Beale Row
95-103 East Bay Street • c. 1741
Row houses were the usual type of house constructed in cities for thousands of years, and in most American cities this was the principal type that was built. The main characteristic was a common wall shared on both sides of each building, with no space in between buildings. Sharing a wall reduced the expense of construction, and a Charleston law passed in 1700 provided that anyone who built against an existing wall had to reimburse the builder for half the cost of the first wall.
Row houses in Europe and the United States often had a business on the ground floor with a dwelling above, and Beale Row (95–103 East Bay Street) fits that design. With home fronts occupied by shops and offices, access to upper floors and back yards was provided through open archways, like the one still existing in the middle of the pink building (nos. 99–101). The archways for nos. 95 and 97 have been closed in.
These five buildings were among the earliest in Charleston, and since they do no appear on the detailed 1739 view of the waterfront, and since the buildings shown in that view burned the following year, there is no question that these buildings date from soon after the fire of 1740, which destroyed nearly half of the city.
Beale Row • 95–103 East Bay Street
If you stand across the street, you can see the five buildings as a group (the pink one comprises two). The home on the left end—no. 95—has a Dutch scrolled gable on top. The home on the right end—no. 103—was intended to have an identical gable to unify the five buildings. Instead it has an asymmetrical gable that was added in the 20th century.
Othniel Beale was a military engineer from Massachusetts who may well have designed the row himself. His wife owned the lot at no. 101, and in 1741 he acquired the lot at no. 97. Records are incomplete, but the 1774 view of the city shows that Beale was unable to add a symmetrical gable to the north end of the row—no. 103.
Notice that the three buildings in the middle of the row (nos. 97-99-101, the light blue and pink houses in this photo) have their gables parallel to the street, whereas the ends of the row (nos. 95 and 103) have their gables perpendicular to the street. This is further evidence that an overall symmetrical was intended for this group of buildings. Notice, too, however, that the front of no. 103 was less wide than no. 95, so there was not room enough to add an identical gable like the one atop no. 95.
Recesses for “blind windows”
Look carefully and you can see two recesses in between nos. 97 and 99. These “blind windows” probably had false windows inserted into them, which would have given the central portion of the row (97–99– 101) nine windows rather than the present eight. As a result, each of the five buildings would have had three windows, and the entire row would have looked symmetrical. The omission of these two windows, as well as the insertion of two garage doors in the pink building, has clearly altered the symmetry.
There are more houses on the south side of Beale Row, toward Tradd Street. The entire block was built almost solidly to face the waterfront, which was then just behind where you are standing. •
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