We are a little late to the party of Witold Rybczynski’s “Charleston Fancy - Little Houses + Big Dreams in the Holy City” published in 2019 by Yale University Press, but we are here now. Rybczyncki, the celebrated architect, professor and author (“The Most Beautiful Home in The World”, “Waiting for the Weekend”, “A Clearing in the Distance: Fredick Law Olmstead + North America in the 19th Century”) captures a compelling movement in Charleston metro’s built environment, urban planning and architecture world. This book shares layers of historic renovations, lessons from medieval town planning and new urbanism through interviews with local master builders, developers and designers on the reverent and humane places they have created; three of which are highlighted below.
MIXSON - North Charleston
Chapter Ten heads north to the Park Circle area of North Charleston, the site for a new development by Vince Graham ultimately named Mixson. Park Circle was envisioned in the early 1900s as the New South Garden City. “The idea of garden cities, which were satellite communities that combined the amenities of urban living in a country-like setting, had originated in Britain at the turn of the century as a reaction to the crowded Victorian industrial metropolis.” The Park Circle masterplan is the work of William Bell Marquis and has a circular park with eight radiating avenues that contain a mix of commercial, residential and civic uses. Due to the strong military presence in North Charleston, in 1941 the Defense Homes Corporation, a wartime federal agency which provided emergency housing for defense workers, built a residential complex of pre-fab wooden buildings on the 44 acres that would become Mixson. Over the decades these homes fell into disrepair and the property for listed for sale. In the mid-2000s, Graham had acquired it and with collaborators like Tim Keane, Jacob Lindsey, George Holt and Andrew Gould set out to create a “more affordable I’On” with prospective buyers as small professional households and first time home buyers. As the masterplan process unfolded, team members questioned how a village might have developed over time and while medieval towns began when people gathered around a sacred stone or well, Holt and Gould noted two things 1) there were no sacred stones on this site but 2) ‘People gravitate to trees.’ In turn, the buildings of Mixson are arranged around existing live oak trees on the site with a familiar density and architectural robustness of the designers’ previous projects. The City of North Charleston was very agreeable to this redevelopment. “The new zoning included attached houses and some apartments as well as shops. We were even allowed to create roadways beneath buildings to reach rear courtyards, which is unprecedented.” Vince Graham
As with many projects and good ideas, the Great Recession had its way with the Mixson development. Only a small portion of the original concept was realized with the remainder of the acreage ultimately being filled with a similar density, but divergent architecture styles, quality levels and village planning techniques. Still, for a couple of blocks, one can experience the original vision.
TULLY AND CHARLES - CHARLESTON “Creating a sense of place in a neglected neighborhood”
Chapter Two maps out the evolution of Tully Alley near the intersection of Saint Phillip and Cannon streets on Charleston’s peninsula with local renovator / developer George Holt at the forefront. During the early 1990s, this part of Charleston had many vacant and neglected houses as well as high crime rates. Over the next several years, George and his partners invested in, repaired and renovated the existing structures allowing them to be occupied thus creating a critical mass of permanent residents. New homes were designed in varying architectural styles, which along with the organic, dense master plan were supported by former the City of Charleston Planning staff. “I don’t think we would have been allowed such architectural exuberance without the support and encouragement of the city architect, Charles Chase. Charles explained to the individual board members what was going on architecturally and why he thought what we were proposing would work for its location.” George Holt. The resulting micro-master plan marries urban density, architectural diversity with pride of place - a win for its occupants and the Charleston at large.
I’ON - MOUNT PLEASANT “They had it right the first time.”
Chapter Eight and Nine introduces the reader to Vince Graham, a “passionate advocate for advancing human-scaled urbanism” through his early development work in Beaufort (Newpoint which took cues from Beaufort’s “Old Point”) and subsequent introduction to the principles of New Urbanism. “New Urbanism is a planning and development approach based on the principles of how cities and towns had been built for the last several centuries: walkable blocks and streets, housing and shopping in close proximity, and accessible public spaces. In other words: New Urbanism focuses on human-scaled urban design.” (Congress for the New Urbanism) It was these principles along with studying historic neighborhoods like the Old Village in Mount Pleasant, that Graham used to create a new community in Mount Pleasant called I’On in the mid-1990s, building out his team with Andres Duany and Victor Dover. Despite the Town of Mount Pleasant recently adopting a master plan sympathetic to the new urbanist principles and calling for “a compact mix of residential, commercial and civic uses”, the development met a great amount of resistance / nimbyism mainly stemming from the levels of density proposed. Ultimately, the density and mix of uses was dialed down for a proposed master plan that would eventually be approved. Nearly two decades later, I’On is an established community, primarily residential with robust architectural standards. “Community can’t be created by one person, it has to emerge from people living or working some place. But you can create the conditions the enable it…create conditions where people can connect with one another.” Vince Graham