Welcome. In the city of Charleston, at the corner of Calhoun and Pitt, where Harleston Village meets Radcliffeborough is an historic landmark with scandalous secrets and subtle sophistications ready to be revealed anew: The Frederick Shaffer House. Where unbridled passions led to the unsolved murder of a young daughter's lover deep in its shadows. Where babies blessed by lineage were birthed in its chambers. And where the weddings of scions were celebrated on its columned piazzas. Come inside...
Chef's kitchen: It greets you with cherry wood, glass-front cabinets and brushed nickel hardware. A wall of open-pantry shelves. Counter tops of Ubatuba granite. And a double sink of vitreous enamel. The practical L-shape layout forms a panelled breakfast peninsula. While the full complement of appliances includes a cleverly-hidden stacked laundry pair.
Living room: Light floods through eight-foot tall, six-over-six windows set in a classic plan of successive corners. By day, they frame views of Charleston's copper roof tops and soaring steeples. Come evening, they capture the cross breezes of soft summer nights. Sun and moon reflected like an impressionist's painting in the satin glow of century-old heart pine floors.
Living room: Irreplaceable details of the past have been retained and carefully restored. Baseboards that reach to the knee. Wainscot panels beneath window openings. French doors denying the eye privacies of the bedroom. And hand-turned casings displaying the woodcarver's art.
Bed room: Like the kitchen and living room before, the sleeping chamber is yet another corner of composed quiet. The closet is adjacent. And secreted above is a double attic that reaches to the original rough-hewn rafters of Frederick Shaffer House. There the unit-controlled heating and cooling system was newly installed (2010). So too, the ever-vigilant (even if never-needed) motion-sensitive security system.
Bed room and bath: The bedroom and its closet are convenient to the full bath with its Spanish ceramic tiles, vanity-lighted mirror, and hand-held shower fixtures. Like the living room, the bed room is served by an oil-rubbed ceiling fan with mahogany blades. And like the kitchen, the bath room features cherry cabinetwork with nickel fixtures.
Floor plan: Restored in 2000, Frederick Shaffer House consists of seven residences. Unit 5 is advantageously located at the top of its sweeping grand stair, in the hushed privacy of its vaulted center hall, above a foyer of hand-inlaid parquet and chandeliers. Owners are granted private access rights to the second floor piazza. And they enjoy that most-desired of downtown amenities: private deeded parking reserved behind an electronically-controlled wrought-iron gate.
Second-floor piazza. The signature plantation architecture that distinguishes Charleston makes you heir to the Rutledges and Pinckneys and Moultries. In outdoor space reserved for owners, a set of Charleston green rockers seem to silently share 175 years of seasons and stories witnessed from behind the pillars—evoking echoes of lives remembered in the ancient burying grounds of neighboring Bethel Methodist Church, across the street originally called Boundary, renamed to honor Calhoun.
