64 South Battery, a

64 South Battery, a

c. 1956-1957

11/22/2016 (date digital)

Wm. Gibbe's House

Back of photograph: "(c) Henry P. Staats / Gibbes House / 64 South Battery / Chas." William Gibbes was one of Charleston’s wealthiest pre-Revolutionary merchant-planters. His impressive home initially faced the water and would have been approached by the Ashley River via the owner’s 300-foot wharf, not from the street. Gibbes’ wharf hosted shops, warehouse businesses, and coffeehouses. This wood double-house boasts elaborate tabernacle-framed windows and console-bracketed central pediment in 1772. He enjoyed the property only briefly before being interned in St Augustine following the occupation of Charleston in 1780. His family was evicted, and his home was commandeered as a hospital by the British Army. Subsequent owners included Sarah Moore Smith, who purchased the property in 1794, and Cornelia Roebling in 1928. Smith and her son, Peter Smith, added Neoclassical mantels and door surrounds in the large upstairs drawing room and adjoining chamber, and a Federal-style wrought iron balustrade and columns in the central hall. Roebling installed an eighteenth-century chinoiserie style room on the first floor and the Loutrel Briggs rose garden at the eastern front of the house. The original kitchen and washhouse and the antebellum carriage house block are composed of brick and tabby with tiled roofs

they remain largely intact, with a 1929 conversion to servants’ quarters and garages. Poston, J. H. (1997). The Buildings of Charleston. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press.

visible image 12 x 12 cm

Donated to CLS by Henry P. Staats.

This item is in copyright but can be used for educational purposes. Please contact Charleston Library Society for more information for any use not qualifying as educational use.

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StillImage

Hinson Audio/Visual Collection

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