City Directories and History: 565 King Street
c. 1846-1847
The building at 565-567 King Street is an antebellum, single building built as a police station that has been Victorianized and sold as two pieces for about a century.
Mr. Rowald Rugeley owned a very large piece of land along St. Philips Street—six complete city blocks, from Morris Street to Bogard Street—when he died. His estate divided his property into more than 100 lots in 1804 and started selling them off.[1] Not all the lots sold right away, and on April 24, 1845, a public auction was held to sell some. Henry Mahler was the highest bidder at $2850 for Lots 18 and 19[2] (each one was 57 feet wide on King Street and 204 feet deep).[3] The building at 565-567 King Street was erected on Lot 19 and a narrow strip of Lot 18.
Meanwhile, the Statehouse—police were a state issue at that time—was considering the expansion of the police force to better deal with the growing Upper Wards. On December 15, 1845, the General Assembly agreed that the Commissioners of Cross Roads on Charleston Neck were
“empowered to build a Guard House on Charleston Neck and . . . to purchase . . . so much land as may be necessary therefor, and that they may, in addition to such funds as they may procure by private subscription, appropriate so much of the funds now under their control by law as shall be necessary for the purpose aforesaid.”
The Commissioners of the Cross Roads of Charleston Neck bought a portion of Mr. Mahler’s land on July 30, 1846, for $1600.[4] The purchase include the front part of Lot 19 (about 57 feet wide by about 105 feet deep) and also a 3-foot wide piece of the adjacent Lot 18.
The fact that the commissioners specifically bought such a narrow piece of an adjacent lot is some indication that plans already existed for the police station when the land was bought and that the building was not designed to fit the lot they acquired. In any event, a meeting to the citizens of the Upper Wards was held in November 1847 at which the building was said to have been under construction recently.[5] The 1852 Bridgens & Allen map showed the building already present. In 1861, 643 King Street (using the old numbering system) was the Upper Wards Guard House.
The building remained a police station when the front of the building just barely made it into the May 1884 Sanborn maps. The City built a new Central Police Station in1887 and no longer needed to old building. In the June 1888 edition of the Sanborn maps, the building was labeled as the “Old Upper Police Station Vacant.” The City of Charleston (which apparently succeeded to the Commissioners of the Cross Roads) sold the property to Charles O. Michaelis on May 26, 1888, for $5850.[6] A notice of the auction stated that the property could “without much expense, be converted into two fine stores, and altogether is one of the most valuable sites in the Upper Wards.”[7] Mr. Michaelis’s drug store moved there in November 1888 when the business relocated to the converted police station at 567 King Street from 573 King Street.[8] Meanwhile he rented the adjacent spot at 565 King Street to a dry goods business (1890-1891) and a clothier (1893-1894).
The only known image of the original building is from the 1872 Bird’s Eye View map which shows a single, two-story structure with a large, central bay that would have allowed carriages to access the back of the lot. Despite the current appearance as two buildings, the single structure still has a single roof clearly showing the original nature of the space.
The massive reworking of the building into two separate addresses with related, but independent, appearances took place in the 1890s and marked the start of about 40 years as a bank at 565 King Street. The Columbian Banking & Trust Company bought the full parcel for $12,000 on November 7, 1894.[9] Then, in July 1895, the bank pulled a $3500 building permit to add a new granite front to the building and convert it into a bank.[10] The new Columbian Banking and Trust Co. was operating by January 1897, and a pharmacy was located next door at 567 King Street.
The bank formally split the property into two separate buildings with a plat drawn on March 10, 1906. The southern part (Lot A) became 565 King Street while the northern part (Lot B) became 567 King Street.[11] A passageway to the back part of the lot still existed and served as the dividing line. The Columbian Bank had gone into receivership, and the property was auctioned off on April 3, 1906, to Central Realty Company for $15,000, recorded on June 23, 1906.[12]
The realty company immediately flipped the property. The bank half (565 King Street, 29 feet wide and 105 feet deep) was sold to the South Carolina Loan & Trust Co.[13] for use as a branch of its downtown location for $15,000 on April 3, 1906.[14] The bank developed financial problems and sold 565 King Street to Durham Corporation on February 19, 1924.[15] (South Carolina Loan & Trust went under in December 1926,[16] and depositors received 51.5% on the dollar.[17])
The next ownerships were short. Durham Corp. flipped 565 King Street to Security Savings Bank on March 24, 1924.[18] Then Security Savings Bank resold it to the Charleston Heights Company on December 1, 1926.[19] Charleston Heights Co. then sold 565 King Street to South Carolina National for $25,000 on February 27, 1927.[20]
Starting on March 21, 1927, the South Carolina National Bank relocated from 556 King Street to 565 King Street.[21] Perhaps the Depression changed the bank’s outlook. On July 15, 1932, South Carolina National Bank closed the branch to consolidate at 253 King Street because of lack of customer traffic.[22] For a short time the former bank was used as an ice cream parlor known as the Ice Cream Shaack (owned by Mr. E.R. Schaack).
The bank building sold for $8000 in November 1934 to Frank H. Panegeris[23] who pulled a $200 permit for remodeling of the store front.[24]
Mr. Panageris sold 565 King Street to Michel Shahid on August 30, 1939, for $11,500.[25] The building saw its low point during the early 1940s. Far from being a police station, in 1942, the operator of a boarding house at the spot was charged with allowing his operation to be used for prostitution.[26]
Ida Goldberg Appel (Mrs. Abraham Appel)[27] paid $18,500 for it on March 31, 1943.[28] The building was being used by Sam Schneider for a shoe business, the Shoe Box Shoe Store, he had bought from Al Shahid, and there were apartments upstairs. In 1950, the Appel Furniture Co. moved to the location from 520 King Street.[29] The furniture store remained until it ceased operations in 1963. After a short run as Mack’s Shoe Store in 1965, the location was listed for sale.
Thom Enterprises, Inc. bought the site on March 21, 1967,[30] for $18,000 and Taylor’s Loan Co., a pawn shop, was operating at the location by 1969. Mr. Taylor operated a pawn shop at 565 King Street for about forty years. He consolidated his other location from 609 King Street with his operation at 565 King Street in 1987 and renovated the space in 1992. Even when Upper King Street was at its worst, Mr. Taylor saw the area’s potential: “By the end of the ‘90s, Uptown King Street is going to be a focal point of retail business in the tri-county area,” said Howard C. Taylor.[31]
Mr. Taylor’s prediction was correct but perhaps too optimistic by a few years. At first, “Southern Charm” star Whitney Sudler-Smith and Planet Hollywood creator Bryan Kestner’s submitted plans to rework the front of the pawn shop in 2014 in anticipation of opening a French/Mexican fusion restaurant known as Generalísimo.[32] In 2017, Charlotte-based Bottle Cap Group opened an “eclectic restaurant” known as Ink n Ivy following substantial work on the building.[33] The improvement project had been planned since early 2014 with a Board of Architectural Review review in 2015.[34] The new restaurant includes a large mural surrounding the front door that replaced the “Taylor’s Pawn Shop,” but the mural had been added with Board of Architectural Review permission and had to be approved after-the-fact in April 2017.[35]
[1] Deed book W8, page 385
[2] Deed book W11, page 20
[3] Plat book D8
[4] Deed book X11, page 70
[5] “Public Meeting on Charleston Neck,” Southern Patriot, Nov. 16, 1847, at 3
[6] Deed book H19, page 332
[7] News & Courier, Apr. 26, 1888, at 5
[8] News & Courier, Nov. 8, 1888, at 3
[9] Deed book A22, page 158
[10] “Building the City,” Evening Post, August 6, 1895, at 2 (July 1895 recap of permits)
[11] Plat book D, page 86
[12] Deed book F25, page 61
[13] Deed book H25, page 627
[14] “Columbia Bank Property Sold,” Evening Post, Apr. 3, 1906, at 1
[15] Deed book D31, page 572
[16] “Loan & Trust Closes Doors,” Evening Post, Dec. 16, 1926, at 1
[17] News and Courier, Feb. 4, 1927, at 11 (advertisement); “Balance to Be Verified,” Evening Post, Feb. 4, 1927, at 11
[18] Deed book L32, page 241
[19] Deed book Z33, page 642
[20] Deed book N34, page 103
[21] Evening Post, March 29, 1927, at 9 (advertisement)
[22] News & Courier, May 25, 1932, at 10 (advertisement)
[23] “565 King Street Is Sold By Bank,” News & Courier, Oct. 21, 1934, at 2; “Bank Building Is Sold,” News & Courier, Nov. 6, 1934, at 3; deed book K38, page 57
[24] “Building Permits,” News & Courier, Nov. 2, 1938, at 10
[25] Deed book H41, page 97
[26] “Boarding House Keeper Up Again,” News & Courier, June 10, 1942, at 12
[27] (d. June 23, 1985)
[28] “King St. Building Changes Hands,” Evening Post, Feb. 18, 1943, at 3; Deed book B44, page 171
[29] News & Courier, Oct. 27, 1950, at 8 (advertisement)
[30] Deed book L87, page 298
[31] J. Douglas Donehue, “Pawn shop owner says King Street will thrive again,” Post & Courier, June 1, 1992, at 2D
[32] Kinsey Giddick, “BAR requests: Anson Restaurant and Generalísimo seek approvals,” Charleston City Paper, Dec. 8, 2014
[33] Erin Perkins, “Generalísimo Is OUT on King Street; Ink n Ivy Is IN,” Charleston Eater, Jan. 26, 2016
[34] http://www.charleston-sc.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Agenda/02112015-1235
[35] http://www.charleston-sc.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Agenda/_04132017-2802
[Researched and written by Kevin R. Eberle, May 2018]
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