Singularly Charleston

Southern Living, Spring 2003 by Joyner, Louis

Shaped by climate and an innovative city plan, the single house evolved more than 250 years ago as Charleston, South Carolina's unique solution to the need for a house that was both a part of the public realm and a private refuge.

Walking the streets of this favorite Southern city provides a glimpse back in time. It is easy to get caught up in the history and in the grand homes open for tour. But this time, let's take a more specialized look at the city's significant contribution to residential architecture-the Charleston single house.

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Defining the Style What is a single house? Simply stated, it is a house that is only one room deep. This aspect of the single house is not unique to Charleston. Throughout the world you can find houses only one room deep and two or three rooms wide. Turning the house so its narrow end faces the street was also common elsewhere. Putting the narrow end to the street allowed houses to be closer together, important before the advent of the automobile. When Charleston was laid out in 1680, the lots were long and narrow, in accordance with the plan approved by Lord Ashley-Cooper, one of the original lord proprietors. Typical lot widths were 40 to 50 feet, with depths of 80 to 120 feet.

By going up, not out, a lot of living area could be packed into a very small footprint, conserving land on the small peninsula. A typical single house would include a ground floor, often used for business, a main floor containing living and dining rooms, and a third floor with bedrooms. Attic space was also often used as bedrooms for children or servants.

Unique Details What makes the Charleston single house so special are the piazzas, also called verandas or porches, which provide relief from the hot, humid climate. In this city, the preferred term is piazza. "Porch"-as applied to an open, exterior living areais a late 19th- and early 20th-century term.

Typically, the piazzas are stacked one above the other, giving each floor access to a porch. Before air-conditioning, the upper level frequently served as an outdoor sleeping area with shutter panels between the columns for privacy.

At the front end of the ground floor porch, you will see what appears to be a front door, opening from the street. This door doesn't open into the house, however, but onto the piazza. Because the piazza is often well above the sidewalk level, steps just inside the front door lead up to the first floor. Another door, about halfway back along the porch, opens to the house.

Creation of Gardens To Charlestonians, the space between the side porch and the adjoining house became the family's backyard. Two hundred years ago, this long, narrow space might have contained a carriage way, outdoor work area, and a vegetable garden. There might even have been a few chickens and maybe even a cow. "In the beginning, it was strictly a work yard," says Carroll Ann Bowers of the Historic Charleston Foundation. "The gardens came much later." Behind the house itself would have been a separate kitchen (fires were a constant threat), "necessities" (important in the days before indoor plumbing), and perhaps a carriage house. Servants' quarters were often above the kitchen.

Today, the side yard has taken on a more elegant look, with carefully crafted pocket gardens that provide gracious outdoor spaces in a very urban city. Combined with the piazzas, there is as much living space outside as inside.

But a single house by itself is just an interesting, if somewhat unusual, house type. What really makes the style work is its relationship to other single houses along a street. A good example of this can be found on Church Street opposite Cabbage Row. The three brick single houses on the east side of the street, although done in different styles, present a unified front that defines the street much as row houses do in Annapolis, Savannah, or Baltimore. But the piazzas and gardens between give each house an appealing outdoor space that is altogether lacking in a row house. Because this area serves as a house's outdoor living room, a tradition of limiting the number and size of windows on the north side of the house has developed. This way the adjoining house faces, essentially, a blank wall. Repeated along a street, this gives each house surprising privacy.

Looking to the Future In Charleston, the single house, though supplanted by bigger and grander types, continued to be built well into the 20th century. The recent rise in popularity of re-creating traditional neighborhoods in new developments has once again sparked interest in the single house. The style of architecture still offers the combination of urban density, street presence, and privacy that is viable today. Single houses share the underlying features of a one-room-deep house turned with it's narrow end to the street and fitted with piazzas on the long side. And the same principles of shading and natural ventilation work just as well now as they did in the past. LOUIS JOYNER

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Singularly Charleston

Southern Living, Spring 2003 by Joyner, Louis

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