There are so many locations around historic Charleston that are best visited by walking, otherwise you might miss something driving by. I like to point out such places along my tours of the scenic city, and I find that most who make Charleston a destination are impressed by its nooks and crannies. One such spot is this gate between 143 and 145 Church Street, which was enhanced by an owner welding an old cutlass to the bottom. Also, when looking through the gate, tourists will notice that the siding of the house is Bermuda Stone, which was a building material only used in the earliest part of Charleston’s history, and these dwellings certainly date to the early 1700’s, if not late 1600’s.

There are endless curiosities to be found wandering the streets of scenic, historic Charleston, such as the White Point Garden bandstand where bands have not played for decades. The attractive structure was built from money donated to the city by the Carrington family in the early 1900’s, when White Garden was a favorite spot for strolls, carriage rides, picnics, and even swimming from a long-gone Ashley River bath house. A common theme was some type of musical event on Sunday afternoons, usually featuring a local band. The tradition continued into the 1930’s and 40’s, but after World War II, there was much more mobility available to Charlestonians, and many people preferred a drive to nearby beaches on Sundays, and the bandstand fell into disuse. It was beautifully restored and offers a charming centerpiece to a delightful park, perhaps not so pleasing to the ears these days as to the eyes.

There are plenty of things to do in historic Charleston on a cold or rainy day, and the scenery can be as enjoyable inside as the city features a wealth of museums and museum houses that are popular with visitors. One is the Gibbes Museum of Art on Meeting Street. A 1905 structure built in the Beaux Arts style, the Gibbes has been at the forefront of artistic endeavors in Charleston for more than a century. Along with a wealth of archived artistic artifacts, there are more than 600 works on permanent display in a variety of oils, miniatures, sculptures and photographs, featuring such outstanding Charleston artists as Charles Fraser, Thomas Sully, Henrietta Johnson and George Cook. One of the featured artists is my great-great-great grandfather, Auguste Paul Trouche, whose oils on canvas and miniature paintings on ivory are exquisite.

Tailgating for football games had a different meaning in pre-World War II Charleston. The tradition for games at Clemson, University of South Carolina and The Citadel back then was to gather in front of the old Timrod Hotel on Meeting Street and then caravan to the games, and coming on the heels of Prohibition, there was ample cocktail companionship for the ride

Charleston opened its arms to a new wave of French immigrants during the late 18th and early 19th century. These were refugees from the French colony of Saint Domingue (Haiti), who found a vibrant French heritage in the Holy City from previous migrations of French Huguenots and French Acadians. Although many of the new arrivals quickly adapted to their adopted city, there were some inherent difficulties. Some of the refugees escaped war-torn Saint Domingue with little more than the clothes on their backs, and there was reluctance and suspicion among some Charlestonians over the fact that most of the newcomers were Catholics, spoke little English, and were technically still the royalist subjects of Napoleon. A Comite’ de Bienveillance (Committee of Benevolence) was created in 1804 by a Charleston priest at St. Mary’s Catholic Church named Angadreme LeMercier , to assist with clothing and monetary donations, and the charitable concept continued with the creation of La Societe Francaise de Beinfaisance (The French Charity Society) in 1816. For more than two hundred years, our benevolent society has provided for those in need, as well as honoring the considerable contributions of those with French heritage in Charleston

ALWAYS ATTRACTIVEHistoric Charleston is the ideal place to visit or plan a trip simply because it is always enjoyable year round. We have an amazingly scenic city with so much grand historic architecture, and dazzling gardens that feature some blooms and color each season. Add to that the fact that we have boundless waterfront and oceanfront, as well as first class restaurants and hotels – you just can’t beat a visit to Charleston.

Those who come a visit on tours of historic Charleston invariably remark about the oddball numbers on some of the street addresses in the old city. Residential numbers came after the Revolution, and since then, some other buildings have sneaked in among them, so to speak. Either these where old kitchen and carriage houses that were later made into residences or larger house whose parts were divided, leaving us with many 1/2 addresses and a few zeros.

Bridges spanning the Ashley and Cooper rivers to the old city have been struck violently more times than a piñata, creating both tragedy and comedy. The first wooden bridge across the Ashley was built in 1810, but hit by hurricane and destroyed 3 years later. Other than a railroad bridge that was destroyed during the Civil War, there was no vehicle traffic across the Ashley until the late 1800’s, when the steel swing bridge design emerged. But the Ashley bridge was badly placed in relation to the channel and was struck by so many ships, it was declared a hazard to navigation in 1921, and one tug going through was struck in the stern when the revolving trestle did an out-of-control 360. The new bridge opened in 1926 didn’t fare much better, being plowed into by the SS Fort Fetterman in 1955, and cars were redirected across a rail trestle upriver for weeks until it was fixed.

It is a statuesque natural sculpture that shadows the South, known for hardiness and hardness, offering great benefits to nature and the human eye. It is an evergreen that loses its leaves, whose dead membranes carry on through centuries of age, once found throughout the seven seas, and literally brought colonial shipbuilding to its knees. The Live Oak is known scientifically as Quercus (kwerkus) Virginiana, as it was in 1610 that Virginians first identified this American giant as a separate species. Growing easily in acidic or alkaline soil, and tolerating both moist and sandy soil, the Live Oak is at home along the Southern U.S. coast. Being very impervious to rot and insects, the Live Oak can live centuries, adding mass to its trunk as inner xylem layers that transport water and minerals continuously die and are replaced. Its spreading canopy has an enormous tensile strength that can extend well over 100 feet, with heights reaching up to 75 feet, and the Angel Oak on Johns Island, which is named for the Angel family by the way, provides more than 17,000 square feet of shade.

It is named for its physical beauty, and famed for its spiritual duty, a graceful Southern jewel made more radiant from the North. Reborn from the pages of Life, focused heavenward through the eyes of a saint, a place whose soil and water beckon with the edible and the the incredible, it is more Des Moines than the city in Iowa, and less a Moncks Corner than the town in South Carolina. Mepkin was created in the 17th century as a corn and wheat plantation along the Cooper River, and named for the Cusabo Indian word meaning “serene and lovely”, but its grand oaks and dazzling banks of azaleas would eventually leave the crops in the dust. Mepkin was purchased in 1936 with wealth made from Life magazine by publisher Henry Luce, whose wife Clare Booth Luce had been inspired by Southern poet Sidney Lanier to come South and find a place relaxing to the soul. She commissioned New York landscape architect Loutrell Briggs to create a dazzling floral display along the bluffs of the Cooper called Mepkin Garden, and after converting to Catholicism, she donated part of it to Trappist Monks in 1949 for the purpose of an abbey.