Blake Tenements
2–4 Courthouse Square • 1760–1772
The site of the District Courthouse at the corner of Meeting and Broad Streets has only one of the four squares that were planned for this intersection when the town was initially laid out.
At the northwest corner of the square, in the alley next to the courthouse, is a pair of single houses whose plan was modified to allow residential doors on the street, rather than through a passage way or on the side.
front of the Blake tenements
This pair of houses has the massing of a large double house—an effect that is further enhanced by its being raised on a full ground floor. Through the middle of the ground floor is an arched passage similar in form and function to the examples at Beale Row.
curvilinear ironwork in the center
The double stoop has some of the city’s finest pre-revolutionary ironwork. The deceptively simple design includes a ramped railing and chamfered newel posts with terminals that have 13 facets hammered into the hand-wrought iron. The small amount of curvilinear ironwork in the center fronts a section of fence that divides the two entrance stoops.
The woodwork inside these rental properties was also carefully designed and executed. The interior has plain, recessed panels that are among the finest examples of paneling in the city.
The photographs below highlight the quality of workmanship that went into the English bond brickwork, and the care that was taken to follow the pattern both above the windows and in the string course between the second and third floors. It is a masterpiece of character and precision that you rarely, if ever, see in modern construction. •
detail of string course
workmanship above the windows
English bond brickwork
Copyright Notice: all material in this series is the exclusive property of Gene Waddell. If you want to reuse any of it in any form, you must get permission in writing from chastoday@charlestontoday.net.
