Fenwick Hall Plantation, Northeast of intersection of River Road & Maybank Highway, Johns Island, Charleston County, SC

2013 Charles E. Peterson Prize, Second Place

Significance: Constructed in the mid-eighteenth century, Fenwick Hall on Johns Island, Charleston County, South Carolina is one of the preeminent eighteenth-century brick plantation houses in the South Carolina Lowcountry. One of the earliest surviving examples of Georgian architecture in the Lowcountry, Fenwick Hall is the only surviving eighteenth-century building on Johns Island. Enduring both the American Revolution and the Civil War undamaged, Fenwick Hall was used by British General Sir Henry Clinton as a headquarters during the Siege of Charleston in 1780. Culturally, Fenwick Hall's eighteenth-century owners played a leading role in the introduction of English thoroughbred horses to the American South and in the breeding of Euro-American race horses. Evidence of this cultural practice remains visible in the form of repurposed and highly altered stables which are part of the complex of buildings surrounding Fenwick Hall. Architecturally, the house is distinguished by an unusually large entry salon and a large, two-story, Federal-style dining wing with octagonal ends added to the west gable end of the eighteenth-century house. Victor and Marjorie Morawetz of New York acquired the house and its extensive grounds in the 1930s and retained Charleston architect Albert Simons to restore the main house after a long period of neglect. Simons is widely acknowledged as a leading figure in the beginnings of the modern historic preservation movement in Charleston and his restoration of Fenwick Hall, carried out with Colonial Revival flair, is an important contribution to his body of work.

Unprocessed Field note material exists for this structure: N1954

Survey number: HABS SC-646

Building/structure dates: ca. 1750 Initial Construction

Building/structure dates: ca. 1930 Subsequent Work

Building/structure dates: 1787 Subsequent Work

National Register of Historic Places NRIS Number: 72001196

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1930

Library of Congress

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