RADCLIFFE-KING MANSION
Successful planter Thomas Radcliffe purchased a rural tract of land near the center of Charleston’s peninsula in 1786 with the intention of developing a farm on it. A farm in the middle of downtown may seem odd to us now, but back then the area roughly bordered by today’s King, Morris, and Radcliffe streets, as well as what was once marsh on its western edge, was considered out in the country.
By 1796, Radcliffe had reconsidered farming the plat and began dividing it into lots, selling them for residential, business and civic uses, and thereby establishing the core of his namesake neighborhood, Radcliffeborough. Its early population was a diverse one. While a few elites built significant houses there, most of the modest residences were owned or rented by middle-class tradesmen and free Black families.
The neighborhood flourished, adding to Radcliffe’s wealth as a planter and merchant. This man of means then built one of Charleston’s finest Federal style houses in 1802 on a double lot at the northwest corner of George and Meeting streets. The three-story mansion, made of stucco over brick, included some of the city’s most notable Adamesque trim and composition ornamentation.
Tragedy struck in 1806, when Thomas Radcliffe was lost at sea. His widow, Lucretia, lived the rest of her life in the mansion, where she staged some of Charleston’s grandest balls and social gatherings in the first two decades of the 19th century.
Lucretia continued selling parcels in Radcliffeborough, whose boundaries eventually expanded south to Calhoun and west to Ashley Avenue. She also donated four lots on Coming Street for Charleston’s Third Episcopal Church, originally consecrated as St. Paul’s Radcliffeboro and now known as the Cathedral Church of St. Luke and St. Paul, seat of the Anglican Diocese of South Carolina. Completed in 1811 and sometimes referred to as the “Planters’ Church,” its design was intended to be larger and grander than the city’s first two Anglican parish churches, St. Philip’s and St. Michael’s.
Following Lucretia’s death in 1821, her estate sold the mansion to Judge Mitchell King, who likewise was known for his grand style of entertaining. Born in Scotland, Judge King first married Susanna Campbell in 1811, and following her death, he married her sister Margaret.
During their time there, the mansion became the social hub of Charleston’s antebellum literary elite such as botanist Stephen Elliott (1771-1830), naturalist and artist John James Audubon (1785-1851), and his collaborator, the Rev. John Bachman (1790 - 1874) of St. John’s Lutheran Church on Archdale Street.
By 1881, the mansion had been repurposed to house the High School of Charleston, a capacity in which it served until 1924. During that time, several outbuildings were added, though fortunately the mansion’s historic fabric was not significantly altered. After the high school again moved to more spacious facilities, however, the house fell into disrepair.
In October 1937, the College of Charleston acquired the property. A year later they demolished the storied residence to build, in part using funds from the Works Progress Administration, what most alumni today would call the “old gymnasium,” predecessor of today’s TD Arena.
The college did, however, keep two things: the iron fence that once surrounded the property, a portion of which was reinstalled across the street at the Washington Light Infantry building, and one of the high school’s outbuildings, a small caretaker’s house abutting Burns Alley, which once served as the office of the college’s renowned basketball coach John Kresse.
With the demolition of one of the city’s finest houses, a significant part of Charleston’s architectural heritage was lost. Not all of it, however, was destroyed.
Before the demolition crews arrived, Laura Bragg (1881 - 1978), the plucky director of The Charleston Museum (and the first woman to lead a publicly funded museum in the United States), successfully sought funding from the Carnegie Foundation to salvage much of the mansion’s interior architectural features.
Before closing the sale to the college, the high school commissioners granted Bragg permission to remove the mansion’s staircase and Palladian window, as well as some of its decorative woodwork, doorway surrounds, and mantels. One of Charleston’s founding preservationists, Bragg wasn’t sure what she was going to do with these treasures, but she recognized the need to save them.
Her successor at the museum, Milby Burton, later donated the architectural artifacts to the new Dock Street Theatre, which in 1935 had been built within the rehabilitated Planters’ Hotel on Church Street.
So the next time you’re stretching your legs during intermission in the Dock Street’s lobby, take a look around at what remains of one of Charleston’s grandest residences.
