The
garden gate constitutes, by custom, a barrier comparable in a degree
with the front door of a Northern house; a usage arising, doubtless, out
of the fact that almost all important Charleston houses have not only
gardens, but first and second story galleries, and that in hot weather
these galleries become, as it were, exterior rooms, in which no small
part of the family life goes on. Many Charleston houses have their
gardens to the rear, and themselves abut upon the sidewalk. Calling at
such houses, you ring at what seems to be an ordinary front door, but
when the door is opened you find yourself entering not upon a hall, but
upon an exterior gallery running to the full depth of the house, down
which you walk to the actual house door. In still other houses--and this
is true of some of the most notable mansions of the city, including the
Pringle, Huger, and Rhett houses--admittance is by a street door of the
normal sort, opening upon a hall, and the galleries and gardens are at
the side or back, the position of the galleries in relation to the house
depending upon what point of the compass the house faces, the desirable
thing being to get the breezes which are prevalently from the southwest
and the westward.
* * * * *
Charleston is very definitely two things: It is old, and it is a city.
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