Each day on my walking tour of historic #Charleston, I take tourists past scenic Vanderhorst Row on East Bay Street. The impressive brick structure was built along Charleston’s waterfront circa 1800, when bustling shipping wharves stood nearby this residential edifice. There were actually two row buildings erected side by side, but the building to the north was destroyed in the earthquake of 1886, and now there is nothing there but a bland parking lot. Vanderhorst Row itself does exemplify the classic architecture that makes Charleston so unique, and although no more than a rectangular brick building, it is the exquisite detail that makes the structure so pleasing to the eye. The bricks are “rouged” to a deep reddish hue by iron oxides that were added to clays in the kilning process. Those bricks are laid in an attractive pattern called Flemish Bond, with vertical “soldiers” over doors and windows. Stone quoins, voussoirs, splayed lintels and lunette arches added considerably to the classic look of Vanderhorst Row, details that increased building cost, but made it so memorable. Unfortunately, modern architecture in Charleston is rarely distinguishing, as simple details such as those mentioned above are missing from what are typically just brick boxes. We can see so easily in Vanderhorst Row how simple it would be to make all buildings scenic and attractive. <img.src=”Charleston Architecture” alt=”Vanderhorst Row”
