The 53rd Annual Spring Tour of Homes: Plantations, Schools and Praise Houses

Shannon — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 03:14:51 +0000

Dr. Melodie Martini as Docent at Tombee Plantation

This past weekend I did a short trip down to Beaufort for The Parish Church of St. Helena Tour of Homes. I was warned that it was to be more ‘historic’ rather than ‘decorated to the nines’ by someone involved in the project. Personally, I was excited about this as one gets to see the root inspiration and I was not disappointed and dove in deep! The structures represented in this year’s show: Oaks Plantation, Coffin Point Community Praise House, Penn Center, Pine Grove Cottage, Hampton House, Brick Baptist Church, Chapel of Ease Ruins, Marsh Oaks-Summerall Gardens, Frogmore Manor, Fripp Plantation, Tombee Plantation, Fort Fremont, and Lands End Plantation.

We started the day with Penn Center in the Brick Baptist Church. This was and still is the most historically significant African-American educational and cultural center in the United States. It was founded in 1862 by Laura Towne and Ellen Murray, life long partners and Yankee Unitarians. This was one of the first schools to offer an academic education to the newly freed people.

Charlotte Forten memorial

Interior of Brick Baptist Church

Exterior Brick Baptist Church

Go figure, my favorite structure was the Ruins. I loved the texture of the tabby and the surprise was the Fripp Tomb (empty) done in an Egyptian style. I really am going to have to do a bit more research as to how many things Egyptian showed up in this area. I am guessing it got it’s start at the late 1700’s and ran through the late 1800’s when England invaded and Egypt became a de facto protectorate.

Chapel of Ease Ruins

Fripp Vault at Chapel of Ease

Column at Chapel of Ease

Fence Detail at Chapel of Ease

Detail of tabby...Note: it also attracts the no-see-ums.

The next favorite was the Tombee Plantation. This home was owned and restored by “Jim” Williams of Savannah- a central character in the book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil….sadly, he was the only person in the state of Georgia ever to be tried four times for the same crime – the alleged murder of his assistant, Danny Lewis Hansford, on May 2, 1981, in Williams’s home, Mercer House. The current owner (there was another owner in between these two) purchased the property in 2003 and did further improvements and redecorated it. It was lovely! Most ingenious was the use of washlets (besides being a usual luxury item, I believe this item was used to cut down on the toilet paper being flushed in the cavatat system.) Another thing I enjoyed was seeing yellow roses dancing in water in a silver bowl. And a surprisingly modern detail of tempered glass hung like a rolling barn door in one of the showers. The kitchen was the best on the tour too. They used a farm table and put it on bed stilts to get it to the proper height….it struck me as odd but overall it was a lovely kitchen. On the way out one saw the garden with a lovely mermaid fountain….the guest house was charming too.

Tombee Plantation

Tombee Plantation Garden Mermaid

My least favorite was the Lands End Plantation. It was originally an eight bed hospital for the garrison at Fort Fremont. Today it is a private home to a family who has done extensive traveling and lived abroad for long time in England. While their antiques and Asian rugs were stunning, the space felt odd and nicky-nacky and needed tons of wire management….It did have quite the impressive collection of medieaval helmets, knives and crossbows. Kitchen needs definite attention too….with 70’s to early 80’s era detailing with a more modern looking back splash made of wallpaper in a cream square .5 cm grid stone pattern that looked like it was hand done…not to good effect. I also thought the radiators could have had better cases as well. Most of them were out in the open waging an aesthetic war on the antiques. The most beautiful thing there was the view and a horse with a white face and a silver body galloping around his pen! That said, one member in my group thought it as his favorite home….goes to show you that taste is very personal. We did agree on the crossbow and the horse.

Lands End Plantation

Lands End Stables

Fort Fremont was another shining example of your taxpayer monies at work. It was built in 1899 during the Spanish-American War. Monies were authorized by the Harbour Fortification Defense Act of 1898… part of a 50 million dollar program. This fort was the most useless because its cannons were never fired!

Fort Fremont

The Fripp Plantation had lovely grounds….and pecan orchards….Spooky looking. I liked the Living Room’s woodwork and mantle painting by an itinerant painter in the Living Room. Nice surprise. Lunch was held here with the Bedeston Choir and a catered lunch by St. Helena’s Catering and consisted of a seafood gumbo, tomato and cucumber salad, lightly fired shrimp, corn bread and a slice of pound cake with tea! All was eaten on tables set up for oyster roasts.

Fripp Plantation Grounds

Fripp Plantation

Frogmore Manor Has an exciting green Dining Room with the most unusual chandelier….looked Italian Murano crystal. I cringed as one of the “tourist” behind me actually picked up a china cup to look at the make! It looked like bone china, gold edged with a green dragan motif. Most unusual to me was a couch in the parlor that was original to the house. I did a sketch and need to further research it.

Frogmore Manor

A fun break from the homes was Marsh Oaks and was once part of Frogmore Plantation. It has a wondrous garden of live oaks, loblolly pines, three speared palmettos, red cedar, palms, hydrangeas, daffodils, day lilies, amaryllis and fruit bearing plants. The house was a large Sears-Roebuck kit.

Marsh Oaks-Summerall Gardens

Marsh Oaks-Summerall Garden

Marsh Oaks-Summerall Gardens

Marsh Oaks-Summerall Garden

Marsh Oaks-Summerall Garde

I end this entry with the tiniest building but had the most vibrant living history of all the places we visited. It was the Coffin Point Community Praise House. There are only three of its kind left. Mary Rivers LeGree gave a wonderful presentation on this part of Gullah lifestyle! These houses sprung out of necessity because the slaves were taught religion but not allowed to attend the churches. This modest house was where the Gullah slaves spent part of their time off. Besides praying, they spent time socializing and exchanging news and conversing in the Gullah dialect. Slaves had one and a half days off per week. Saturday was when they tended their own gardens, about an acre, to supplement their diet given to them by their owners. They also had the creeks and the ocean for fish, crab and oysters. Ms. Mary LeGree and friends sung us a few of the old songs while educating our group in the praise house. She also explained to us the concept and result of Heirs Property. If you were a freed slave of St. Helana and at the end of the Civil War, as part of Reconstruction, African Americans in the South either purchased or were deeded land. Much of this land was “bottom land” – too wet to grow anything but rice, too full of mosquitoes and snakes to be of value.. This property, subsequently got divided among the children, grand-children and great-grandchildren ans so on to this day…..free. As long as you you can prove your decent you have land to call your own always! So these areas were usually at the entrance or front borders of the plantations; and so today, you have trailers and sometimes small homes and even bigger homes….”if you did really well up north” welcoming as you. Very jarring to an outsider. So if you were ever wondering why it seems a hodgepodge and no planning, now you know.

So, these Praise Houses were typically occupied by the elder slave of the community. They are small no more than 15 x 20. Naively built and lacking any decoration. We were a group of twenty and in there like sardines and with each added guest, the floor would sag and made you want to hold your breathe in fear for the floor supporting us. But between the sags and the creeks and Ms. Mary’s passion and belief, one felt the need to donate to her cause of preserving the remaining Praise Houses left on the island. This particular Praise house is thought to be one where Harriet Tubman of the Underground Railroad met with slaves.

Coffin Point Praise House and Margaret

Later on in the afternoon, we finished the day by going to Port Royal where there is a wonderful little resteraunt called Moon Doggies. Yep. They have a garden where your dog can have a run and a lunch too. The fried pickles with horseradish sauce…One word. Yummy.

go deep » Brick Baptist Church

The 53rd Annual Spring Tour of Homes: Plantations, Schools and Praise Houses