The 1846 parsonage of St. Johannes Lutheran Church at 50 Hasell Street was featured in the 38th Annual Designer Showhouse sponsored by the Charleston Symphony Orchestra League (CSOL). This annual fundraiser highlights the work of the Lowcountry's most talented interior designers in some of the historic district's loveliest homes. 

Since Lois and Ruthie started selling real estate in the early 80s, they've listed or sold at least a half-dozen of the homes that have been featured as Symphony Designer Showhouses.

But one of our favorites has to be the one Lois previously sold: the stately home at 6 Legare Street. When the home was transformed into a showhouse in 2000, some history and a number of old family photos were included in its brochure--which of course, we love!

The house was built around 1887 by Willis Wilkinson, who was the grandson of Judge Daniel Elliott Huger, one of South Carolina's U.S. senators, and also great grandson of Arthur Middleton, who signed the Declaration of Independence. He was a superintendent of cotton compresses in Charleston. In 1880, he bought the back parcel of land at 28 Lamboll Street (the eastern part of the double-tenement built by George Kincaid in 1772) from his brother-in-law, Christopher Gustavas Memminger. Three years later, Willis combined this land with the adjacent back lot that he acquired from his family, who lived in the western Kincaid tenement at 30 Lamboll (now 4 Legare). He reused bricks from a large carriage house that was built in the 1770s for the tenement building to construct one of the ground-floor walls. (He certainly knew the value of a good brick!) In 1890 he moved to Florida and gave his younger sister the house for as long as she lived.

Willis' sister, Isabella (Bella) Middleton Wilkinson Jervey and her husband Eugene Postell Jervey were married in 1869, raised eight children, and lived out their days in the house. They were especially fond of the porches, which were perfectly positioned to capture the harbor breeze. E.P. Jervey was a cotton broker, railroad commissioner, and special accountant. Bella's daughters regularly gave piano lessons in the house, and her sister Sarah (Sadie) opened an elementary school there in 1930. The first and second grade school children enjoyed their recess on the second floor piazza. They must have made a quite a commotion! The school eventually became part of Charleston Day School when it was housed on S. Battery.

When she was 65 years old, in 1940, Bella signed the house over to her daughter Ann, and thus the home housed its original family for its first 75 years. But it seems the Jervey/Wilkinson/Memminger/Ball/Drayton families have occupied the immediate area for much longer than that!