Charleston, just north of the Georgia border in South Carolina, and about 100 years older than Savannah, is even more devoted to antiques. While it's just as spectacular a city, it feels much more open. Here, most of the great houses are rooted in the classic Georgian style, detached, with access from the front. Although its Golden Age, as Charlestonians call it, happened before the Civil War, it's always been a wealthier city than Savannah and has rebuilt itself again and again after fire, war and hurricanes. You'll find a marvellous contrast in houses and decorative arts by visiting two historic houses: one is the 1740 Thomas Elfe House, home to the area's most celebrated cabinetmaker, the other is a far grander and newly restored neo-classical masterpiece – the Nathanial Russell House – built in 1808, which boasts an extraordinary three-storey, free-flying staircase.
Today, there are at least 40 antiques shops in Charleston, most on King Street, with a few spilling onto the side streets, and here is where you can find the blue and white Chinese export porcelain so highly prized in these parts, and an 18th-century mahogany 'rice bed,' patterned after the rice plants that made many plantation owners so wealthy. In the late 1700s, Charleston had more than 300 craftsmen working on furniture, silver and the decorative arts – many of them using patterns and designs brought over from England. In its day, Sully says, it was the most important furniture centre in the United States, but only until the 1820s, when New York and Philadelphia took over.
CHARLESTON INFO
Historic Charleston Foundation, www.historiccharleston.org
Read:
In Pursuit of Refinement: Charlestonians Abroad, 1740-1860, edited by Maurie D. McInnis in collaboration with Angela D. Mack, with essays by J. Thomas Savage, Robert A. Leath and Susan Ricci Stebbins; Susan Sully: Charleston Style: Past and Present.
Look for shops at:
www.carolinaarts.com
The third great Southern centre of style and design is, of course, Williamsburg, further north in Virginia and closer to the influences and talents of the great workshops of New England, New York, Rhode Island and other northern states. Williamsburg is a strange city today; part of it – the most famous part – is controlled by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation and is a theme town, brilliantly executed; the rest is a normal city (like the outskirts of Charleston and Savannah) full of bad motels, fast-food restaurants and malls. But from 1680 through the 18th and 19th centuries, craftsmen here were producing furniture and decorative arts pieces of the highest quality.
WILLIAMSBURG INFO
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, P. O. Box 1776, Williamsburg, VA 23187-1776, (757) 220-7286.
Visit their excellent website: www.history.org
Attend:
The Foundation's antiques symposium, the 54th Williamsburg Antiques Forum: "French Taste in Early America," February 3 to 8,
2002.
Read:
Southern Furniture, 1680-1830: The Colonial Williamsburg Collection, by Ronald L. Hurst, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Staff, Jonathan Prown.
What it means to the visitor today is that in each of these seductive cities, antiques take a pride of place. You'll find some of the most wonderful pieces of furniture, silver, china and decorative arts you've ever seen anywhere and yes, plenty of fine reproductions of the best pieces from historic houses and museums. I've bought many pieces in each of these cities over the years, but my favourite is a pair of reproduction Bruton brass sconces with hand-blown lanterns that I bought in Williamsburg. Each time I light them, I think of the Governor's Palace there – a concoction of American country charm and European sophistication. They are simple, perfectly balanced, a good size, and pretty enough to please me so many years later. Each of these wonderful places will teach you how the Southern craftsman took the best patterns of old Europe and turned them into unique American style. It's not a bad lesson for us in Canada – after all, we did it too.
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