635 East Bay Street

Title

635 East Bay Street

Artist

Dale Powell

Medium

Photograph

Description

Faber-Ward Mansion at 635 East Bay Street.

This stately house and compound was built ca. 1832 by Henry F. Faber. Joshua Ward, a wealthy and famous rice planter and SC's Lieutenant Governor, purchased the house from Faber in the 1850's.

The Faber-Ward house was converted into a hotel for emancipated slaves when the Union troops occupied Charleston during the Civil War. The hotel failed and the house again became a private residence.

In 1965, Historic Charleston Foundation bought the mansion when it was in danger of being torn down to make way for a public housing project, and partially restored the exterior. Frances Edmunds, the Foundation’s executive director, said the house was rescued “because of its architectural importance and because of the Foundation’s concert for and belief in the effective reuse of find buildings throughout the peninsular city.”

“The house today is not only a wonderfully handsome example of a building salvaged from the past but a demonstration of the effectiveness of preservation in a deteriorated neighborhood,” Edmunds said in 1971. Thomas E. Thornhill, the Foundation’s Board President at the time, said the restoration “not only preserves this splendid monument which attests to the skill of its designer; to the quality of the craftsmen who executed the design; and to the excellence of Charleston’s architectural heritage from the Revival period.”

During the time of Historic Charleston Foundation’s ownership, the eastern façade with the dramatic portico and the western façade facing Drake Street was restored and arched windows on the second floor replaced.

When Realtor Arthur Ravenel, Jr. bought the property in 1971 from Historic Charleston Foundation to use as a business-residential complex, Mrs. Edmunds said the Foundation “thinks this is one of the more adaptive restorations in the city, and hopes that this pioneering effort on the East Side of the city will be the catalyst for other projects.”

Today, the complex houses several business and residential apartments in the main building and two carriage houses that flank the stately courtyard.

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August 7th, 2016

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