As historic Freedman’s cottages disappear in Charleston, the city wants to know how many are left

The old-growth timber that once framed a home that stood at 190 Line St. for more than 130 years now lies in splinters.

Its distinct half-hip roof now mangled metal.

Crumbled bricks scattered in the dirt once formed a chimney that both warmed and divided the original two-room structure.

Rubble is all that remains of the Freedman’s cottage that collapsed last year after the building was gutted beyond what was allowed under a city-issued permit.

Its loss, deemed “irretrievable” by preservationists, brought renewed attention to these modest dwellings that are not only unique to Charleston and its dwindling Black communities, but are especially vulnerable to demolition and redevelopment as South Carolina’s oldest and largest city grapples with increasingly unaffordable housing costs.

“Once these homes get torn down, we can’t replace them,” said Frankie Pinto, an administrator for the city’s Board of Architectural Review, which weighs demolition requests for most buildings on the peninsula. “Somebody can rebuild the building at 190 Line Street, but it won’t be that building that all these generations of people have lived in.”

At last count more than 20 years ago, there were 106 Freedman’s cottages left on Charleston’s Upper Peninsula, which covers nearly everything between Line and Mt. Pleasant streets.

It is unclear how many remain standing, though some like the 190 Line St. structure weren’t even tallied in the earlier survey.

Now, the city’s Planning and Preservation department is preparing for an updated tally of endangered cottages and other historically significant structures.

“Part of this survey that we’re doing is bringing our architecture inventory up to date, and the other part of that is focusing on some of these African American structures that didn’t receive the notice that they should have in past surveys,” Pinto said.

‘Speak to all that has been lost’

Historians and architects tend to associate the Holy City with the grand, multi-storied Charleston single house. But Freedman’s cottages, with humbler roots, maintained a similar narrow footprint — one room wide — on just one level.

The cottages were built “by the hundreds” in the years after the Civil War through the early part of the 20th century to meet the city’s growing demand for housing, said Anna-Catherine Alexander, director of advocacy initiatives for the Preservation Society of Charleston.

“Arguably, the Freedman’s cottage would have been more numerous (than the single house) and more present throughout the northern peninsula neighborhoods,” Alexander said.

Despite the name, these cottages didn’t only house those recently freed from bondage but also immigrants and working-class Whites.

“They have been lost at an alarming rate,” Alexander continued. “So the Freedmen’s cottages that we have left speak to all that has been lost, and tell the story of the underrepresented communities that occupied these dwellings for generations.”

Alexander said she has seen a “needed shift away from the architecture that speaks to the elite” that is only part of Charleston’s history, and instead toward more a representative and complete picture of a city that was once the nation’s capital of the slave trade.

She said the recent push to preserve more Freedman’s cottages speaks to the disparities between what was historically valued as worthy of protection.

Part of the cottages’ susceptibility is their size: the two-room layout isn’t exactly conducive to modern living.

Over the years, additions were tacked onto the rear or side of the skinny dwellings, creating a L-shape frequently still seen today. Piazzas, or the covered side porch that are also synonymous with the single house, were also enclosed to make more rooms.

But as families outgrew these tiny footprints — some just 500 square feet — many cottages were left vacant and have slowly decayed over years, sometimes decades, of neglect. This made them easier targets for profit-motivated flippers. Today, this is referred to as demolition by neglect.

The house on Line Street sat empty for 60 years before it was felled.

It survived the 1886 earthquake that damaged nearly 65 percent of Charleston’s brick buildings. It withstood countless hurricanes and floods, indicating the wood-frame house was built to last.

“It could have had a future,” said Kalen McNabb, an architectural conservator who lives across Line Street and watched as salvageable material was stripped from the building and tossed into a dumpster.

His doorbell camera caught the Oct. 14 collapse on what McNabb described as a windless Saturday, though a storm that barely affected Charleston moved through earlier that week.

Preservation is possible

Preserving these homes can be costly.

In 2021, Kevin Eberle, a Charleston law professor, historian and active voice on the city’s preservation scene, celebrated thwarting the demolition of a boarded up Freedman’s cottage on Sheppard Street.

“If only the right person would buy that house,” he’d wondered.

Later that year, he bought the 1,100-square-foot house for $110,000 and meticulously restored it to its 1895 iteration, the year the house was first expanded. He poured more than $600,000 into the restoration, which earned him a Carolopolis Award from the Preservation Society in February.  

“I wanted to prove to myself that it could be done,” Eberle said. “A historically sensitive restoration without totally bankrupting me. I’m fortunate that I can do that.”

Eberle named the home the Simons Cottage, after Andrew Simons, the freed man who built the home in 1873. He realized he wasn’t ready to let it go, and now rents the cottage out.

Dozens of other Freedman’s cottages have been successfully restored over time.

But some owners simply didn’t have the means to maintain their cottage, or ownership became muddied over generations in what’s known as heirs’ properties. The original owner, perhaps a great-grandfather, is long gone and because he left no will naming a specific inheritor, the property is collectively owned by descendants who may not agree on what to do with it.

Brian Turner, president and CEO of the Preservation Society of Charleston, said preservation shouldn’t stand in the way of affordability or conservation. Freedman’s cottages can provide an affordable housing option in costly neighborhoods, as intended when they were first built, or find new life as office space.

“Preservation is about adaptation,” he said. “Meeting people where they are is important.”

In 2023, the city started a Livability Review Board that helps longtime homeowners or heirs with resources to repair and live comfortably in their homes, rather than send them to municipal court.

‘Who’s watching out for the neighborhood?’

Some residents of upper peninsula neighborhoods question what will be done with the city’s survey once it is complete, and how it might help restore what has been lost.

Arthur Lawrence recently strolled through the city’s West Side neighborhood where he has lived for 75 years. He noted empty lots that once featured Freedman’s cottages and other dilapidated homes he hopes won’t disappear.

“We have history just like they do downtown. This wouldn’t happen south of Broad (Street),” he said as he pointed to the rubble left behind at 190 Line St.

In his lifetime, he’s watched the neighborhood gentrify, shifting from predominantly Black to majority White. He has also witnessed an increase in the number of homes left to decay.

Without resources to help those who have historically lived in the neighborhood preserve their homes, Lawrence fears the pattern will continue.

“Who’s watching out for the neighborhood?” he asked.

Last year, five Freedman’s cottages were presented to the BAR for demolition requests, according to Pinto.

All but one request was denied. The structure that was approved at 101 Hanover St. had been altered so much that it no longer appeared to be Freedman’s cottage, she said.

What was left of the original cottage on Line Street — the roof and chimney held up by the front-facing façade and 12 two-by-fours — collapsed before the board met that November. A rear addition collapsed weeks earlier.

The board ordered that 190 Line St. “be rebuilt exactly as it was.”

Beyond that, there isn’t much else the city can do. Pinto called the collapse “an intentional destruction of a piece of Charleston’s architectural heritage.” Preservationists agree that there should be harsher penalties for those who circumvent the rules.

Zachary Highfield, who owns the Line Street property, nor his business partners, did not respond to requests for an interview for this story. At the November BAR meeting, the 25-year-old apologized for what he called an “act of God” that felled the cottage but denied it was intentional.

Last month, he was back before the board again asking for after-the-fact approval of the partial demolition of another property a block away on Nunan Street, where he again had exceeded the scope of his permit.