A Carolina Town with a Graceful Architectural Heritage
While touring South Carolina’s Sea Islands, I happened upon the town of Beaufort early one evening and decided to spend the night. It was a logical choice. I had come from Kiawah Island, outside Charleston, and was heading for Fripp Island and Hilton Head.
Beaufort—pronounced BEW-fert by its 9,000 residents—lay right in the middle, as if someone had drawn a circle with the town as its center and those barrier islands within its radius. Kiawah was 90 minutes to the northeast; Fripp 25 minutes to the southeast; Hilton Head 40 minutes south.
Very convenient. The next morning, before leaving, I walked around the tiny downtown, about a dozen blocks bordered on the south by Bay Street and the Beaufort River. It appeared quite ordinary, with a few clothing shops, movie theater, hardware store, restaurant and such. But there was an undefinable quality, something clean and orderly yet not slick. Something very pleasing.
Before I realized it downtown had vanished, and Bay Street, on which I had been walking, dipped south and ambled by three old houses, two frame structures surrounding one made of sturdy-looking concrete stone block, all with porches on each of their two stories and tall columns. Another block and Bay Street ended, and I found myself on the lawn of a large house, a mansion actually. While similar to the houses on the preceding block, it was larger and more open, with two wraparound porches. And, with its attending oak, it had a regal appearance, dominating a huge stretch of well-cared-for lawn and looking out over the Beaufort River.
It was an arresting sight, that big white house with its unobstructed view of the river, wide and open as it began to bend around the town. The house was, as I was to discover later, typical of a style that evolved in Beaufort from Palladian origins. Through a quirk of military history Beaufort was spared the destruction of the Civil War, and many of these homes, built for the use of wealthy planters seeking respite from the heat of the lowlands surrounding the town, are still lived in today.
Suddenly it seemed late, and I hurried off to Hilton Head. But all that day I thought of Beaufort. Something about the town stuck in my mind, especially in the midst of visiting the newly developed Sea Islands. They are beautiful but very much alike. And while the concept of building to blend with the trees and the sand and the water is appealing, after days and miles of the same style, houses in weathered grays and browns, tasteful clusters of two- and three-story condominiums spaced around asphalt parking lots appointed with just enough shrubbery to carry out the theme, the appeal of the pattern begins to fade.
So that night, while it had not been my plan, I returned to Beaufort. Beaufort owes its existence and its personality to a simple combination of land, sea and climate. During the hot summers, when temperature and humidity make much of the low country intolerable, a remarkable thing happens. The land on which Beaufort sits heats up in the strong afternoon sun, and the air begins to rise, creating a thermal, which draws the cool air off the Atlantic Ocean, less than 10 miles away. That incoming sea breeze makes life comfortable.
It is that desirable condition that led to the town’s founding in 1711. Wealthy landowners, who had colonized the Sea Islands in the 17th century, then began building plantations back in the rich low country of the mainland on which to grow rice, then indigo, and finally Sea Island cotton, known for its long fibers and silky texture. But the area was less favorable for people. It was hot in summer, and its mosquitoes carried malaria. Beaufort was created as a summer resort, and the landowners built their houses along the river when they could, but always facing south to get as much benefit from the sea breeze as possible.
What we find in Beaufort today is much of the best that was built in the 18th and first half of the 19th centuries. The Civil War and the boll weevil may have destroyed the cotton industry, but what it created remains: houses designed to make the best use of environmental forces.
‘’It’s one of the things that makes this town so special,’’ according to Jim Thomas, a young architect with a deep appreciation for the town and the thinking that contributed to its development. He was born and raised in Beaufort, left to attend Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the University of Pennsylvania, then returned with his wife, Nancy, to raise their family.
Once he began talking about the town, it was easy to pry him out of the office for an informal hour’s walking tour. ‘’Those early builders learned to take advantage of the amenities of the site,’’ he said, walking east on Bay Street, ‘’mainly the breeze and the sun, and protection from it.’’
As we walked past some of the older buildings he pointed out the progression in design, from the Palladian style or cube brought over by the English, into the more specialized Beaufort style, an adjustment to the specific characteristics of the area.
The simple cube slowly evolved into a kind of ‘’T,’’ with the back rooms being pulled out on either side, presenting more exposed surface, more windows to catch the southern breeze. Porches were added to shade the windows and keep the house from heating up. At first only the center front rooms had a porch or portico; then it was stretched across the entire front; finally, it was wrapped around the sides.
The houses are free-standing, and raised off the ground to escape dampness and increase exposure to the breeze. While some are concrete block and heavy-looking, most are frame, painted white and have an airy appearance, especially those on large lots.
‘’What the planters were doing,’’ Mr. Thomas said, ‘’was bringing their plantations into town, as compared to the situation in Savannah and Charleston, where space was more at a premium.’’
Beaufort’s most historic houses are in the downtown section. The oldest is a Colonial two-story cottage built by Thomas Hepworth in 1717 on New Street. The John Mark Verdier House, on Bay Street and built in 1790, is where the Marquis de Lafayette addressed the local residents in 1825. The two-story frame house—with a double portico in the center and raised on a foundation of tabby (oystershell and sand)—has been restored as a museum that recreates a home of the early 1800s. The George Elliot House, two blocks up Bay Street and built in 1840, has also been restored.
The Verdier House is open Thursday through Saturday from 11 to 3; the Elliot House, Monday through Friday, 11 to 3. Admission to both museums is $2.
But the town’s most spectacular houses are on or near the point at the end of Bay Street, land that pokes into the Beaufort River. Among the most impressive are the Joseph Johnson House, built around 1850 and called ‘’The Castle’’ because of its imposing Greek revival design, Tidalholm, built in 1865, and Marshlands, which dates from 1814.
The Chamber of Commerce offers free maps to guide visitors in viewing the exteriors of these houses, most of which are occupied. A $4 book published by the Historic Beaufort Foundation contains photographs of many of the homes, historical information and its own tour map.
On both tours is St. Helena’s Episcopal Church, built in 1724, downtown on Church Street. Its steeple rises high above the tops of the graveyard’s sycamores and palmettos, silent guardians of slabs that served as operating tables when the Union army used the church as a hospital during the Civil War.
That all this historic treasure should have survived the destruction of the war is due to the Union Army’s presence in Beaufort, a tragedy for her residents 120 years ago. Less than seven months after the war began the Union sent a flotilla into Port Royal Sound, which had been left virtually unprotected. It was on a November morning in 1861 when gunboats shelled the forts on Hilton Head and Bay Point, and the region quickly surrendered. Bases were set up on Hilton Head and in Beaufort, from which the campaign against Charleston and Savannah was waged. The incursion seems to have initiated a longtime relationship between Beaufort County and the military. Currently in the county are the Marine Corps Recruit Depot at Parris Island, the Marine Corps Air Station and the Naval Hospital.
But Beaufort does not have the appearance of a military town, a Quantico, Va. or a Pensacola, Fla., nor does it resemble a life-sized museum, living for its old homes and churches. Rather there are an ease and warmth that seem to go with a community that possesses some wonderful secret. The people are friendly; they make you feel welcome. As I walked down the narrow streets, and examined some of the homes a little more closely than was perhaps polite, no one chased me off his lawn or even his porch. I was more often asked in for tea.
And that friendliness was not restricted to homeowners. With the parking lot at the motel full, I asked a police officer where I might park overnight. He warned me against the street, where meters go into effect at 8 A.M., and led me to a safe place. The librarian opened the research stacks so I might seek a book on the Reconstruction period. And at the Arsenal Museum on Craven Street—where local Indian artifacts, Revolutionary and Civil War relics stand beside a stuffed swan and a rattlesnake in formaldehyde solution—the elderly attendant loaned me her chair so I could better see a tray of arrowheads. (The museum is open on weekdays from 10 to 12 and 2 to 5, and on Saturdays from 10 to 12. Admission is by donation.)
One place where the warmth of Beaufort’s people and the splendor of its homes join conspicuously is the Anchorage House, the three-and-a-half-story pre-Revolutionary War home of William Elliot. The house sits on the west end of Bay Street, beside some of the town’s more grand mansions: the John A. Cuthbert House (1810), the Robert Means House (1790) and the Thomas Fuller House (1786). All are stately, columned homes, built in an imposing line overlooking the river.
Anchorage House is now a French restaurant, operated by the Jaggi family of Neuchatel, Switzerland. Edouard Jaggi is the chef; his wife, Maria, is the hostess; their six children fill in wherever needed.
The restaurant is comfortable and quiet, comparable with the finest I know in the South. The menu is classically French, concentrating on seafood, and everything I tasted—I was there twice for dinner and once for lunch—was prepared with delicacy and care. It is far less pretentious than the best of New Orleans, and is less expensive than the Mills House in Charleston. (One dinner—consisting of a Lillet aperitif, black bean soup, flounder with a white wine sauce, lightly fried eggplant spears, parsley potatoes, salad of bibb lettuce, green pepper and mushroms, half a bottle of Wente Brothers California blanc de blancs and coffee came to $19.50 with tip).
But the main factor is grace. When I happened in near closing time, a mistake in most restaurants, no one rushed me. And when I asked for a cookie with my coffee—a frequent request of mine that usually earns a cold stare—I was approached by Mme. Jaggi. She apologized for having nothing better, and offered me some of her family’s cookies.
More than any other, that gesture symbolizes Beaufort. If You Go ... ...Beaufort is convenient not only to South Carolina’s Sea Islands but also to Savannah, Ga. (an hour’s drive southwest) and Charleston (only slightly farther northeast).
Fifteen miles north are the Sheldon ruins, the remains of a church built in 1745 and destroyed during the Revolutionary War, and 20 miles southeast is Hunting Island State Park, where there are rental cabins, camping sites, fishing and three miles of beach for surfing and swimming.
Beaufort is also a popular stop for yachts using the Intracoastal Waterway, and its newly refurbished Waterfront Park has a new marina with berths for 100 boats.
In addition to the Anchorage House, good food is served in an attractive setting at Wilkop’s Whitehall Inn, across the bridge on Lady’s Island, and at the Fripp Island Inn on Fripp Island. Both specialize in seafood, and cost a bit less than the Anchorage.
Local motels range from the Ramada Inn, overpriced at $32 for a single, and the Sea Island Motel, at $21, down to the basic but clean Pines and Lord Carteret at $18.
Further information is available by writing to the Beaufort County Chamber of Commerce, Box 910, Beaufort, S.C., and to the Historic Beaufort Foundation, 801 Bay Street, which is on the ground floor of the John Mark Verdier House. -S.R.