More detail on this fascinating house.
This article was printed in today's Columbia (SC) State newspaper
(www.TheState.com)

Glenna


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
$9.5 million sought for Calhoun mansion
Bloomberg News

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
A 35-room mansion that railroad financier Patrick Calhoun was forced to sell
after the 1929 stock market crash is on the market after a quarter-century
restoration.

With a recent home sale on the same street setting a price record for
Charleston at $3.5 million, Gedney Howe III, the current owner of the
Calhoun Mansion, decided it was time to sell. The asking price: $9.5
million.

Howe, who paid $220,000 for the house in 1976, estimates he put $5 million
toward renovations over the last 24 years, doing much of the work himself.
Howe, who worked as a bricklayer while attending law school, said the
mansion was dilapidated when he bought it.

"It had been on the market for two years. The porches sagged. The roof
leaked. No one wanted to mess with it because it was in such terrible
 shape," said Howe, who lived in the mansion while he worked on it. When he
married seven years ago, he moved to a "regular house in the suburbs," said
Howe, a Charleston attorney.

There's nothing "regular" about the Italianate-style mansion on the southern
edge of the city. With more than 24,000 square feet of living space, it's
the largest private residence in Charleston.

Over the main staircase, the domed ceiling rises 75 feet high and is paneled
with alternating strips of walnut and satinwood. The dining room on the
first floor, and the music room on the second floor, have pocket windows
that slide into the ceiling to give access to a three-level side porch,
called a piazza. The library has built-in black walnut bookcases and
mahogany crown moldings.

The Howe family uses the Calhoun Mansion occasionally for entertaining. Five
days a week, it is open as a house museum that attracts 33,000 visitors a
year, said Jackie Davis, the museum's director. The admission price is $15,
she said.

The home, built while Union soldiers occupied Charleston in 1876 after the
Civil War, was featured three years ago on the Arts & Entertainment
television series "America's Castles." It was built by George Williams, the
founder of the South Carolina Savings Bank, who made a fortune by financing
blockade runners during the war and kept his fortune by investing in British
sterling rather than Confederate currency.

In 1885, Williams' daughter, Sarah, married Patrick Calhoun, grandson of
Vice President John C. Calhoun. Patrick Calhoun became a millionaire through
investments in railroads and real estate. In 1910, seven years after
inheriting the house, the Calhouns hired designer and glass manufacturer
Louis Comfort Tiffany to decorate the interior.

Calhoun lost all his money on "Black Thursday," the Oct. 24, 1929, stock
market crash, Davis said. In the following year, Calhoun was forced to sell
the home's furniture and fixtures to support his family.

"He was reduced to selling the Minton tile from 22 of the 24 fireplaces,"
said Davis. The library fireplace still retains its original English-made
Minton tile, which depict 17 scenes of plays by William Shakespeare.

A year after the crash, the mansion was auctioned from the steps of the
Charleston courthouse to pay off Calhoun's creditors, she said.

Calhoun moved to California to be near one of his eight children, and within
a decade, had made another fortune in the oil business, Davis said.

"He died a rich man. He was an entrepreneur who just didn't give up."

==== SCROOTS Mailing List ====