One of the most photographed mansions in Charleston actually has something in common with a 26-story condominium in Horry County.
The home at 29 East Battery recently underwent an extensive exterior refurbishment to replace and repair decayed features. Robert Behre/Staff
Architecturally, the stylish white house at 29 East Battery looks nothing like The Renaissance Tower in Myrtle Beach, but from a preservation standpoint, they’ve faced a similar challenge: how to persuade multiple owners to tackle badly needed maintenance work that would not expand the property or add to the owners’ enjoyment but simply would keep the building from falling down.
Fortunately, the problem was solved at 29 East Battery when the owners of the third-floor condo unit, Henry Swink and his brother, were able to buy the unit on the second floor a few years ago and consolidate ownership of the main historic home. (The upper units each shared part of the first floor.)
Henry Swink, a farmer and businessman from Effingham, talks about the home he co-owns with his brother at 29 East Battery. The spacious second floor room is again bathed in light now that the scaffolding is gone. Robert Behre/Staff
That made it easier when it came time to repaint, because as anyone who owns an older home knows, repainting often involves much, much more than painting.
The hardest part involves examining the condition of the home’s wood, plaster, etc., and preparing it so it can hold a fresh coat. Oftentimes, the wood or plaster is too old and rotten to hold paint and needs replacing.
Of course, there’s usually no way to know the exact condition of the home until work begins and things are stripped away, and that was the case here. What was expected to be about a three-month job ultimately took four times as long, keeping the mansion swathed in scaffolding for almost a year.
“We fought it as hard as we could, but we had to do it,” Swink says. “We were extremely fortunate we could afford it.”
Contractor Buz Morris of Morris Construction oversaw the job.
Architect Buz Morris stands next to a piece of the frieze at 29 East Battery, a detail made out of fiberglass. Provided
“It went from pressure washing and paint to removing the dead stucco, and ultimately, once we started digging into the trim and the structure of the building, it became a big project,” he says. Only a small percentage of the stucco was dead — no longer attached to the brick — but dozens of column capitals, balustrades and cornice details were also no good.
“They did all that ornate stuff in the 1890s, so that would make it 130 years old. That’s pretty old,” he says. The large urns on top were among the few elements that had been replaced relatively recently and had little to no rot.
The greatest challenge came on the right side of the home, whose parapet was being held up by three rusting railroad tracks. Morris and structural engineer Robert Rosen had to figure out how to support several tons of bricks while replacing those support elements with new galvanized steel.
Stripping away the crumbling detail outside 29 East Battery revealed many surprises, including how a significant piece of parapet was supported by a century-old railroad tie. Provided
“I’ve done some pretty interesting work in Charleston, and that was one of the more hair-raising jobs, being 45 feet in the air,” he says. “I really think the will of God holds up most of these buildings downtown.”
Many historic Charleston homes have undergone an architectural makeover during their life, often occurring a generation or so after they were first built, reflecting a change in the styles and tastes of the time. But I’m hard-pressed to find any more dramatic a visual change than what occurred here, when the relatively plain, boxy 1850s home built by Francis Porcher got transformed around 1890 by John Simonds.
The original home at 29 East Battery was built around 1850 without any of the architectural flourishes that were added about a half century later and make it one of the city’s most photographed homes. Provided
Its 20th century history is quite lively, too, since this is where Ensign John F. Kennedy worked as a Navy officer in World War II around the time of his infamous weekend tryst with a Danish journalist and suspected spy, a true story recently retold by Charleston Stage’s production of “Inga Binga.”
The Navy ultimately sold the house, and it later was remodeled into condominiums.
Swink knows the home is worth his investment in maintaining and preserving it, and he enjoys the loads of attention it receives from everyone passing along the High Battery. While many guidebooks say it was designed in the Italian Renaissance Revival Style, its late Victorian eclecticism seems unique, particularly given its striking lack of symmetry.
The apocryphal story of the house at 29 East Battery being designed on one side to please the husband’s taste and on the other to please the wife’s endures, maybe because it explains the home’s striking asymmetry. Robert Behre/Staff
Some passing tour guides describe it as “the compromise house,” a popular story about how half of it was designed to please the husband and other half designed to please the wife.
“It’s such a great story,” Swink says, “it’s a shame it’s not true.”