Meeting Street Memories: 1 Meeting Street
By Peg Eastman
Meeting Street was one of the great streets in Charleston laid out according to the instructions of Lord Shaftesbury, and the current mansion at 1 Meeting Street lives up to Shaftesbury’s expectations. What most Charlestonians don’t know is that this was not the first house on that lot. According to Alice R. Huger Smith and D.E. Huger Smith in The Dwelling Houses of Charleston, the first house was connected to Revolutionary War notables, including the ill-fated martyr Isaac Hayne, Major William Gerard DeBrahm whose estate was confiscated after the Revolution and Col. William Washington who bought both of their lots and sold them to U.S. Senator Ralph Izard (1741-1804).
A biographer called Izard politically powerful but rather irascible and unlikable. His country seat was The Elms, some 17 miles from Charleston. He was educated in England before the Revolution and with ample wealth, he took the leisurely Continental tour before planning a return to the colony in 1775. However, because of the start of hostilities, he remained in Europe until 1780. Because of the war, his properties were in shambles when he returned. Amazingly, within ten years he had repaired his estate and was the second largest landowner in South Carolina.
Izard’s wealth and social connections dictated that he build a town house befitting a man of his position. Located on the corner of what is now Meeting Street and South Battery, the house was a three-story mansion built above an unusually high basement in the European style. It showcased piazzas, curving bays on the east side, and unusually fine carved and ornamental work. No expense was spared — correspondence indicated that he had difficulty locating enough bushels of plaster of Paris.
It is speculated that Izard’s residence may have been designed by James Hoban, the architect of the White House. While in the state, Hoban designed the New Theater on Broad St. demolished by the South Carolina Medical College in the 1850s and the first State House in Columbia, burned in 1865 when Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman captured the city. Unfortunately, Izard’s house burned on a Sunday morning in 1828 while the family was at church and today there are no known Hoban buildings in the state. It should be noted that the Charleston County Courthouse has been attributed to him, but documentation points to Judge William Drayton as the designer.
In 1846, the vacant lot was purchased by George Robertson, a successful cotton factor with offices on Fitzsimons Wharf. The house is thought to have been designed by one of Charleston’s most talented architects in the ante bellum era, Edward C. Jones. Jones also designed the Italian Villa-style house at 26 South Battery St. for Col. John Algernon Sidney Ashe.
Constructed of Charleston grey brick, the façade is laid in Flemish bond with the remainder of the building laid in the less expensive and labor-intensive American bond. The three-and-a-half-story Italian Villa-style mansion was constructed above a high basement, one of the largest downtown homes at 11,820 square feet. Noteworthy features included a projecting two-story bay and piazzas masked in brick to create a balanced Meeting Street façade. The primary entrance was embellished by double doors with glazed panels.
The South Battery side boasted arched piazzas with Roman Doric columned screened from the street below by masking windows. The interior had ornamental moldings, high ceilings, marble fireplaces and a sweeping main stair with a lyre newel, a grand display of cotton wealth.
In 1855, Robertson sold 1 Meeting to another Charlestonian patrician named Williams Middleton (1809-1883), whose ancestral country estate was Middleton Place on the Ashley River. Middleton Place was almost completely destroyed near the end of the war, and the Middletons lived at 1 Meeting full-time until it was sold in 1870 to Ann Ross, the widow of James Ross. It is amazing that in spite of 545 days of constant Union bombardment and the blowing up of nearby Confederate batteries in 1865, the house apparently was not damaged during the war.
The Ross family, merchants and ship owners of Charleston and Philadelphia, owned the house for more than fifty years. Mary Jane Ross was the last family member and passed away in 1922 at 90 years old. She traveled extensively during her lifetime, amassing a collection of Victorian-era art, antiques and exotic artifacts from India, Kashmir, China and Japan. A particular source of pride were the two Florentine Strozzi palace lanterns she acquired to flank the front entrance. They were placed in their current position by Momier Electric Company of Charleston.
Miss Ross’ will stipulated that the house was to become a museum in memory of her brothers, Dr. Robert Fleming Ross (d. 1857) and Confederate Pvt. James Alexander Ross, who were killed at the Siege of Petersburg in 1864.
The will initiated one of the longest court cases in the nation. In 22 years, it went before the S.C. Supreme Court three times before it was decided that the house and its collections were to be sold at auction with the proceeds benefitting the South Carolina Medical Society, the Charleston Library Society, the First (Scots) Presbyterian Church and Philadelphia Presbyterian Hospital.
Totaling $92,438.03, the legal claims were the highest ever awarded by a Charleston court at the time. The claim was nullified four times by the South Carolina Court before it was settled for about $69,000.00. The auction of the Ross estate attracted one of the largest crowds in Charleston.
In 1945, 1 Meeting St. was purchased by Minnie S. Carr (the owner of 2 Meeting St. featured in the November Mercury), who converted the house into six apartments for Naval officers. In 1961, local surgeon John Hawk and his wife Nancy (nee Dinwiddie) purchased the house from the Carrs.
Described as a woman of “purpose and drive,” according to her 2008 obituary in the Post and Courier, Mrs. Hawk was named the United States Mother of the Year and enrolled at the College of Charleston after her nine children were grown before earning her law degree at the University of South Carolina. She practiced law on Broad Street at a time when female lawyers were uncommon.
Among the causes she championed were efforts to preserve Snee Farm, restore the Charleston County Courthouse at the Four Corners of Law, build the city’s new judicial center downtown and establish the Charlestowne Neighborhood Association. Additionally, she converted the ground floor of 1 Meeting St. into the temporary home of “Miss Mason’s School,” an elementary day school that later became Mason Preparatory School, now located on Halsey Boulevard. She was one of the founders of the College of the Building Arts. She was also one of the many notable preservationists who challenged the original terminus of the James Island Connector (featured in the October Mercury).
After Mrs. Hawk’s death, the property was on the market for seven years. Its sale generated controversy when there was a request to divide it into three units with the kitchen house at 1 1/2 Meeting St. serving as a fourth. After a heated debate among preservationists, the request was allowed and its sale closed on September 2, 2015, for $4.2 million to William and Frederike Hecht, who proceeded with the apartment conversions. The new owners meticulously renovated the entire building, adding an elevator and air conditioning.
My appreciation to Robert Stockton, Lish Thompson, Bill and Freddie Hecht and Phil Bryant for contributing to this article.
A Charlestonian by birth, Margaret (Peg) Middleton Rivers Eastman is actively involved in the preservation of Charleston’s rich cultural heritage. In addition to being a regular columnist for the Charleston Mercury she has published through McGraw Hill, The History Press, Evening Post Books, as well as in Carologue, a publication of the South Carolina Historical Society.
