Archive Record
Images
Metadata
Object Type |
Property File |
Title |
205-229 Meeting Street / Charleston Place |
Scope & Content |
Charleston Place, constructed 1984-86. John Carl Warnecke and Partners, architects. Beginning in Mayor Palmer Gaillard's administration in the early 1970s, plans were formulated to rejuvenate King Street. This effort accelerated by 1975 and led Mayor Joseph P. Riley Jr. and city planners to attempt to lure a major hotel or convention center to a block bounded by Meeting, Hasell, King, and Market Streets. Although the city's intent was the renewal of the street, the issue sharply divided preservationists and the general citizenry. An early plan with a 10-story hotel tower of starkly contemporary design was shelved, and a compromise plan with a new developer and the Washington D.C., architect John Carl Warnecke was finally accepted in the early 1980s. The resulting complex features a hotel with restaurants and retail spaces along King and Market streets. The complex itself is a mix of Neo-Georgian/Second Empire style with synthetic green slate mansard roofs, varying textures and colors of brick, and rusticated cladding. A large gateway from Market Street with a forecourt provides an approach to the main hotel block, while the King Street side is dominated by interspersed curvilinear gables and square parapets with a clock tower, designed to hearken back to similar towers now lost from 273 and 275 King Street. Although preservationists considered retention of the facades of the buildings from 209 Meeting Street to 235 Meeting Street to be a major victory, the extensive rear sections of all these, primarily antebellum commercial structures, were removed to construct the hotel parking garage. These edifices include the Samuel Seyle building at 209 Meeting, built right after the fire of 1838 and sold by the fancy goods merchant, Gustav Sussdorf in 1859 to George S. Cameron. Cameron owned the three buildings to the north at 211, 213, 215 Meeting Street which have unified cast-iron facades consisting of Corinthian columns, modillions, and side brackets with human mask motifs, probably added just before or after the Civil War. These structures were gutted and several refaced after a fire in 1910, and the facade of the 2-story brick and cast-iron building at 213 Meeting was saved again after a 1979 fire by Historic Charleston Foundation under an easement agreement with the Hyams family, who had operated a dry goods business at 211 and 213 Meeting since the early part of the century. The five buildings to the north were owned before the Civil War by the Strohecker family and rented to a variety of brokerage houses. The Ansonborough entrepreneur Charles W. Seignious apparently owned the double-fronted edifice at 229 Meeting Street and fitted it out with Italianate style detailing. (Poston, Buildings of Charleston.) 205 Meeting Street was a three-story brick store building, part of the row of Victorian and antebellum commercial buildings on the west side of Meeting Street between Market and Hasell Streets. Long the outlet for the saddle and harness firm of A.R. Thomlinson (building was numbered 137 Meeting Street in the early 1880s). File contains newspaper articles including DYKYC, some with photos of buildings; Rosen and Associates structural inspection report on 211 Meeting Street (2003); business descriptions of 211 Meeting Street (T.A. Wilbur & Son) and 213 Meeting Street (The Bailey-Libby Co.) from "Resources & Attractions of Charleston" (ca. 1898); documentation pertaining to HCF's facade easement on 213 Meeting Street, including Memorandum of Agreement; documentation pertaining to the mortgage subordination of 215 Meeting Street; "Report on the West Side of Meeting Between Market and Hasell" (HCF?, 1974) indicating ownership and status of 207-233 Meeting Street. |
Subjects |
Historic buildings--South Carolina--Charleston Commercial buildings--South Carolina--Charleston Lost architecture--South Carolina--Charleston |
Search Terms |
Meeting Street Demolished buildings, lost buildings Street corner Charleston Place / Charleston Center Facade easement |
Physical Description |
1 File Folder (205-229 Meeting Street buildings) |
Related Records |
Show Related Records... |
Object ID # |
MEETING.205-229.01 |