Get off the highway to see places like the ruins of the 1757 Old Sheldon Church in Yemassee, South Carolina, burned by Sherman and then gutted by locals rebuilding their homes.

Drive the main roads between Charleston, South Carolina, and Savannah, Georgia, and you’re there in just over two hours. Or, you could choose a route that meanders down to tiny Edisto Island (population about 641) to see the Tiffany windows at the Presbyterian Church.

Many treasures hide among the hummocks, marshes, bays, sounds, and inlets of the Low Country. The deeply indented shoreline between two of America’s most fascinating cities is a haven for recreational boaters, fishermen, nature lovers, and connoisseurs of historic Southern architecture.

Charleston is “the place where the Cooper and Ashley Rivers come together to form the Atlantic Ocean.” Founded in 1670 as Charles Towne, it was the fifth largest city in the U.S. by 1690. Charleston was one of the few cities in the original 13 colonies to provide religious tolerance, albeit only to non-Catholics. Huguenots came here; after Savannah, it was also one of the first colonial cities to allow Jews to practice their faith without restriction. The 1840 Greek Revival Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim is the second oldest synagogue building in continuous use in the United States.

A picturesque alley in Charleston; part of the city’s residential Rainbow Row.

Charleston’s legendary old houses include the Aiken–Rhett House, Calhoun Mansion, the Heyward–
Washington House, and the Nathaniel Russell House. Stroll the old streets lined with Charleston’s famous side-porch houses; the Francis Simmons House is a prime example. Outside the central city, the evocative Georgian-era, Palladian-style Drayton Hall and the re-created landscaped gardens at Middleton Place are visitor musts.

They call Charleston the Holy City; numerous steeples rising above the cityscape include the 1751 St. Michael’s Episcopal Church, a Broad Street re-creation of London’s St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields. The street divides two historic areas: North of Broad and South of Broad. South of Broad residents are SOBs; those Slightly North of Broad are called SNOBs. The French Quarter, founded by the Huguenots, is just south of the Market Area along the waterfront. The area near the southern tip of the peninsula is The Battery.

An old-house B&B inn in Beaufort, South Carolina.

Louis Comfort Tiffany’s windows in Edisto Beach are just one reason to leave this beguiling city. From there, head for picture-postcard Beaufort, founded in 1711 (and pronounced byoo-fert). Make your way to Bluffton to see the ruins of Melrose Place.

Savannah, one of America’s great walking cities, benefitted from Georgian England’s love for town planning. In the early 18th century, General James Oglethorpe designed the city on a grid, with streets regularly punctuated by squares.

Carriage tours fit Savannah’s wide boulevards and slow pace.

Old houses open to the public include the Andrew Low House, the Isaiah Davenport House, and Telfair Mansion. Lafayette spoke from the graceful veranda of the Owens–Thomas House, and General Sherman’s infamous march to the sea ended here, at the Green–Meldrim House. Local lore has it that he spared the city for the sake of his mistress, who lived here. It must be pointed out that he didn’t burn any of the beautiful houses in Beaufort, either.

The red daybed and green slipper chairs create a conversation area in the middle of the open living space. The starburst mirror is vintage, ca. 1960.

Our house lives large. It’s fun to stand on the elevated hallway and survey the action going on pretty much everywhere. (This comes in handy, as my wife and I have a crawling baby.) Acute window angles and sweeping curves give it a great off-kilter feel; we call it the Mad Scientist house. Its open layout and large windows bring outdoor space inside, a feeling enhanced by a curving indoor planter and two original, 7′-long domed skylights (from a company that made airplane cockpit glass). The natural wood tones, Savannah gray brick, and floors of American slate dignify the house, which is essentially one big open space. At either end, sliding doors lead to patios; we throw the glass doors open during parties, which creates unbelievable flow.

When Adrienne and I were looking at houses three years ago, we focused around a wonderful place called Ardsley Park, which is filled with beautiful houses built from the 1920s through the 1940s. Still, they began to look alike, and nothing excited us. On a whim, our realtor took us to this modern house, which was so wild we didn’t take it too seriously. Eventually we realized we kept talking about this one. We’d say, “Wouldn’t it be crazy to live in that house?” One day we answered, “Why not?”

Right away, we were invited to a party of about 15 owners of other MCMs (mid-century moderns) in Savan nah. Framed pictures of our house and others hung on a wall of the party house! We’ve learned a lot, and our fellow MCM owners have helped us locate appropriate furniture and sources for appliance repairs.

We’re in Magnolia Park, about five miles southeast of Savannah’s Historic District. Our neighborhood was a mid-1950s subdivision with a range of architectural styles: Colonials, split-levels, ranches. Our house and its “little sister” house five doors down (also recently restored) were designed by John Ahern, an architect for the developer, the Lamar Company. Mr. Ahern designed our house as his own residence; he lived here for just a year or two, however, before moving to Charleston to start his own development company. (He’s still there, and his son runs the company.)

Orange sofas beckon in the main seating area at one end of the open-plan house.

These two Ahern-designed houses share the same soffit uplighting, slate flooring, and other features. Just across the street is a pretty wild house designed by a local architect named Henry Levy for his family. The neighbors behind us, here since 1956, tell us that the longtime owners of our house were from the West Coast and had Hollywood friends. Marilyn Monroe (allegedly) and Telly Savalas (confirmed) spent a few days in our house while visiting Savannah, back in the day.

This house truly benefited from having the same owners, the Vannordstrands, for 40 years. We didn’t have to do too much restoration, just basic repairs and painting, installing some carpet, and turning the lower-level office into a third bedroom, the nursery. In the yard, I pulled back decades of overgrowth to reveal the original beds, and found buried 76 lunchbox-sized blocks of granite that I repurposed to create the border for a second rock garden on one side. We have the original tap light switches throughout, and every interior door has its original Soss recessed hinges and flush brass door levers, which aren’t made anymore.

Our kitchen is a period piece. The General Electric pink oven, range, and refrigerator date to 1956. The fridge is a rare GE wall-mount refrigerator; all 400 pounds of it hang from the wall, so refrigerated food and drink are at eye level. The cabinets are made of wood, painted pink, with metal rails that hold ribbed, frosted-glass sliding doors. We removed (but have kept in storage) some of the doors to create open shelves.

The 1956 kitchen survives intact—even the range-top and wall oven are in working order. (Clothes washer is a new LG combo appliance.)

Our house was published in the 1956–57 National Association of Homebuilders Journal of Homebuilding. It’s just something you don’t expect: Savannah, revered for its National Landmark Historic District of restored (and mostly preserved) 19th-century houses, has a wonderful collection of exceptional mid-century modern homes. They are the city’s next preservation frontier. Just recently, our house was included on a MCM tour held by the Georgia chapter of Docomomo. The chapter president called ours “the best-preserved mid-century modern home in Georgia.” Cool.

Stone retaining walls create terraces that render the steep site usable. To the right are 13 5' x 2' granite steps connecting lower garden to house.

When they bought an 1886 Victorian house in Deep River, Connecticut, Tom and Cheri-Ann Perry could visualize the gardens they would tend—even though the then-unusable back yard was solid ledge with a steep vertical drop. The couple, dealers who own a store called One of a Kind Antiques, gravitate toward places with great architecture, gardens, and stonework whenever they travel. “We always notice other people’s homes,” says Tom.

After they restored the house, Tom and Cheri-Ann went to work to create a driveway and a garage, which required blasting. The project yielded over 400 tons of stone, mostly granite, which they used to construct walls, steps, walkways, and even flooring for a new screened porch.

Planting beds are built into the terracing.

“We had a quarry on our own property!” says Tom. “Normally, when you blast like that, it’s all rubble rock and you have to pay someone to haul it away. But ours turned out to be beautiful stone to be harvested.”

The Perrys terraced the yard, creating a more gradual slope. They went out as far as they could with the excavator, using two-, three- and four-ton stones as the base. They filled in with rubble and topsoil to make three tiers of planting beds. Using 13 large stones, each 5′ long by 2′ wide, they created steps for easy access to the lower garden. The contour of the land dictated the garden design.

Cheri-Ann had the foresight to plant a row of Japanese cypresses in the back, along with robusta junipers and boulevard cypresses out front, and four Leland cypresses in the side yard. The trees had begun to afford privacy before the gardens were in.

“There was nothing on the property when we bought it, just a few sickly azaleas,” Cheri-Ann recalls. “No plantings around the house, none near the street. It was bare.”

Planting beds are built into the terracing.

Cheri-Ann did not want formal, structured vegetation. She chose plants based on color, texture, tolerance to Connecticut weather, and long bloom times.  “The color scheme is red and orange; purple, yellow, and white,” Cheri-Ann explains. “My selection has evolved through trial and error. My thumbs are ‘light green’ at best, and my garden time is limited. These flowers have done well in drought, and also in excessive rain and humidity.”

Bloom continues all summer, when the Perrys actively use the garden. They enjoy their climbing hydrangeas, Adonis Blue butterfly bushes, hostas, ostrich ferns, ornamental grasses, moonflower, bee balm, blue star, Russian sage, lilies, echinacea, veronica, geranium, phlox, salvia, and bamboo. Shrubs include viburnum, umbrella pine, barberry, spiral cedar, cut-leaf maple, andromeda, azalea, mountain laurel, and rhododendron.

The couple planted evergreens for color and structure year-round. A well-used feature is the small stone patio that features a sculpture by a local artist. “We sit here in the garden, but most of it is a little bit hidden. You have to walk around to discover it,” says Cheri-Ann.

“If the yard were flat, it would have been boring.”

Cooper’s Pine Cone pattern is at home in rustic, cottage-style, and Arts & Crafts houses.

My days are often spent on the telephone, guiding clients who I know are standing near a window, atop a ladder (or kitchen chair) with a clacking tape measure in hand. As a designer and merchant of period-inspired lace curtains, I can offer them—and you—help in selecting appropriate window treatments. From 20 years of advice:

Which Pattern?

Many people mistakenly assume that lace curtains are Victorian. Not true: Lace was used at the windows long before Queen Victoria ascended the throne, and lace curtains are still common today, especially in the United Kingdom and Europe.

Although machine-made lace wasn’t available until after the mid-19th century, earlier historical patterns (previously hand-woven) are being reproduced today, suitable for Colonial, Federal, and Greek Revival homes. Down the timeline, Arts & Crafts-era, Art Deco, Elizabethan, and Colonial Revival patterns are being made. Because interior styles evolved, you can choose to coordinate the lace pattern with your furnishings rather than the house.

Shades of Lace

Most lace curtains today are finished in white, natural white (a.k.a. ivory), or ecru. White is bleached, like a new cotton T-shirt. Natural white is unbleached; I tell clients that it looks white until you place it side-by-side with bleached white. Ecru is a darker, almost tan color. All of these, as long as they are cotton, easily can be tea-stained or dyed to a darker shade. Consider that some people find ecru too “yellowy” against white-painted woodwork, while others find white too stark against dark trim.

Which Weave?

Most of your choices have been woven on Madras or Nottingham looms. Richly textured Madras lace is made by an appliqué process wherein a 100-percent cotton scrim is woven, and then the loom passes over it and a pattern is affixed. Finally, the panel is sheared, creating a crisp design. Nottingham is a type of machine-woven lace developed in the 1840s; it’s available in several point sizes that determine the fineness or coarseness of the pattern. Nottingham lace is produced in cotton/polyester blends ranging from 95-percent cotton to all polyester.

Shirred lace panels hung below transom windows lend privacy while admitting plenty of light. (Photo: Carolyn Bates)

Length and Width

There’s no exact formula; still, conventions exist that differ according to era. For Federal, Greek Revival, romantic (i.e., early to mid) Victorian, and some Colonial Revival styles, window treatments were “fuller” and more gathered. Typically, the ratio of lace was 1½ to two times the width of the window opening—say, 54″ to 72″ of lace (flat width) for a 36″-wide window. Lace panels often hung well below the windowsill, sometimes even pooling onto the floor.

For bungalows and most Colonial Revival houses, and for the styles of the 20th century—Craftsman, Deco, mid-century modern—window treatments were hung “flatter” with less gathering. The cloth to window ratio is not more than 1½ times; for many patterns, the preference is one to 1¼ times, or 36″ to 45″ of lace for a 36″ window. By now curtains were shorter, stopping at or near the windowsill or apron.  I offer custom shortening, as do some other vendors; the panels can be shortened from the top to preserve an ornamental bottom border.

Cleaning and Care

Unless you have some special (dirty or dusty) circumstance, once a year is more than enough. In the interim, you might shake the curtains out or gently vacuum them (using the soft brush attachment). Manufacturers recommend dry-cleaning, although my clients have found that washing their panels in cold water with a mild detergent, by hand or on the machine’s delicate cycle, works well. High-efficiency washers will deliver the clean curtains to you barely damp. Never put cotton lace curtains in the dryer! Simply hang them up, barely damp, back on their rods. Don’t hang lace by clothespins, and don’t drape it over a clothesline, because, as the rope sags, the lace may become distorted. Straighten them while they are hanging by lightly spritzing them with water, then gently tugging and smoothing the fabric by hand. Cotton lace will shrink slightly after washing. (Damp-ironing may mitigate shrinkage.) You can lower the rod or hang the curtain through the header hem instead of the lower rod pocket.

In a Victorian vignette, lace panels hang to the floor, tied back over a fancy roller shade. (Photo: Paul Rocheleau)

Hanging Curtains

The simplest way to hang a lace curtain is with an adjustable spring-tension rod, readily available at hardware stores. To mount the curtains on the face of the woodwork, you can find inside- or outside-mount café rods in a variety of finishes. Sash rods that fit close to the glass are preferred for door and sidelight curtains, where you might want a bottom rod pocket sewn into the curtains.

Sources

Cooper’s Cottage Lace: Author Dan Cooper founded the company to extend the offerings available in cotton Madras lace. Besides his own adaptations, he’s invited some of today’s best revival artists to interpret Aesthetic and Arts & Crafts movement, Prairie School, Art Deco, neoclassical, and Colonial Revival designs. His 16 (and counting) patterns are 100-percent  cotton Madras lace woven in Scotland, available as curtain panels (in many sizes and widths), valances, and table scarves.

Bradbury & Bradbury: Lace curtains (Grecian, Eastlake, Regency, Art Deco) designed by Bradbury & Bradbury Art Wallpapers president Steve Bauer and produced by Cooper complement some of the wallpaper patterns.

J.R. Burrows & Co.: Nottingham Victorian lace curtains (8-, 10-, and 14-point) and Madras muslin curtains in a unique range from Renaissance Revival style to designs by C.F.A. Voysey and Candace Wheeler.

London Lace: Nottingham lace and cotton Madras lace from Scotland in historical and contemporary patterns.

Heritage Lace: Vintage-look patterns among many styles; 100-percent polyester, made in America.

The refrigerator cabinet, incorporating a pantry, looks like a large armoire. Above the fridge are pantry pullout units that make deep, high storage accessible.

If you owned a premier company specializing in period-inspired cabinets, what would your kitchen look like? How about this: “A design aesthetic inspired by the classical vocabulary of ancient Roman architecture—more specifically, by the Swedish neoclassical movement —but with an updated sensibility.” The kitchen belongs to Crown Point Cabinetry founder Brian Stowell and his wife, Becky. Quoted above is the company’s product designer, Fred Puksta, who explains that the Stowell kitchen became a vehicle for development of the company’s patented new channel stock face frame.

The tall, freestanding wine cabinet features a leaded-glass door and Crown Point’s arched wine nooks.

“While typical face frames in the industry are rectangular in cross-section, with a flat face,” Stowell explains, “Fred introduced a new face-frame element with a cross-section in the shape of a C—channel stock.” This innovation became a foundational element for several new offerings from the company, including their Neoclassical, Prairie, and Classical Metropolitan lines.

The house in Quechee, Vermont, is a Greek Revival-style Cape design/build from Connor Homes. But the architectural kitchen was designed by Puksta. “I wanted the cabinetry to mimic a cityscape that might be found in Rome, Florence, or Venice,” says Puksta. “So I varied the heights and depths of the cabinets and used crown moldings, pediments, and arches. Different colors and finishes enhance the composition of individual ‘buildings’ in the landscape.”

Three-dimensional cabinet frame members produce decorative parallel lines that intersect at the corners to form squares. In the base cabinets, this channel frame stock concludes at the floor in a delicately tapered leg. The channel-stock corner posts present each cabinet as a piece of unfitted furniture, recalling old European kitchens.

The chestnut island has illuminated, open-end niches for display.

The Stowells (who share the house with 13-year-old twins) prefer an uncluttered appearance, which suggested the garages for counter appliances. At the same time, open cabinets display dishware and tone down the formality of the space Cabinet finishes are custom-blended paint colors (a blue-green and a creamy yellow) with a conversion varnish finish that was glazed and baked.

The island was designed as a piece of antique furniture: it’s reclaimed wormy chestnut resawn from old beams. A countertop of Cambrian granite was “antiqued” to a semi-porous matte finish that Puksta says has nearly the feel of leather. Flooring is old-growth, longleaf heart pine, finished with Carlisle’s “gingerbread” stain and four coats of high-resin tung oil. “Board widths are 7″, 9″, 11″, even 13″,” marvels Brian Stowell.

The owners created a gingerbread confection when they completely restored a derelict 1890s cottage in Utah. (Photo: Scot Zimmerman)

Used judiciously, decorative millwork has a place in a kitchen of almost any era. Think of it as the icing on the cake. “Gingerbread” denotes the purely decorative woodwork identified with the Victorian era, when houses were festooned with whimsical and often elaborate sawn and turned wood ornaments. But decorative trim isn’t just for late 19th-century homes. Brackets and braces were popular in the kitchens of the Arts & Crafts era and certainly in its revival. Cutout under-sink doors and scalloped valances embellished 20th-century kitchens.

Your house probably has decorative trim in other rooms, such as a Mission newel post, fretwork in a parlor bay, or corbels under the mantelshelf. Use these to create variations for trim elements in the kitchen, and rooms will have a pleasing continuity. Specialty millwork companies offer authentic styles, and period-inspired cabinet shops incorporate appropriate trim into their designs.

A bracket with a carved leaf and vine motif supports an island countertop.

Brackets

In wood ornament, this is a projection that provides visual (and sometimes structural) support under a cornice or overhang, as on a shelf or island. It can be a French console, a beefy corbel, a neoclassical modillion, or a bungalow-era knee brace. A bracket, cut in a graceful curve, may span the distance between upper cabinets or shelves and a base cabinet. Small brackets may be used in a repetitive fashion under, say, a plate rail.

Spandrels

A spandrel is the running or triangle-shaped decorative device used to span doorways and corners. The running ornament is often fretwork made up of turned posts or ball-and-spindle work. In today’s larger kitchens that feature a separate eating area, a fretwork spandrel or corner spandrels may be hung in a wide doorway between the spaces. You might also use a spandrel as a screen to hide modern lighting.

Fretwork spandrel used over a sink in a Victorian Revival kitchen. (Photo: Scot Zimmerman)

Running Trim

Whether at the ceiling cornice or to edge shelving, as a baseboard or chair rail, moldings are a common decorative device that finishes a room.

Headers

The top piece of window and door trim can be shaped or built up to reproduce period style.

Casings

The trim around windows and doors contributes style, beyond its practical function to cover the framing. Victorian homes often featured fluted or built-up casings, often with molded corner blocks (with a bull’s-eye or anthemion, perhaps). Early 20th-century houses from Cape Cods to Tudor Revivals had distinctive styles as well.

Table Legs

Add period charm to a farmhouse table or to the corners of cabinets or island with turned table legs. Pair legs with shaped feet to create styles that range from early American to Victorian and beyond.

A crenellated dish cabinet by designer Barry Dixon sounds the perfect note in the storybook kitchen for a 1907 Edwardian manor. (Photo: Edward Addeo)

Screen Doors

A screen door with gingerbread trim lends a delightful welcome. If your kitchen does not exit outdoors, consider putting a screen door on the pantry.

Window Valances

A (usually shaped) cornice piece over a window and, often, the sink, this bit of trim can also be used as a light baffle. It’s associated with kitchens of the 1930s to 1960s.

Cutout Skirts

A charming touch found in early 20th-century kitchens are the cutout or scalloped doors used beneath the sink, which ventilated the space while providing an accent.

Today’s gingerbread is available in either paint-grade wood or hardwoods (e.g., maple or oak), which can be stained and clear-finished. Several companies offer molded urethane millwork as well. Versatile and affordable, these options will transform a flavorless kitchen into an architectural confection.

The formal foyer, somewhat unusual for a Craftsman house, showcases stained and shellacked woodwork of Douglas fir. The library table and large Morris chair are Grand Rapids’ Lifetime Furniture antiques.

One word comes to mind to describe the approach taken by Carol Polanskey and Martin Ratliff for their restoration: scientific. Beginning in 1992, these committed homeowners used their analytical experience—both are rocket scientists—to take restoration to a higher level, researching the era and looking for evidence on site. The result is a house that glows.

Passersby inevitably slow down to take notice of the 1909 chalet–bungalow.  Its Craftsman-era piers of arroyo stone and clinker brick fit right in with other houses in Pasadena’s Bungalow Heaven Landmark District. But the exterior has “more action” than a typical bungalow, with steep gables and dormers, and stickwork that recalls late 19th-century Swiss chalets. Details are all the more evident with the polychrome paint scheme. (Despite many friendly knocks on the door, the colors chosen are a secret so that the house remains unique.)

A transitional nature is apparent inside, too, where entry is through a relatively large and formal foyer. The superb woodwork found throughout the house starts here, with a wainscot, staircase, built-in bench, and colonnade of stained and shellacked Douglas fir.

Living and dining rooms have a beautiful interplay of warm colors, authentic period furnishings, and original woodwork. A bold motif repeats: the peaked lintel over windows outside also frames doorways on the interior. Inside, the header is pierced by arrow-top stile extensions that look like through tenons.

The woodwork, which could be overbearing with white walls, has become the house’s strongest asset, owing to the owners’ paint-color choices and—they were amazed to discover—their embrace of wallpaper. Carol admits to having disliked fussy, papered walls. But, during an early restoration phase they dubbed “the white abatement program,” they say the house told them it had to have wallpaper. When they moved in, the interior was cold and uninviting and, scientists that they are, they had an explanation: Human eyes adjust to the brightest thing in the space; if that happens to be a white wall, the woodwork will look featureless and dull. Moody colors complement the dark wood trim, showcasing the wood’s grain and sheen and bringing it depth. The room becomes more cheerful.

Prepping for a bedroom paint job, the couple was surprised to find distinct layers of wallpaper on the walls, each paper from a different era. Martin and Carol slowed down to take note of individual layers, to experiment with various removal techniques, and to carefully save samples. It was the living room, however, that “really got the restoration juices flowing,” says Carol. This room had seven layers, one a leaf pattern that captured their fancy. They halted the project, meticulously photographed the paper on the wall before peeling it off, and eventually plan to have the pattern reproduced for use in another room. They went through a similar process in the dining room and first-floor office near the kitchen. “We’ve become wallpaper archaeologists,” Carol laughs, as she points out foam-core boards with vacuum-pressed samples attached. “We realize that this house has a true relationship with wallpaper.”

The first-floor office features a built-in, drop-front writing desk, below which is a twin hideaway bed.

Samples pulled from the upstairs bedroom ultimately influenced the couple’s wallpaper choices. Because their house is transitional, they wanted patterns with finer lines and subtle texture, not overtly American Arts & Crafts styles or 1920s geometrics. They selected hand-printed, abstract-floral reproduction papers by specialty companies, which required expert installation. Anticipating more discoveries, Carol notes that they’ve yet to strip the wallpaper in several rooms upstairs.

Precise and logical restoration came into play elsewhere, too. During the design of the new shade structure adjacent to the rear of the house, the couple agonized over how to be sure its stone piers would look authentic. On neighborhood walks, they scrutinized porches, even measuring grout thickness and depth, the clinker-to-rock ratio, how the clinker bricks were massed, and the distribution and size of the rocks. Then, using an Excel spreadsheet to chart their findings, they discovered that old masonry shows a wide distribution of color and size of rocks, while new masonry is more uniform. The craft of masonry was evident when the couple deduced that the grout tended to be about “two knuckles deep” and the distance between the rocks was always the width of a finger. Yet a rooftop feature of the new structure is hardly original: “Rocket scientists love solar panels!” Martin jokes.