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1 week ago | 
postandcourier.com | Robert Behre
What if a city's grandest public building was also its most secretive? Wouldn't that be a bit weird? It's no hypothetical: It's the status quo of the U.S. Customhouse at 200 East Bay St., one of Charleston's grandest pieces of architecture, with its monumental scale, Classical Revival styling and quality materials, including limestone, granite and marble.
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2 months ago | 
postandcourier.com | Robert Behre
If and when Union Pier is redeveloped as an extension of historic Charleston, one of its most loved and photographed features almost certainly will be the historic piece already standing there: a brick ruin that is all that remains of an 1830s rice mill. The ruin dates back to the waterfront era well before Union Pier got its current name, back when the site was actually an extension of historic Charleston, not a vast, industrial expanse built to cater to 20th-century shipping needs.
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2 months ago | 
postandcourier.com | Robert Behre
The owners of Charleston's Powder Magazine Museum may disagree with the characterization that they're closing its doors Feb. 28, but while it's a bit more complicated, that's essentially what is happening. It's a loss not only for visitors hoping to glimpse inside the oldest surviving public building between Florida and Virginia but for all of us who want to learn more about our city's rich and varied history.
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Nov 30, 2024 | 
postandcourier.com | Robert Behre
The making of modern Charleston is largely the story of Joe Riley's remarkable 40-year mayoral run, but many played key roles as well, including the soft-spoken Midwesterner who got a city job after talking to the mayor from a phone booth in Bregenz, Austria.
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Nov 15, 2024 | 
postandcourier.com | Robert Behre
One of Charleston's last unrestored landmarks — the Old City Jail at 21 Magazine St. — has emerged after a 7-year-long saga to reimagine, rehabilitate and repurpose one of the city's most fraught places into one of its most engaging.
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Sep 21, 2024 | 
postandcourier.com | Robert Behre
The newest public spaces in Charleston's Shadowmoss neighborhood aren't your typical city parks: They feature waist-high native plants rather than manicured lawns, and their gravel trails wind past ditches and sunken ponds accented with gray, dead tree trunks. There's also no playground equipment, though some is on the way. But the main reason these places look so different is that their primary job isn't to serve as a public gathering spot or recreational area.
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Sep 6, 2024 | 
postandcourier.com | Robert Behre
This month's debut of the College of Charleston's newly remade Simons Center for the Arts is well-timed, as its School of the Arts is welcoming its largest first-year class, but the building's dramatically improved spaces are a gift to the wider community, too. Perhaps the only other college building that invites in more members of the community is TD Arena, where the Cougars play basketball.
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Aug 17, 2024 | 
postandcourier.com | Robert Behre
The reddish hue of the object in the mesh grate outside the rear of the Nathaniel Russell House's laundry was different and caught the eye of archaeology tech Nancy Alvarez, who quickly pointed it out to her boss. Andrew Agha held it in his hand and walked away from the dig site momentarily, overcome with emotion. "I knew exactly what it was ...
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Jul 27, 2024 | 
postandcourier.com | Robert Behre
The city of Charleston has almost 4,000 entries in its inventory of historic downtown buildings, and architect Glenn Keyes figures he has worked on more than 400 of them at some point during his long career. But it's the quality, not the quantity, that makes his career stand out.
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Jun 15, 2024 | 
postandcourier.com | Robert Behre
The allure of Charleston stems in part from buildings that look like nature; they're similar to trees in that the more you study them, the more intricacies you see — the more you understand how they've evolved over time. It's not just the architectural details. Even the walls talk. Few appreciate this more than Joe Faust, a plaster and stucco contractor who makes a living installing new plaster walls inside and repairing stucco walls outside.
