Robert Brewton House

The Robert Brewton House is a historic house at 71 Church Street in Charleston, South Carolina. With a construction date at or before 1730, it is the oldest dated example of a "single" house. A single house is one room wide, with the narrow end towards the street, the better to catch cool breezes. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1960.[2][3]

Robert Brewton House
1983 photograph, Historic American Buildings Survey.
Robert Brewton House is located in South Carolina
Robert Brewton House
Robert Brewton House is located in the United States
Robert Brewton House
Location71 Church Street,
Charleston, South Carolina
Coordinates32°46′28″N 79°55′46.2″W
Built1721
Part ofCharleston Historic District (ID66000964)
NRHP reference No.66000700
Significant dates
Added to NRHPOctober 15, 1966[1]
Designated NHLOctober 9, 1960[2]
Designated NHLDCPOctober 9, 1960

Description and history

The house is set on a narrow lot on the west side of Church Street in Old Charleston. The house was built between 1701 and 1715.

It was acquired in the 1730s or 1740s by Miles Brewton, who had immigrated from Barbados to Charleston in 1684, where he became a goldsmith and militia officer.[4] He gave the house to his son Robert Brewton, also a goldsmith and then married to his second wife, Mary Griffith. In addition, Miles Brewton made a 1733 deed of gift to his daughter Dale of the neighboring house at 73 Church Street; this deed also refers to his son's house. The two properties were separated by a 3-foot alley.

Robert Brewton succeeded his father as Powder Receiver for the city in 1745. That year he sold this house to his sister Rebecca Brewton and her husband Jordan Roche.[5][6]

The house is a rectangular hip-roofed brick structure, three stories in height, presenting three bays to the front, with a narrow driveway to the south, to which the house presents five bays and its main entrance. It has stuccoed corner quoining, and decorative stuccoed keystone elements over the windows. The building is known to have had a porch across the main facade; it was not original to the building, and was removed at an unknown date.

Robert's son Miles Brewton (1731-1775) benefited by his father's financial connections. He gained some of his education in England in the 1750s, and returned to Charleston, where he became a merchant and slave trader in Charleston.[4] He commissioned construction of the Miles Brewton House on King Street, which was completed about 1769. It is a double house in the Palladian style, with an intact complex of support buildings on its two-acre lot. Considered one of the finest Georgian buildings in the country, it was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1979.[3]

See also

References
  1. "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. January 23, 2007.
  2. "Robert Brewton House". National Historic Landmark summary listing. National Park Service. Retrieved February 16, 2008.
  3. James Dillon (February 15, 1977). "National Register of Historic Places Inventory-Nomination: Robert Brewton House" (pdf). National Park Service. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help) and Accompanying 3 photos, exterior and interior, from 1969 and 1975 (32 KB)
  4. Nicholas Michael Butler, "Brewton, Miles (January 29, 1731-August 1775), South Carolina Encyclopedia, 2016
  5. Smith, Alice R. Huger; Smith, D.E. Huger (2007). The Dwelling Houses of Charleston. Charleston: The History Press. pp. 26–29. ISBN 9781596292611.
  6. "The Colonel Robert Brewton House". ccpl.org. Charleston County Public Library. Retrieved August 9, 2017.

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