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Nick Churton of Mayfair International Realty continues his tour of South Carolina and takes a look at one of Charleston’s finest and most spendid homes – now ripe for renovation.

Broker: Handsome Properties

If you’ve got it flaunt it. Since Charleston’s foundation in 1670 well-to-do denizens have displayed their wealth and social status by building splendid homes. The result is an extraordinarily fine collection of Colonial and Federal Georgian style houses.

One of the largest stands at the very top of Meeting Street. It’s big, it’s bold and it’s not at all bashful. But it is beautiful and is a serious contender in the status stakes.

Overlooking White Point Gardens it collects any breezes off the Ashley River and circulates them round the house – ensuring that in a hot South Carolina summer the rooms remain as cool as possible. Added to which the huge balconies – or piazzas as they call them in Charleston – also face the river and are perfect for shade, relaxing, socialising and, on a warm night, even sleeping.

If the height of the rooms were to reflect the height of an owner’s social standing then No 1 Meeting Street would put its owner the top of the tree. Some of these rooms are 14 ft high. Magnificent is the only word to describe them.

Little-by-little, house-by-house the homes of Charleston are being restored under the ever-watchful eye of the illustrious Preservation Society of Charleston – formed in 1920 and the oldest such group in the USA. No1 Meeting Street is now due for its own restoration. It is a big task because it is a big house. It will take care, skill, vision and resolve. It will also take a fairly deep pocket. Major house restoration is not a small budget item and the Preservation Society of Charleston doesn’t countenance corner cutting.

But in bringing this home up to date the restorer will do two things. He or she will once again ensure that No 1 Meeting Street stands proudly in the pantheon of the city’s finest homes. But he or she will also re-create a fabulous home of dramatic scale in a premier location.

This is one of the last big historic home restoration opportunities in the city south of Broad Street. It also happens to be one of the most important. So, like generations of Charlestonians before you, if you have it this is the perfect place to flaunt it.