Meeting Street Memories: 2 Meeting St. — the Carrington house
By Peg Eastman
The September Meeting Street Memories column was about George Walton Williams and the elegant mansion he built at 16 Meeting St. Williams was an extremely successful wholesale grocer who had stores, warehouses and industrial complexes throughout the Charleston area by 1860.
As a result, the state legislature appointed him to procure food for the families of Confederate soldiers’ families and the poor during the Civil War, a position he personally supervised without charging for his services. In addition to being a blockade runner, he was a city alderman who is credited with being one of Mayor Macbeth’s emissaries who greeted the Union officers when they landed to ensure an orderly transfer of power, for some zealots had determined to burn the city down before the “Yankees” took possession.
Simply put, Williams was one of Charleston’s larger-than-life, civically responsible citizens who had the perspicacity to emerge from the war with his fortune intact because he invested his blockade running profits in English pounds sterling. This enabled him to be the first merchant to resume a mercantile business in Charleston after the war and he subsequently opened a banking house on Church Street and acquired the Carolina Savings Bank at 1 Broad St.
To showcase his wealth, from 1875 to 1876, Williams built what the News and Courier dubbed the “handsomest and most complete private residence in the South,” so it was only natural for Williams to want his daughter Martha to have a handsome home nearby when she married King Street jeweler Waring P. Carrington. According to popular tradition, Williams placed a $75,000 check on a satin pillow as a wedding present.
In 1891, the Carringtons purchased the lot on the corner of Meeting and South Battery Streets from George Walton Williams for $17,000 (previously the property of Henry Gourdin who purchased it in 1838 from Mary S. Horry). On the property stood a wooden two-story Charleston single house with side piazzas and a two-story brick service wing. It was an ideal location, overlooking White Point Garden and the harbor beyond.
After demolishing the existing buildings, the Carringtons built a 6,000-square-foot mansion in the Queen Anne style. The wrap-around piazzas with arcades on the first level and classical columns on the second, are reflective of the Colonial Revival style. Unsurprisingly, the handsome residence stood out from the traditional architecture of the nearby older Charleston homes.
No architect has been identified with the Carrington house, which displays many Queen Anne characteristics including an asymmetrical plan with a variety of room shapes and sizes, a complex roof structure, very tall chimneys (one of which is pierced by an open arch), a corner turret with a fan-shaped base and a conical roof and in the interior, a baronial staircase and built-in cabinetry in the dining room. The entrance foyer has an inglenook with built-in seating at a fireplace and two Tiffany windows were added to the parlor to celebrate the couple’s fifth wedding anniversary in 1895.
Mrs. Carrington is remembered for donating the bandstand in White Point Garden to the city in memory of her parents Mr. and Mrs. George W. Williams, which was designed by architect William Martin Aiken and built by Robert McArtney at a cost of more than $5,000. Construction on the original bandstand was begun in 1906 and completed in 1907. The occasion was celebrated with an inaugural concert from Metz’s Military Band held on June 28, 1907 to coincide with Carolina Day.
In 1934, the pavilion was raised three feet and restrooms were installed under the structure, which was later locked due to law enforcement issues. In 2008, the city announced a plan to restore the bandstand and lower it to its original height of three instead of six feet; the project was completed in April of 2010.
Concerts were outlawed in 1978 due to neighborhood complaints about noise and commercial activity. In 1985, the bandstand received a $30,000 restoration grant ($8,000 in private funds) and a request was made to resume musical performances, which was rejected; currently, the bandstand is used for weddings and select special events
Across the street, the Carrington home remained in the family until 1946 when it was purchased by Minnie Spell Carr who established a guesthouse, which eventually became Two Meeting Street Inn. The property was operated by Mrs. Carr’s youngest nephew Pete Spell and his relatives for the next 76 years and has recently been purchased for $7.69 million by South Street, the residential developer of Kiawah Island.
According to a partner in South Street, the firm had been looking for downtown accommodations for some time and is preserving the long-respected name of Two Meeting Street Inn. The mansion has been renovated with eight suites exclusively available to members of the Kiawah Island Club, which owns two private golf courses on Kiawah. The project included new mechanical, plumbing and electrical systems. In addition, the grand staircase now leads to a new guest room overlooking White Point Garden, the dining room and kitchen on the main floor have been redone and the garden has been restored to accentuate the original era.
The new owners wish to make Charleston’s multiple cultural and restaurant amenities more accessible to Kiawah Island Club residents. With a 28-mile drive that takes about an hour, commuting becomes more and more challenging as development continues and of particular concern are the narrow rural roadways closely bordered by live oaks in some places. The hope is that the new B&B on Meeting Street will provide a luxurious alternative to a drive that is especially dangerous at night.
My appreciation to Robert Stockton for contributing his architectural expertise to this article and Lish Thompson for information about the mansion.
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.
