Name/Title
106 Tradd Street (Col. John Stuart House)Entry/Object ID
TRADD.106.1Scope and Content
Constructed ca. 1767-72; wing and piazzas added before 1850; restored with additions 1934. A rare example of a side-passage plan from the Colonial period, this lavishly fitted house was built by John Stuart, a Scotsman who became superintendent of Indian affairs for the southern colonies and thereby held seats on the governors' councils of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. Stuart acquired the large lots at the southernmost end of the Orange Garden tract by mortgage to the owner Alexander Petrie. He fled the house in 1775, and it was sold in 1782 as confiscated property to the merchant Alexander Gillon. The exterior of the building has flush weatherboarding, pedimented window surrounds, and one of Charleston's most elaborately carved wooden door surrounds: a pediment with engaged, fluted Corinthian columns, possibly derived from a plate in Edward Oakley's Magazine of Architecture, Perspective, and Sculpture (1730). The first floor of the side wing and the piazzas were added in the 19th century. In the 1920s the woodwork from the first-floor sitting room and the large drawing room on the second floor was sold to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts for display in a period room. In 1934 the architectural historian John Mead Howells of New York and Portsmouth, New Hampshire, bought the property as a winter home and reproduced the original woodwork in these rooms. He added a second floor to the polygonal wing and developed a formal French garden west of the house. Howells became a pivotal figure in the Charleston preservation movement in the 1930s and 1940s. (Poston, Buildings of Charleston.)
Three files contain documentation of the easement on the property including related correspondence and Confirmation of Understanding; Part I certification (National Register); easement appraisal report; annual inspection reports, requests for alterations, and correspondence related to the management of the property; FOHG house histories (1970s?, 1980, 2007); narrative history (Poston?); SC Historical Society tour house history (1970); historical/chain-of-title research and photocopy of 1852 Deed conveying from Carson to Lesesne; newspaper article (1975 DYKYC); Christie's Great Estates advertisement (no date); photocopy from unidentified book "Plan of House and Garden"; photocopy of 1867 plat.
See Easement Documentation Photo Files for easement donation photographs (Exh. B to Deed of Conservation Easement) and Covenant/Easement Inspection Photo Files for inspection photography.Collection
Historic Charleston Foundation Property RecordsAcquisition
Accession
TRADD.106.Source or Donor
106 Tradd Street (Col. John Stuart House)Acquisition Method
Collected by StaffLexicon
Search Terms
Tradd Street, Easement Property, Eighteenth-Century Expansion, National Historic Landmark, Historic buildings--South Carolina--CharlestonArchive Details
Archive Size/Extent
1 Gift Folder
1 Management Folder
1 History/Miscellaneous FolderArchive Notes
Associated Material: Image of interior room moved to Minneapolis Art Institute at http://new.artsmia.org/teaching-the-arts/american-period-rooms/the-charleston-drawing-room/
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 104Shelf
Prop File Shelves, Property File ShelvesRoom
Margaretta P. Childs ArchivesBuilding
Missroon HouseCategory
PermanentRelationships
Related Entries
Notes
2005.011.024, 2006.005.055, 2006.005.070, TRADD.106.2, TRADD.106.3, TRADD.106.4
Related Units of Description: Easement Manager's working filesRelated Publications
Notes
Buildings of Charleston (see Abstract), pg. 285-286
FOH Tour booklets on Lowcountry Digital LibraryCreated By
admin@catalogit.appCreate Date
June 18, 2012Updated By
admin@catalogit.appUpdate Date
February 16, 2023