Charleston-style

While in the South Tyler and I toured several historic homes and wandered around admiring dozens more. In Charleston that have their own unique style and I loved that not only the old historic houses, but also newer homes, are done in the traditional Charleston-style. They are designed to have good air flow to keep the house really cool and are usually very narrow; only one room wide and very tall. I think most of the homes were either 3 or 4 stories, but we did find a couple that were 6 or 7 stories high. None of the homes have basements either because Charleston is part of the low-country, a.k.a. swampland.

What I loved most about the homes was the huge side porches, or piazzas, on every floor and sometimes on the roof too. Each piazza has ceiling fans and faces the wind so that you can sit out there in the evenings and still be cool. The houses all have a false front door that faces the street and leads onto the first floor piazza where the real front door is located. Supposedly, if the false front door is left open the family is home and welcoming guests over. I think it's a very cute tradition and both Tyler and I like the idea of having a false front door on our home.

In Charleston we toured the Edmonston-Alston home and the Nathaniel Russell home. Both were very pretty and had interesting histories, but I think our favorite was the Nathaniel Russell home mostly because our tour guide at the other home was soooo bad. I really thought Tyler was going to just start screaming at the the lady or something mid-way through our tour. It was bad.

The Edmonston-Alston house with crazy huge piazzas.

This was one of the mansions along The Battery in Charleston. All of these homes were HUGE! The lots go back quite a ways from the street and most of these houses are still single-family homes.

In Savannah we toured three homes: the Davenport Home, the Andrew Low Home, and the Juliette Gordon Low Birthplace. The Low family history was really interesting and our favorite house tour of the trip was at the Juliette Gordon Low Birthplace. Juliette was the founder of the Girl Scouts of America and her history was so interesting. She was also a remarkable artist and several of her original paintings, sculptures, and iron-work pieces were still in the home. I think my favorite painting was one of her mother as a young woman. Apparently, when Juliette married and moved back to England with her husband she wanted to take the portrait of her mother with her but her father wouldn't allow it. So instead she painted a near exact replica of the portrait to have as her own. It was a really gorgeous painting. I think the only thing we were unhappy with at the Juliette Gordon Low Birthplace was that they didn't have any Girl Scout cookies for us- Tyler was really bummed.

The Andrew Low Home (not to be confused with Andrew Lowe, who doesn't own a home).

The Green-Meldrim Home- Savannah had a lot more houses that were in the Gothic Revival style.... unfortunately.

The Davenport Home- we noticed that a lot of the older homes in Savannah had no porches, but usually a fancy staircase leading up to the front door. The first floor was not at street level because people didn't want the dust and smells from the street bothering them or their guests. We also learned that in Savannah the first floor was where guests were usually entertained and in Charleston the second floor and piazza was were they brought their guests.

The Juliette Gordon Low Birthplace- unfortunately, I couldn't take a picture of any of her art inside the home.