazza is denticulated. Basement is arcaded under the piazza. Entrance door has small denticulated cornice over a transom. Roof is hipped with three dormers on each side of the house while one faces the street and rear of the house. In 1816, George Edwards purchased the property and enlarged the premises, creating a garden which was separated from the house yard by a notable fence of wrought iron which had unusual stuccoed columns topped with sandstone balls. The house has extensive outbuildings connected to the main house at its rear. Listed in the National Register January 25, 1971; Designated a National Historic Landmark November 7, 1973. (Courtesy of the SC Dept. of Archives and History)
Also see #12 Legare for additional survey card data.
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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R&R HISTORY LINK: TEXT – NR NOMINATION
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