Name/Title
27 King Street (Miles Brewton House a/k/a Pringle House)Entry/Object ID
KING.027.1Scope and Content
Constructed ca. 1769; altered ca. 1820s, 1840s; restored 1988-92. Richard Moncrieff, contractor; Ezra Waite, John Lord, Thomas Woodin, and others, woodworkers. This house is considered the finest double-pile house in Charleston and with its outbuildings constitutes the most complete Georgian townhouse complex surviving in America. Miles Brewton, a wealthy slave trader and merchant, inherited the land on which the house was built from his prosperous grandfather and father. Although Ezra Waite claimed correctly to have performed much of the interior carving, recent research has indicated the hands of at least two others in the upstairs drawing (dining) room, including John Lord and Thomas Woodin, master carvers who had emigrated to Charleston from London. Much has been made in recent years of the use of pattern books in the design of the house and of the carving of the woodwork on the exterior and interior. In 1773 Josiah Quincy of Boston visited Miles Brewton and wrote enthusiastically in his diary: "Dined with considerable company at Miles Brewton, Esqr's a gentleman of very large fortune: a most superb house said to have cost him 8,000L sterling. The grandest hall I ever beheld, azure blue satin window curtains, rich blue paper with gilt, mashee [sic] borders, most elegant pictures, excessive grand and costly looking glasses, etc." A major new restoration of the building was completed in the 1990s. The original line of outbuildings on the northern edge of the property is relatively intact. The first portion consists of a kitchen, laundry, and carriage house built in 1769. The facade of the carriage house was remodeled by the Pringles (in Gothic Revival style) in the 1840s. Immediately behind the kitchen lies the cistern and an arcade with stables and storerooms leading to a substantial brick, 2-story structure containing slave quarters and dating from about 1820. Another arcade stretches west from the quarters to an 18th century building used originally as either a dairy, privy, or garden folly. These outbuildings relate exclusively to a paved courtyard and the cellar of the house and are separated from the garden by a brick coping and wooden fence. (Poston, Buildings of Charleston.)
File contains house history from The Vernacular Architecture of Charleston and the Lowcountry; FOHG house history (1992); architectural description and house history (Edward A. Chappell, 1985); house history from Information for Guides of Historic Charleston; report "Miles Brewton's Land: A History, 1694-1990" by Richard N. Cote; architectural description of the kitchen, quarter, and stable by Edward Chappell (1997); newspaper article; article from The Magazine Antiques (1993); measured floor plans (unattributed, undated); photocopies of some late 1800s/early 1900s Titles (some almost illegible); photocopy of transcribed Will of Miles Brewton; garden information and plans (copied from publications).
File also contains tour notes (HCF) and a history of the outbuildings by the Brewton House property manager (Angeloni) in preparation for HCF's "Beyond the Big House Tour" (2017).Collection
Historic Charleston Foundation Property RecordsAcquisition
Accession
KING.027.Source or Donor
27 King Street (Miles Brewton House)Acquisition Method
Collected by StaffLexicon
Search Terms
King Street, National Register of Historic Places, Miles Brewton House (Charleston, S.C.), Historic buildings--South Carolina--Charleston, Outbuildings--South Carolina--CharlestonArchive Details
Archive Size/Extent
1 File FolderArchive Notes
Finding Aids: Index to Property Files
Level of Description: FolderLocation
Location
Shelf
Property File ShelvesRoom
Margaretta P. Childs ArchivesBuilding
Missroon HouseCategory
PermanentDate
February 7, 2023Location
Container
PF Box 49Shelf
Prop File Shelves, Property File ShelvesRoom
Margaretta P. Childs ArchivesBuilding
Missroon HouseCategory
PermanentRelationships
Related Entries
Notes
2004.020.007.7, 2004.020.086, 2004.020.087, 2005.004.019-21, 2006.005.025-029, 2006.013.4C, 2007.002.0044, 2009.002.085, 2009.010.1.18, 2009.010.1.19, 2009.010.1.20, 2014.015.17, 2014.015.18, 2014.015.30, 2017.005.5a-b, 2017.011.4, 2021.013.9, KING.027.10a-d, KING.027.11a-e, KING.027.12a-b, KING.027.2, KING.027.3, KING.027.4, KING.027.5a-d, KING.027.6, KING.027.7a-b, KING.027.8Related Publications
Notes
Buildings of Charleston (see Abstract), pg. 228-229General Notes
Note
Notes: This house is featured in many books about Charleston buildings/architecture. See Library catalog.
Garden information (Multimedia link) is from Charleston Gardens by Loutrel Briggs (University of South Carolina Press, 1951) and the other pages from Gardens of Historic Charleston by James R. Cothran (University of SC Press, 1995).Created By
admin@catalogit.appCreate Date
October 8, 2008Updated By
admin@catalogit.appUpdate Date
February 17, 2023