Russell, Nathaniel, House

About this property

The Nathaniel Russell House is an architecturally distinguished, early 19th-century house at 51 Meeting Street in Charleston, South Carolina, United States. Built in 1808 by wealthy merchant and slave trader Nathaniel Russell, it is recognized as one of the United States' most important neoclassical houses. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1973. In 1765, Nathaniel Russell relocated from Rhode Island to Charleston, where he prospered as a slave merchant. In 1788, at the age of 50, he married Sarah Hopton, the daughter of an affluent Charleston family. As one of Charleston's more prominent citizens, Russell required a residence commensurate with his status. He began construction of his house in 1803, and completed it five years later (at the age of 70). Nathaniel and Sarah Russell had two daughters, Alicia Hopton Russell and Sarah Russell Dehon. Dehon inherited her father's house and lived there until her death in 1857, after which her children sold it to Robert Allston, a prominent rice planter who lived there while he was governor of South Carolina. In 1870, Allston's executors sold it to the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy, who used it as a boarding school until 1905, when the Mullally and Pelzer families converted it back to private use. In 1953, the owners offered the house for sale and in 1955, having failed to find a buyer, proposed subdividing the property. Historic Charleston Foundation, formed in 1947, resolved to preserve it intact, raised $65,000 (~$714,829 in 2024), bought the house and grounds, and soon thereafter opened the house to the public. In 1995, the foundation began a multi-year program of research and reconstruction to restore the house's architectural details and interior finishes to their 1808 appearance. Grants and donations have enabled the foundation to acquire a significant collection of objects with a Charleston provenance, allowing it to show visitors an interpretation of the lifestyle of Charleston's early 19th-century merchant class. The Nathaniel Russell House was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1960 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973. In December 2023, after a year-long self-study, the board of Historic Charleston Foundation decided to sell the house and use the proceeds to support its other interests. Following an intense backlash from the preservation community, donors, and others, the board of directors of Historic Charleston Foundation reversed course and voted to retain the museum house in January 2024. Russell commissioned an unknown architect to build a large townhouse in the then fashionable Federal style. Sited on a large lot in downtown Charleston, the house is rectangular in plan, three stories tall, and faced in gray Carolina brick. A bracketed cornice and paneled balustrade separate the walls from the low hip roof, concealing it from view to better express the pure geometrical shapes of the house.

Location

Categories

Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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